RIP Michaela McAreavey

[laoisgaa]

For those who cannot attend the funeral is live on www.rte.ie/live

[Declan]

Let's hope Mickey can return to his gift

LOCKER ROOM: Anybody who truly believes that sport is trivial will never achieve greatness. You can't give that much to trivia, writes TOM HUMPHRIES

YEARS AGO, in the time of money, I interviewed the basketball player Magic Johnson in Los Angeles. Oddly, even then, access to the superstars of American sports was better than it is was to run-of-the-mill GAA players. Johnson sat for an hour-and-a-half after a game and chatted affably. Then we walked out of the deserted arena into the gloaming of the parking lot and chatted a little more. That's not the point though.

Johnson had come back to play for the Lakers a few years after his diagnosis of being HIV positive. His announcement of his condition had caused considerable shock in the States. He had until then lead a charmed and happy life. Anybody who acquires the nickname Magic instead of the forename Earvin is blessed in that department. When the showtime era between the LA Lakers and the Boston Celtics was at its zenith it was Magic on the west coast, Larry Bird on the east coast and a world of marketing and partying opportunities in between.

Magic had "partied", as the Americans call it, in a free and wholehearted manner. He had campaigned on the belief that every woman could do with a little magic in her life. Along the way he had contracted his condition.

By the time he came back to play for the Lakers his situation was more complicated. The shock and the sympathy had worn away in some people. As one American sportswriter said to me, if Magic didn't die of full blown Aids then he was going to die from being stoned by the Christian right. A previous comeback had been aborted because players complained of the risk of being on the same court as him.

In a world which makes no sense to anybody some people had decided that there were Aids victims who deserved their fate and there were those (crack babies and transfusion patients) who were innocent, and this latter group were the only ones who could have an expectation of compassion.

For his part, Magic Johnson had come to that place where he looked at death and was forced to decide what he would do with his life while he was dodging the final whistle. He chose basketball. He chose life. He chose to honour the gift he had been given and to honour those who took joy from it. That was his poem, his symphony, his song. His happiness.

There were those who felt that if Magic Johnson had died of Aids it would be a punishment worthy of his sins, a proof of some vindictive god giving a sinner what he deserved. And there was Magic Johnson in a parking lot at midnight talking about his realisation that life isn't about what anybody deserves, good or bad. God or no God. It's about what everybody owes. It's about finding ways to honour that debt to each other by giving the best of yourself. It's about contributing. That, he said, was happiness.

I think of him a lot when on days like this we talk about perspective. The death of a young person as vibrant and lovely as Michaela Harte will never make any sense. Nor can it, as we tritely say, put the joy of sport into some neat and shrunken perspective. No. It puts into perspective Nama and Anglo and Cowengate. It measures the futility of our dumb worries over mortgages and promotions and repayments. It frames for us the wanton stupidity of simple arguments, the fretting over mistakes and our serial failures to love each other and forgive each other.

Look back on this single lifetime granted to you and calculate how much time you have lost on those things and there is your regret. There is your perspective.

Sport is on the other side of the ledger.

Michaela Harte, for those of us hacks who would encounter her at the dressingroom door after a triumph or a calamity for Tyrone's footballers, was a happy, reassuring presence for the team in the room behind her. Some people, just by being themselves, become integral to the group around them.

We made jokes about her closeness with her Dad, the world's first conjoined father and daughter. But we had an envy of their great pride in each other. We had the aching recognition that every man wants to be a hero to his daughter and we knew that few of us will ever truly be that. We saw that in this journey the two of them were making there was a trust and a love which genuinely put other things into perspective.

Other things except sport. Sport as a form of expression, an instrument for self-fulfilment and a source of communal happiness. They understood that. Anybody who truly believes that sport is trivial will never achieve greatness. You can't give that much to trivia.

Ballygawley itself was once divided to its core in an argument over a summer league. What passion went into that long, long argument they had before Aireagal Chiaráin came into being! Mickey was at the centre of it and I suspect every time somebody said to Mickey to leave it be, that it was only football, he said to himself that if we can't get football right between us, if football can't be about the best of us, then what have we?

The questions sport asks don't shape us. Our response exposes us for what we are. Over the years it has revealed for us Mickey Harte's character and, by extension, the character of those around him, those he chooses and respects.

None of us today can presume to know Mickey Harte's pain or that of the Harte and McAreavey families. Yet even if some of us are unable to share it, the faith which Mickey Harte and those close to him have shown over the past week is a grace which is beautiful and inspiring to see.

It puts paid to what has always seemed to me to be the trite "closure" in the matter of grief and mourning. There is only a dulling of the pain and then a couple of questions. How to keep on keeping on, how to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And how to honour and celebrate the life that has been lost.

Mickey Harte is a man to whom extraordinary gifts have been given and from whom great and unfair tolls have been taken. On this Monday morning, when he prepares to do one of the hardest things any man can ever be asked to do, the sense of feeling of compassion for him and for John McAreavey and for their families is as tangible and widespread as the weather on this island of ours.

On this desolate day it seems too early to think about summer, but when that season comes I hope Mickey Harte is on the sidelines again. He won't have healed, but he will be still writing his poem, he will still be the difference one life can make in the lives of others. And he will be doing the hardest thing, which is to keep on keeping on. Doing it in the best way.

Why is sport different? Nobody told Mozart and Salieri that music was trivial. Mozart spent the final, ailing months of his life trying to complete his Requiem Mass in D Minor. Salieri, according to legend, spent the months after Mozart's passing wondering how to steal it. Nobody said to them that this thing of beauty was trivial and that death should have given them perspective.

