Celebrate your family heroes

beks101

Today, after a harsh day riddled with mini disasters from start to finish, a gruelling 12 hour shift, sleep exhaustion from a week of overnights, a lost Oyster card and a rainy, windy onslaught the second I stepped out of the office, I came home to an email.

My mother had forwarded it to me from her first cousin, a priest who has devoted his life to missionary work in Africa and a familiar face in my life. When I was a child he would call to the house during rare trips home, the fancy biscuits would come out, I'd get a cheery 'hello' and a question or two about school, and he and my parents would retreat to the 'good room' to talk about grown-up stuff. He was Fr. John with the big smile and the loud laugh who lived in Africa and helps the kids and who came home from time to time to say mass.

Little did I know of the hard-grafted, heavy, crucial work he had been doing in some of the most dangerous, remote, war-torn parts of Northeast Africa. Setting up nursery schools, initiating educational programmes for those who would otherwise never set their eyes on a text book; building classrooms and houses from scratch and recruiting missionaries from all over the world.

Little did I know of the kind of life he lives, teaching overcrowded classes of 120 children in the wilds of Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. Setting up food programmes for these impoverished kids, many of them orphans, having lost their parents to war, TB or Aids. Dodging hold ups, robberies and banditry on his drive home; surviving on a non-existent salary and relying on hearsay, intermittent dial-up internet and fuzzy BBC radio reports to alert of approaching violence or unrest in his parish.

He is currently in South Sudan, a country in increasing turmoil and at the cusp of civil war as fighting spreads across the country after an attempted government coup last weekend.

The Parish he's in borders Jonglei State, the stronghold of Riak Machar (the guy allegedly behind the coup), where there are ongoing battles and the word there is that it is spreading, it is approaching.

The U.S has ordered evacuation of its citizens, Britain is scrambling to evacuate its citizens, but Fr. John will stay put, because the parish is his home, and the children are his family.

So while I catch a last minute flight back to lovely, safe Galway and sit with my lovely family around the dinner table and worry about how I'm going to burn off the ten million calories I've ingested, this guy will be delivering Christmas mass to a parish at risk of violence and destruction at any given second. His family. "People who have known only war and hardship."

I sat there reading that email, coffee in hand, humbled. Suddenly aware of how big, bright and warm my room is, how safe I am, how full of great food my belly was, how petty my problems are. How damn silly it was that this man with the light-hearted banter and the big booming laugh, who is currently sitting in an insecure building with no defence in one of the most dangerous parts of the world, was inquiring about how my sisters and I were doing, how London was treating me, and apologizing for not having written for a while, because "things have been kind of busy."

It's made me feel sort of sad for the things I've had and not appreciated, the 'problems' I've constructed in my own head, when I've always been luckier, richer and healthier than I've ever really understood; but so grateful to be from the same blood-line as such a strong, kind, loving, selfless, pioneering character who is doing something truly extraordinary with his life. A real hero.

As Christmas week approaches, I thought now is as good a time as ever to remember and celebrate family. Those people who you may have overlooked or taken for granted; who are with us or who may have passed; who are doing or have done their bit to make life a bit better for those around them.

For reasons I'll never be able to fully put into words, a special one of mine would be my wonderful, loving and truly remarkable mother.

Who is your family hero?

Meangadh

I think mine would be my two Grandmothers. They both lost their husbands when they were only about 50 and had large young families left behind. Neither of them ever complained, and their homes continued to be places full of warmth and welcome for all visitors. I know it might not be as huge as the OPs story (what an inspirational person that priest is by the way) but my heroes to me have always been those who go through awful sadness in their lives and yet still can carry on without complaint and with such strength, dignity and grace.

If I'm ever asked in general who my hero is I always mention my friends who have lost parents and siblings because I genuinely don't know if I could be as strong as them.

Meangadh

Meangadh wrote: »

I think mine would be my two Grandmothers. They both lost their husbands when they were only about 50 and had large young families left behind. Neither of them ever complained, and their homes continued to be places full of warmth and welcome for all visitors. I know it might not be as huge as the OPs story (what an inspirational person that priest is by the way) but my heroes to me have always been those who go through awful sadness in their lives and yet still can carry on without complaint and with such strength, dignity and grace.

If I'm ever asked in general who my hero is I always mention my friends who have lost parents and siblings because I genuinely don't know if I could be as strong as them.

My granny is my personal hero too Meangadh, and for mostly the same reasons you detail above. I dread the day I don't have her any more, she's my touchstone, the voice of any wisdom I value, the magnetic north of my perspective on life. I don't know how I'll cope, but I will.

I worry every Christmas that passes will be my last with her.

In relation to the bit I bolded; don't sell yourself short. When the worst happens, you'll cope. It's a cheesy quote but it's still true :

"You never know how strong you are...until being strong is your only choice"

I think it's true for all of us, we don't know what strong stuff we're made of, until the day comes that we need to know.

My Grandmother was in the Women's Royal Naval Service in London in WW2. She was a wireless telegraphist and took down the morse messages from German frequencies.. She has loads of medals and shtuff! She has some mad stories. Moved to Ireland when she was in her 30's.

She turned 90 in September

eviltwin

My husband and his mum. They have both really taught me a lot about humility and caring for others over the years. He was a real support for me when I was going through some tough times with my family, he and his mother gave me a home, they have stood by me and supported me through a very dark couple of years with ongoing family problems and personal stuff, I was very depressed for about a year, very ill with it and I really wasn't a very easy person to live with but he never once complained or made me feel bad or acted the martyr over it. I know it was very hard for him because he had his own issues to deal with too at the time but he just got on with it. I don't tell them often enough because he hates mussy stuff but he is my best friend in the world and she has been more of a mother to me than my own. I love them both to bits and I owe him everything. I wouldn't be here today in such great health without him.