EVERY now and then life has a habit of dishing out a wake-up call that serves to snap us out of whatever little worries or routine we are in.
Sometimes they are small little nudges which bring us back to the real priorities of life. Sometimes they are so sharp, so traumatic, that they make us question everything.
Last week, the family and friends of Paul McKeever and the wider Portglenone community in which he lived, were dealt a blow no-one could ever have seen coming nor be expected to understand.
Paul passed away a short three months after being diagnosed with cancer. A loving husband and father of three children under 11, a man full of life, he was extremely popular with all who knew him.
He ran his own McKeever Cars business and was a much-loved Gael of his club, Portglenone Roger Casement’s, managing underage teams and as a respected referee.
The illness had struck out of nowhere and with an aggressiveness that left his fight against it always an exercise more in hope than anything.
To the end he displayed a level of courage which defied belief. It was one of those deaths for which no rhyme or reason could be offered. Where every possible way of viewing it made it more difficult to accept.
It is the type of bereavement which, when you hear of it occurring in a distant family or community with which you have no link, still would make you pause and reflect on the sadness of it. When it affects closer to home it stops you in your tracks.
Just four months ago, Paul was refereeing an U16 game when his first symptoms started. It was a one-sided contest and an evening of shocking weather. Both teams approached him to call an early halt to things at half-time, despite having a searing headache which had struck out of the blue, he knew by the rules the game had to be completed so that is what they did.
He loved the GAA and his club Portglenone but more than anything, his family. I spoke with plenty of people in and around the house last week. Many personal friends of Paul. All recollecting different stories of their own. All, however, carrying those same themes of family, club and friends.
Several times over I heard about the exciting group of U8s coming through which he’d toured with around the country winning nearly every competition they entered, bringing him huge satisfaction and pride.
Having had my first experience of U8s this year, such commitment as was described, is a sign of a level of patience and love of the kids and club that’s above and beyond the norm.
Typical of the man he seemed to thrive on it. All of us, in our own lives, are naturally weighed down by the little day-to-day trials that make up life.
Only the big things which hit, shake us out of it and make us think about the bigger picture and the things to be thankful for. If we are lucky, we don’t take a direct hit.
For those of us that haven’t been through it, it is difficult to fathom the courage required to keep going at such times. Last week, even just from being lucky enough to have been an acquaintance of Paul’s, trying to make sense of it felt futile.
Instead my mind drifted to realising the need to appreciate what we have. These types of occasions are thankfully rare, however, they often shine a light on the gift that our clubs and GAA are to us as a people.
Paul was a humble and honest man to the core. The type of man, if we are honest, who is easy to take for granted.
They are the ones referred to as the ‘stalwart’ of a community, a ‘real club man’, a ‘real family man’.
Driven by a profound sense of honour, selflessness and integrity rather than any material reward or even a requirement of thanks, they become the reliable cornerstones around which so much depends.
They treat everyone with the same characteristic respect which leaves people feeling better for having known them.
As well as the many people who visited him in his final months, he also received calls from two of his idols, Kenny Dalglish and Jamie Carragher of his other beloved team Liverpool.
Typically he had an honest and straight up chat with both men. He was at ease talking with them as to anyone else.
In many modern societies, including our own, it can feel at times, that the omnipresence of social media with its self-loving and self-aggrandising nature, is making these traditional values redundant.
People who are driven simply by trying to improve their local place for their family and friends and for those who come after without a thought of a selfie to capture themselves at it and gain a few more ‘likes’ or ‘followers’.
That term ‘followers’ is an interesting one. Every now and then all our communities, like Portglenone last week, are hit by the loss of special people.
For Paul’s family he is irreplaceable. In the community, these people of unique quality, are in many ways, unfillable shoes for those who come after them.
Yet, as followers of them, we are challenged to pick up the pieces and ensure that our communities continue to thrive.
And the rewards for all of this? Well, in the midst of all the sadness of last week, the sheer love and esteem with which this ‘normal’ Gael was held was obvious. To outsiders such people appear as common men; local men without airs or graces, going about their family and community lives in a manner that is easy to overlook.
Yet, look a bit closer, and these people, by their efforts and values, manage to enrich the fabric of not just their own but all of our everyday lives.
In the end, if we open our eyes, we are a people with an embarrassment of riches.
A sense of identity, of belonging, a sense of moral code that binds us to our families and places.
As the Irish character insists, we tend to be self-effacing not just regarding ourselves but regarding all that belongs to us including our clubs, communities, the GAA or country as a whole.
We can find the negatives in every situation. Yet, when life shakes us out of this negative introspection, it is clear that we have a richness to our culture and places which is probably unparalleled.
It is not built upon any fancy business ethos or marketing, rather, it is built upon a love of family and of where you are from.
Yes at times, especially in the heat of battle, we can lose sight of it (I wouldn’t trust a man who didn’t occasionally lose the run of himself) and we can’t go around every day thinking ‘aren’t we great’ but maybe it does no harm to once in a while sit back and see the positives.
Paul was an extraordinary man yet in many ways, he is represented in familiar faces which exist in all our clubs.
So here is to the ‘common Gael’.
Simply irreplaceable. Simply inspirational.