If you had what Magic Johnson had, if you had what, for all you knew, was a slender lease on life, a few more months or years, what would you do? Magic went back to his gift, and I know what Paul McGirr and Cormac McAnallen and Michaela Harte would do. They would immerse themselves in the lyric joy of the game and they'd stop sweating about the small stuff.

And if Mickey can keep going, keep drawing the fulfilment out of others, if he can keep giving – well, the good days will feel different and the bad days will feel worse.

Yet the sun on his back and the song in the wind which only he can hear, those things will be the gifts from his two lost players and his lovely daughter. They'll be cheering him on.

We all will.

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

Great piece by Tom Humphries.

Go ndéana Dia trócaire uirthi.

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

Footprints

One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking
along the beach with the Lord.
Across the sky flashed scenes
from his life.
For each scene, he noticed two sets
of footprints in the sand,
one belonging to him,
and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life
flashed before him,
he looked back
at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times
along the path of his life
there was only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened
at the very lowest
and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and
he questioned the Lord about it,
"Lord, you said that once
I decided to follow you,
you'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed
that during the most
troublesome times in my life,
there is only
one set of footprints.
I don't understand why
when I needed you most,
you would leave me."
The Lord replied,
"My son. My precious child,
I love you and
I would never leave you.
During your times
of trial and suffering,
when you see only
one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."

[thejuice]

God give them strength on this day.

was just reading a news article earlier it just painted the scene for me. think you could be back in the same church just 2 weeks after your wedding under such circumstances. It was almost bringing tears to my eyes all over again.

God bless them all.

[Reillers]

I really pray for them tonight, and I pray to God the he gives them the strength to get through not just today, but the rest of their lives, until that unbearable pain becomes a little bit duller and they see a faint fraction of hope, that one day things might feel ok again.
It's a great piece by Tom Humphries, and he's right, summer feels an eternity away, but all they can do, and all we can hope for, is that they put one step in front of the other, and not be paralysed by the pain and grief, because the worst thing anyone can do, is stand still and stop living, sadly, the thought of living without her, no doubt seems impossible.

Words, sometimes, just aren't enough.

[tyroneboi]

Them pictures of her husband at the funeral would break your heart. God love him and give him strength over the coming weeks, months and years. Life is just too cruel sometimes.

[EC Unique]

The last week has made me proud to be a member of the GAA and even more to be a member of Errigal Ciaran.

[The Subbie]

Great piece by Tom Humphries.

Go ndéana Dia trócaire uirthi.

Very true Fear, excellent bit if scribing.

[Bud Wiser]

The last week has made me proud to be a member of the GAA and even more to be a member of Errigal Ciaran.

And the last week has made me proud to be a member of this board. There was, at least on my behalf, initial anger, disbelieve and mixed with the sadness that we all expressed a desire to let loose random and unhelpful comments. Every member has contributed in a dignified way that I would certainly be proud of. I remember last year when a similar tragedy happened out in Wisconsin (Joe & Anne) and again the true spirit of the GAA shone true.

To all the Tyrone people on the board, I hope in time the tragedy of Michaela will become a little easier for you all.   

[fitzroyalty]

The last week has made me proud to be a member of the GAA and even more to be a member of Errigal Ciaran.

Although in no way a consolation to the two families, the way in which GAA people across the country have shown their support to them is befitting of Michaela's memory, especially your own club Errigal Ciaran.

[Norf Tyrone]

The last week has made me proud to be a member of the GAA and even more to be a member of Errigal Ciaran.

100%, as I said in the other thread, I am not too sure if I am allowed to be proud today, but I was proud today of Tyrone and the GAA, and I too stand back and quietly applaud the devotion of EC today. Fair play to you all!

[Dougal Maguire]

It really is hard to take in what has happened and this is from someone who didn't know her. What must it be like for her husband, her family and all those who did know her. It's clear that she hadn't a bad bone in her body. I have a sister round the same age. I would die if anything happened to her. Peter Robinson's tribute in the NI Assembly was quite moving. 

[Rois]

I've been on holidays in France and have cried sore every day over this story.  I felt quite isolated out there but reading this board has given me comfort in feeling that there are others who had the same emotions as me inspired by someone I've never met (but with whom I share mutual friends).

Without dwelling too much on it, Mickey Harte's statement that you never understand fully until you go through it is true, and much of my emotion has been driven by knowledge of the pain of unexpectedly losing a sibling and watching my parents deal with losing a child.  The Footprints reflection is entirely appropriate but that won't be evident to the Harte and McAreavy families for a while yet.

Like many others, I can't put into words what I think I want to say, but I know that in time the families will come to cherish the messages of support from everyone.  The help of families and friends will be invaluable too, and the wake and funeral memories will become bittersweet. 

I will pray for them all in the lonely and quiet days that are to come. 

When I Must Leave You


When I must leave you
For a little while,
Please do not grieve
And shed wild tears
And hug your sorrow to you
Through the years,
But start out bravely
With a smile.

And for my sake
And in my name,
Live on and do
All the things the same.

Feed not your loneliness
On empty days,
But fill each waking hour
In useful ways.

Reach out your hand in comfort
And in cheer,
And I, in turn, will comfort you
And hold you near.
And never, never
Be afraid to die,
For I am waiting for you
In the sky.

~ Helen Steiner Rice ~

[Armamike]

Errigal Ciaran, the Tyrone county board and the GAA football community as a whole have done themselves and the families proud over the past week. 

I hope and pray that the families in time can in some way learn to come to terms with this tragedy. Perhaps the one thing that will keep them going is the thought that Michaela would surely have wanted to see them find some contentment again in their own lives.