Opinion

Jarlath Kearney: Aiming to stand 'straight as a rush' atop Donard

Jarlath Kearney hopes to still be able to climb Slieve Donard and stand at the summit 'as straight as a rush' with when he is 80. Picture by Mal McCann
Jarlath Kearney hopes to still be able to climb Slieve Donard and stand at the summit 'as straight as a rush' with when he is 80. Picture by Mal McCann Jarlath Kearney hopes to still be able to climb Slieve Donard and stand at the summit 'as straight as a rush' with when he is 80. Picture by Mal McCann

FOR my birthday this year, I climbed Donard's summit through a patchy spread of spring snow thawing from January's blizzards, a foot-deep in parts.

An older man was up ahead the whole way, pounding with an aul' stick and dancing over three dogs, the cut of a local.

I followed his footsteps. We met at the top.

Cobalt blue eyes that burned electric off the bright, white sunlight, a youngly wrinkled smile that revealed yellowy teeth, and a handshake that felt a decent dealer's grip; his walk and talk rhymed like a great Brian Friel character.

He peeled mandarins. I supped whiskey. Turned out his own birthday was the same week.

Retired 15 years, and with one hip already replaced, he used to run back down after his weekly ascent of three or four summits "but the suspension isn't so good anymore".

I ventured that I'd be happy to walk up Donard like him at 72.

He shot back: "You have to aim higher. You'll be here when you're 80."

And he told me about another man celebrating his 80th birthday on top of Donard, "standing up here as straight as a rush, with his grandchildren around him". We shook on it.

As I scribbled down the story in a wee coffee shop a few mornings later, a sparkle of warm sunshine flooded the door of my life at the serendipity that comes with some people entering our days.

Sometimes from nowhere. Sometimes in ways that change everything.

Life's journey relies on relationships. Whether religion to education, politics to economics, business to community, families to friendships, negotiations to warfare.

Nothing happens outside of our relationships, not triumph or defeat, not happiness or heartache - even if the key relationship is only the one we have with ourselves.

The one that decides whether we're worth more, or need to change direction, or hold out with patience.

Yet here was a new relationship that started and ended in a few short minutes with the strangest coincidence of two birthday boys, a generation apart, walking up the Mournes.

The positive encouragement from a stranger to stand aged 80 on top of Donard will drive me to that symbolic summit for decades - all being well.

Almost 50 years younger is my eldest daughter Deirbhile who turns 25 today - a whole generation of living, a quarter century of a relationship between us both.

I was only a kid of 20 tumbling into the whirlwind of fatherhood when she was born, winging my way. Within two years, myself and my then partner were parents again to Ríoghnach.

Children can be spectacular teachers in building positive relationships.

On one occasion in the course of a fatherly scolding, Deirbhile looked up at me and interrupted: "I am only seven. I do make mistakes."

Quite. In good relationships, the ladder of lessons travels in both directions.

It's only on looking backwards that you recognise the impact every relationship can have upon your life choices and life changes, for good and for ill.

It strikes me especially when the 'me' of today thinks about how I might advise the 'me' of '93 - an inexperienced, immature, clumsy, gutsy, smart lad who couldn't see beyond the end of next week in this bloody place, never mind contemplating the prospect of climbing Donard at 80.

And yet if we spend everyday looking backwards, nitpicking every hurt we've inflicted or every harm we've felt, reviewing every blunder or victory, we would never have time to focus on the relationships of today and tomorrow, the future - including those yet to be born, or yet to flower at full bloom.

We know good relationships in life by how they make us feel - content, secure, strong, happy, excited, interested, trusted.

Yet if good relationships between 'people' matter so much for our individual wellbeing, why don't we always see the importance of good relationships between 'peoples' for our society's wellbeing?

Loving two daughters both living in London, I'm increasingly certain that successful relationships must empower others with core values to think for themselves, form independent perspectives, forge their own futures, and gather the confidence to both listen and learn, to empathise and engage - just as much as an ability to challenge.

Perhaps, as with Brian Friel's man, we all regularly need to hear new perspectives that counter old thoughts, break our boundaries, question our directions, help us face new goals, lift our sights higher.

So in the hopeful event that I someday reach 80, and that I'm standing 'straight as a rush' on top of Donard, I'll be reminding my grandchildren about a relationship that lasted for a moment but stayed for a lifetime.