Single moment which changes all our lives

It’s that moment which comes when you’re 37, sitting at the breakfast table. It comes when you’re 17, talking on the phone. It comes while you’re at work, and it comes while you lie on the grass in the garden.

That moment which at first you imagine must be some kind of joke. It’s not real, not happening to you, not today. After all, today is a normal day. You have plans. Tonight you’re going out for a drink, or this afternoon your mummy has promised that she will at last teach you how to ride your bicycle, or you’re on the way to the hospital to see your father.

That moment is not fussy about who it visits or when. Young, old, male, female, it does not discriminate. Like the air we breathe, it exists among us always; invisible; by its very nature visiting when least expected.

As soon as you realise you cannot ignore that moment, that it’s really true and truly happening, it overwhelms you.

Adrenaline swamps your body.

Your heartbeat speeds.

Your breathing becomes short.

Muscles in your chest tighten.

Apparently independent of your volition, tears suddenly fall from the outside edges of your eyes, yet it is far too soon to weep properly.

That time will come, but now, as that moment makes its impact, you are propelled into shock, your body and mind erasing all the centuries and subtleties of evolution, returning to its prime survival state.

Regardless of how strong, weak, healthy or infirm we might be, in its first minutes that moment is stronger than each of us, delivering identical blows to our bodies, minds and souls.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.