Still time, energy for one last trip home
 

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Still time, energy for one last trip home
By Leo Greene, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 08/05/2007 12:59:14 AM PDT


Editor's note: Daily Bulletin reporter and videographer Leo Greene was diagnosed with ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease - on Aug. 16, 2006.

Do that one something you've dreamed about, that fond hope kept secreted away in a box labeled "one day."

Do that particular something while there's still time.

Shortly after the diagnosis and grim prognosis a year ago this month, my caring siblings urged me to make one final journey to Ireland.

More Articles and video: Leo's Story

Our mother was born there. My father was an unabashed Irishphile. For all of us, it remains a place of reverence and magic.

My brothers and sisters encouraged me to travel soon, before this disease exacted undue toll. I opted to wait until summer, when my two younger sons were out of school and available.

Over these past 12 months, I've progressed from occasionally clumsy to downright doddery. I've given in to the wheelchair for outings.

However, my eyes, ears and what's left of this brain seem to be in relatively good working order for a 61-year-old coot. And I've had time to work things through emotionally.


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So, I'm ready for the journey, which has just begun, and for the journal.

Chapter one.

Mary Kate McDermott, our dear and whimsical mother, entered this world on a presumably chilly Oct. 10, 1912, in a thatched-roof cottage in the townland of Tully, near Manorhamilton, in County Leitrim, Ireland.

The oldest of 10, she was born to Francis McDermott, a wiry and opinionated Leitrim farmer, and the gentle Myria Rooney.

Mary Kate was a lover of Shakespeare and Yeats. When we were young, she would regale us with tales of her youth in her musical Connacht brogue.

I pictured Mom as a scampish lass running through the fields, playing tag with the sheep, and sneaking food baskets to Irish rebels hiding in the hills.

My parents, along with their first four children - Abner, Maureen, Paul and me - traveled to Ireland in 1947, aboard a World War II Liberty Ship. I was all of 18 months, and Paul was a wee one, 4 months out of the womb.

Priceless pictures remain from that trip. Two show me in front of the cottage. In another, my father, a city-kid New York Jew by birth, sits beneath a haystack alongside my often mischievous uncle Paddy. Dad is playing the Irishman, puffing on someone's pipe.

To this day, the people of Manorhamilton tell stories of that jolly "Yank" who tap-danced on tabletops to Irish reels.

In 1956, my mother returned to the farm and brought along Paul and me. My grandfather had passed away by then. That journey I clearly remember.

The whitewashed cottage was still crowned in thatch. There was no electricity, no plumbing, and food was prepared over an open hearth.

Each day, grandmother would bake two loaves of Irish soda bread, one with currants, in covered pans shoved into the smoldering peat. They came out perfectly every time. Slathered in fresh Irish butter and marmalade, the bread tasted wondrous.

The three of us slept on my grandmother's rock-hard straw mattress bed. Our alarm clock consisted of a large brown cow sticking its head through the bedroom window and bellowing to be milked.

The hillside Tully farm came with a view. A small river wound through the valley below. Off to one side, during respites from the near-daily rain showers, Glenade Lake glittered in the sun. The green of the hills would shame a pharaoh's emerald.

Paul and I freely explored the farm. We rode the donkeys and wrestled with calves. We followed uncles Paddy and Cormac as they carried fresh milk down to the road for pickup or fetched peat from the bog to dry and burn in the hearth.

It was the best of times. Paul and I sobbed when it was time to go.

I return now. The old farmhouse will be rubble. But my memories are fresh, and I will likely shed tears once again.

They will taste of salt, joy and immeasurable gratitude.

Leo Greene can be reached via e-mail at l_greene@dailybulletin.com, or by phone at (909) 483-9337.
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