Today my son, Daniel, graduates from school
– a happy time but also a surprisingly emotional time. Aisling is feeling a bit
peeved that she’s the only school-going person in the house and, frankly, I’m a
bit overwhelmed by it all. Considering the tremendous challenges of the last
few years I didn’t expect to feel emotional about something like one of my kids
finishing school. But it has definitely put an ache in my heart and I’m finding
it hard to believe that both my sons are finished with formal school education.
Eight years ago our first encounter with
secondary school started when our eldest son, Emmet, went in the big doors of his
new school, so brave and so strong. He knew nobody at the school as he had
attended a multi-denominational primary school in the city centre and the
students from that school went in many directions to lots of different schools
throughout Cork. The adjustment to a very formal structured school was difficult. In primary school the boys didn’t wear uniforms – their usual choice
of clothing was a Metallica t-shirt and a pair of jeans. They called their
teachers by their first names. It was fantastic. So when day one of secondary
school arrived I remember feeling an ache in my heart for Emmet. The realisation
dawned that , no matter how emotional you feel or how scared your child is, at
13 years old, you cannot run after him down the school corridor hugging him and
sobbing “my baby, my baby”. Well you can, but your poor child will collapse
from embarrassment.
Two years later Daniel started secondary
school and Aisling started primary school. Every day Diarmuid drove all three
of them to and from school in Ballincollig. Mornings were chaotic – books were
lost, homework was half done, school ties were lost, notes were written about
P.E. and fake foot sprains and near-fatal tummy bugs and life was busy but
good.
Then in 2012 we lost Diarmuid. Outside of
the unimaginable emotional trauma, the kids’ routines changed forever. It might
seem like nothing, maybe just a little detail, but those mornings Diarmuid
spent in the car with the three kids were a huge part of our lives. No grumpy
teenage mood was ever impenetrable when he started with his foul-mouthed
ignorant old man routine, pretend f-ing and blinding about modern life, fancy
car drivers and newfangled technology. All three kids used to laugh, sometimes
uncontrollably, at their Dad’s ‘car humour’.
Today feels like a tremendous loss, a huge
emotional change yet again. Aisling is in a new school now, no longer in the
school next to her brother’s one. And both boys are done with school. So I
guess even though those funny (and sometimes frustrating) trips to school stopped
three years ago, well it feels like they’re really gone for good now.
But back to the man of the moment: Daniel.
I can hardly believe he’s at the end of 6th year, about to embark on
adult life - no more school uniform, no more so-sick-he’s-practically-got-Ebola
notes to teachers. It’s a great time, no doubt about it. I still have
nightmares about school and I would never go back there. But sometimes change is
hard even when it’s a change for the better.
The important thing, and this is what I’ve
been trying to say (!) is that despite all the obstacles, Daniel got there! He
made it to the end of school and I am so proud of him.
His world changed forever in 2012 when his
Dad died; in 2013 he was diagnosed with depression and in 2014 he was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder. The trials, challenges, tears, illness, crises...... I
can’t begin to explain the pain that boy has suffered. When you read about
people being depressed, suicidal, hopeless, you might think it’s a bit
far-fetched, you might think ‘for christ sake just get your shit together’, you
might even think it’s simply a phase. But I can assure you that’s not the case.
I always think of alcoholism like being
possessed by someone else – a nasty evil person overtaking a good person and pushing
them to make decisions they would never ordinarily make. Depression isn’t that
much different. A good friend, Kerrie, told me I need to separate the
depression from the person. Sound advice. The tears, panic, suicidal thoughts
are not really coming from the person himself, they’re coming from the
interloper, the depression. It’s speaking for them, saying ‘it’s too hard, it
hurts too much’. But that real person is still in there, lost, but there. In
the last 12 months I honestly thought, on more than one occasion, that I was
going to lose Daniel. Nights when
the pain was too much to bear and he felt he just couldn’t go on – he wasn’t
choosing to not go on, he was simply taken over by the depression monster and
it was telling him there was no hope.
Despite it all, at some point in the midst
of his psychiatric appointments, his medicated hazes, his sleepless nights, his
pain, GP visits, counselling etc. he decided to take some control back. He had
missed so much school after his Dad died and then even more school when he was
in a state of hypomania (the ‘up’ side of bipolar) and later when the dip came
(the depressive side of bipolar), there was a feeling that it was too late to
catch up, too late to re-integrate into school and hang in there. He missed
massive chunks of the curriculum. And missed many of the social sides of school
too. We discussed him leaving school and other options. Honestly, we weren’t
sure what to do. There was panic and there was tears.
But he did take control back. He chose to
do his very best to catch up on work, study what he could and make a stab at
the Leaving Cert. His exams start in two weeks. On top of that he broke his
foot 3 days ago. So he’s now got a physical ailment to contend with. But, it’s
a trivial matter compared to his previous challenges. I’m so proud of him and I
don’t give a shit about CAO points. He wants college. He wants it badly. He is
yearning to study music at third-level, yearning to make music his career and
for that reason, I want my boy’s dreams to come true. But whether he gets 400
points or 4 points, he’s already a musician. And more than that, he’s already a
phenomenal human being – with so much empathy, kindness, compassion and talent.
So Happy Graduation Day Daniel. You made
it! I love you.
