At Virginia Rugby Club
Sunday … I got up around 9.30, had a look at the papers on the Internet and made pancakes. Pauline and I got ready and headed for Dublin after 11, leaving the kids on their own – their first time to be left alone for so long.
We went first to the Liffey Valley Centre and then to Blanchardstown, and got all our remaining Christmas shopping done. We got a karaoke machine, a Bratz doll, some clothes and a Girls Aloud CD for Susanna; a rugby PC game, the Guinness Book of Records and a Nirvana CD for Sean; a Lord of the Rings Monopoly set for both of them; George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass for ourselves; and a Darkness CD for Andy.
We accomplished all this in good time, and managed to get away and home quickly too – we were home soon after 7. Maureen and Sinead Curran had called to the house while we were out.
I did pizza and chips for dinner. Sean and I played chess – the score is now 11–11. We wrapped all the presents after the kids had gone to bed.
The road to God knows where ... Brendan O'Brien 
Touching post, keeping diaries is a cool thing. Some dates however we wish to place in the dungeons of our memories.
Thanks RB.
Good morning Brendan,
I don’t comment all the time but I think you feel my presence here. 🙂
17th of December is the wedding night of Mevlana, as he calls it. His anniversary.
I was watching the ceremony on TV, having you in mind. A speaker at one pointed made a quotation from Yunus Emre. “Its the animals that die, lovers don’t die”. I thought of Sean.
Here is a translation:
My God, what pain is this which has no remedy?
What wound is this, it bleeds, yet no mortal can see?
What shall I do with my heart? Love never makes it weary.
It goes and plunges into love–never returns to me.
Then my heart turns around and showers me with sound advice
A heart engulfed by love escapes weariness ceaselessly.
A lover absorbed in his own selfhood is no lover;
One must give up one’s life to find beloved beauty.
The lover knows full well that all these worldly possessions
And all fear of the hereafter are not worth a penny.
They proclaim him dead and they chant prayers for the lover;
Death is for beasts alone, it’s not the lover’s destiny.
Within the inner core of this world and the hereafter
The lover holds his own which is known to nobody.
The field of the lovers is higher than the Ninth Heaven:
Even though they swing the mallet, there is no ball to see.
Yunus plunged: He now stands immersed in the Oneness of God;
His mind will never return from Eternal Unity.
I like that, Levent … thank you.
Brendano and Family.
Just to let you know I think of you.
Don from Australia.
Hello Don … it’s good to see you.
Thank you, and I wish you and your wife and daughters a Happy Christmas.