Spring - Through the eyes of a Disabled Patient. 

 Yes, folk, it has arrived: Spring. I awoke this morning to the sound of birdsong. I opened the bedroom window and lay back in bed for a few minutes more, taking in natures indication that winter is over or at least on the way out. 

After breakfast, I went for my usual stroll, down as long narrow country road (Boahreen) spring, was all over the place, the rejuvenation of shrub life was evident, buds on the whitethorn, the Sycamore and the currant - bush. 

Bluebells, daffodils, dandelions, daisies and primroses replace snowdrops. Frogs spawning in the water holes, while a few newborn lambs played in a field near by.  

Rabbits popped up and down in the distance, while pheasants cackled continually. The musical sound of swans flying past alerted me to look up. They are on their way in search of new water for the breeding season. They too know that spring has arrived. 

I walked about two mile into a quiet, almost forgotten territory, not a car in site. A rare tranquillity to behold! The nearest exhaust pipe -- an airplane high in the sky flying past!! 

I choose a flagstone on a nice, mossy bank and sat down. Here, I spend some time in total solitude, taking in good, clean, fresh, blue air. I close my eyes and relaxed completely. 

An ass (donkey) brays in the distance; hens cackle at a neighbour's house and the cockcrow responds -- all sound fast becoming obsolete. 

This is heaven -- my heaven. In my youth, I have travelled to many countries. My young, eager heart demanding more excitement and adventure but now in my twilight zone and disabled by Motor Neurone Disease, I'm happy and content to have found my forgotten heritage and to have returned to my native habitat: "Oh, like the hare that hounds the horns pursue, I will pant to the place from whence I first hath flew." (Quotation by Oliver Goldsmith) 

I stand up and assert myself. I thank God for giving me the intellect to witnessed this transformation of new life.
The cuckoo will arrived soon, the swallows will returned from South America, without map or compass and find their nests in the lofts and sheds here in County Lei trim, Longford, Donegal, Roscommon, Cavan, or wherever they departed from last September. Wonderful -- isn't it?  

This cycle of new life re-occurs every spring, no scientists or physician can stop it or make it happen. And yet, some ignoramus will tell you: "There's no such thing as a miracle". 

I return home with tingling sensations of adrenaline in the back of my neck and a spring in my step. 

I have witnessed more springs than I can remember. But, it is only now, and disabled that I really appreciate this re-occurring resurrection of life. 

Today, I'm a happy person. I may have been dealt a severe blow in life (ALS/MND Lou Gehrig's Disease). But I've got an awful lot to live for and in the words of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. (By Richard Bach). 

"If you can break the chains on your mind, then you can break the chains on your body too" 

Andy McGovern e-mail: uaomm @ eircom.net  

Web page: http://homepage.eircom.net/~andymcg/andy.html