LIVING WITH A DFFERENT SET OF CONSEQUENCES

I was to transfer to our house in Donegal this week (yes, it was goodbye to Third level ministry and Cork!) but on my way to Tralee on Saturday, June 13th, I had a collision with another car and in the process my ankle was shattered. I left CUH on Wednesday. Thanks be to Heaven for Larry ( a pilot), Cirar (a Nurse) another Ciara (Doctor) and Peter (an Anaesthetist) as well as Dr Aidan Murphy (Emergency Response doctor) and Peter and his team on the ambulance. I was inspected, kept talking, fed sugary drinks, kept warm and reassured. It really was an example of the best in human beings. There was also the care I got in CUH both in A&E, from my surgeons and in ward 4A. A big thanks to all of them and an assurance of a lasting presence in my Masses and prayers.

In the middle of my hospitalisation one of my community, Paddy Cleary, died suddenly.  We were all fond of Paddy and will miss him.  He was buried Thursday.  The fallout from his sudden death are only just unfolding as he quietly did lots of jobs around the house.  

For myself I will miss him (he was one of the community here I would've missed the most when I moved) and I still can't think of his death as real.  I would like to help out but I am pinned here.  From the accident there are the physical consequences of not being able to put any weight on my right foot for at least three months.  There's the possiblity of future surgery on the foot and down the road of arthritis there.  Whether by the direct or indirect will of God that accident has pinned me here in Cork.  I am clamped in plaster and confined to barracks, more or less.  Unfortunately I had already packed away most of my books so that my reading options are quite curtailed.  Getting around is not easy partly because I now have to hop using my weaker knee but also because my room, part-filled with boxes and never very tidy, is something of an obstacle course.  My big question for God is why He has allowed this to happen just now and what I am to learn from this?  

At the moment these are the consequences I must live with, not the consequences of my own actions but of someone else's.  I have to relearn to forgive.  I am learning about the generosity and patience of others but also how people can react in such varied and unexpected ways.  Some handle change well and others not so well.  Myself I am struggling with frustration and boredom.  I find it hard to pray.  All I can do is take one day at a time.