A quick visit for 2016

Hello all.   This is just a quick visit on 1st March 2016.   If anyone would like me to continue the blog or to add anything, please let me know HERE

Thank you.

And yet again

Lots of water has flown under the bridge since my last entry in this blog.   To tell the truth the passing my our dear sister Chris and our darling Brianna knocked the stuffing out of me and I just hadn't the heart to sit bhere and write.

But its about time the blog was worked on again.

So its time for me to continue to write so that family and those who come after us will know something of what life was like in Dublin from about 1950 onwards.

So its my intention, and I hope the rest of the family will join me, in describing my earliest memories, my first day at school, memories of childhood and teens, social life, good friends, school teachers who left an impression, our first television set, radio programs that interested us, our local shops and their owners, etc etc.....  in general a document that our grandchildren will read and learn from, and their children too.

Now to do some thinking.   Back soon I hope, and I hope that others of the Leonard Family will contribute too.

Thank you for visiting.

Back again

Well after such a long time here I am again to continue writing posts in the blog.

I stopped writing after our sister Chris passed as I lost interest in so much because of her passing.  People will say that time heals all pain.  I find that it doesn't, but what time does is teach you how to deal with the pain...  doesn't take it away though.

I'm hoping that my brothers and sisters will add to the blog as we go along, so as to not only share our memories, but to make this blog a historical doument for the whole family.

I also hope that this will mark a continuation of the blog from where we left off.

Here's a recent gathering of the family in the Goblet in Artane.  From left, Marie, Ellen, Paul, Tony and me.

Dublin, a Cruise through the Streets, Part One

Here's a short video I made around Dublin as I rode my bike with a small camera mounted on the handlebar.



- Jimmy.

Chrissie

I would also like to add my thoughts about a sweet sister and pal who left us so suddenly 3 weeks ago tomorrow.

Thinking back to this time 3 weeks ago, it's hard to believe she was here in my home and we were laughing so much. Marie & Paul were here too. She came to stay with me the night before. Normally she would stay for a few weeks but this time she was adamant she was going home on Friday night. She was nervous being away from her home after the time she was rushed into hospital in June. We almost lost her then but God knows what a good person she is and he gave her extra time here with us.

I dropped her home on Friday night and 4 of her 7 sons were there and we had a laugh and a chat and a good slagging match, aimed at all of us. Her last words to me in person were "Drive carefully and text me when you get home to let me know you arrived home safely...and lock those doors!!" She always warned me to lock the car doors in case someone would jump in beside me and abduct me while I was doing 120 down the motorway. I sent her a text when I got home and I was texting her on Saturday morning. Then came the phone call that turned my whole life and the lives of all of my family upside down.

Looking back over the last couple of weeks, it's like God was moving Chrisie's loved ones into position like chess pieces on a board. She got to see her brother Tony and niece Emma, who came over from America in June to see her when she was in hospital. She loved seeing Tony and even though she couldn't speak, she indicated to him that he had put on weight and she thought this was funny!She got to see Jim and Sean and Antoinette and she loved that visit. She told me she really enjoyed that. Gary, her son, was home from his trip to Africa, her son Keith and his fiancee and her grand-daughter Chroi decided to travel from Cork to Dublin on a whim the day before she died.

As Jim already mentioned, she was glowing and I asked her on Friday night what the secret of her eternal youthful complexion was and we came to the conclusion that it was "Oil Of Oxygen".

My last impression of Chrissie is a happy mother surrounded by her family and loving it. I think about her every day. I miss her smile, what a smile!! I miss her wisdom, I miss everything about her. My world is a sadder place without her but I have no doubt that she is blessing the lives of others who were there to meet her as she passed over, especially our Mam & Dad and her baby Aisling.

"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, (protecting its sanity), covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But, it is never gone. "---Rose Kennedy---

This is nice and applies to Our Chris's passing.....

Parable of Immortality ( A ship leaves . . . ) by Henry Van Dyke - 1852 - 1933

I am standing by the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says,

'There she is gone!

Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,

'There! She is gone! ' ,

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:

'Here She comes!!'

.

Goodbye buddy, God be with you till we meet again.

.

Ellen.