Mother and baby homes.

Once more here in Ireland the media has drawn us back to the dark secret in our past.
The mother and baby homes have been propelled into the front page after foreign papers picked up a a story about 800 babys bodies which were thrown into a septic tank.
Sad storys have been told by mothers who were sent there when they became pregnant, the heartbreak when their babys were taken from them and given up for adoption. the mother had no say in the child's future.
Today a priest Fr. Brian Darcy commented about how parents would reject their daughters and their grandchildren just because they worried about what their neighbors would say.

A guy in my taxi
Once at the Westbury hotel I picked up a man who was going to tho Guinness hop store.
On the way there he told me that he was reared in an orphanage until he was 12 years old.
He told me that he was adopted by an American couple and reared in the USA.
"So I got the gift of the gab from the Irish and a great work ethic from my German parents in America.
When I was 20 I loaded all my tools into my car and started work.
My company now covers 2/3 of the United States.."

He had come back to get some closure on his past.
 He returned to the orphanage to see what he could find of his past.

"Jesus man why did you do that ?
It must have been awful for you" I said.
"Man it was like 10 men were sitting on me when I saw it again, I fell to my knees and couldn't get up again. my wife and kids had to help me up"
So he learned nothing about his past...But by God his future seems assured  As far as I can find out he runs a fitting out company finishing offices and big companies. Someone told me he finished out the Google offfices and another big job was done by him in Dublin.

At journeys end he gave me €40 and told me to wait for his wife and daughters and then take them back to the Westbury. hotel.
I brought them back and said that I hoped that he got some closure on his past.
I am sure his mother thinks of him every day. How cruel we all were in those times.

The nearest thing I could work out for him was to adopt a charity and help others hands on.
Here is a charity in South Africa. My son has just come back from there. He went there to give them a hand for a few weeks ago..The children Richard and Kate are mostly kids that no one else would take on.

So at the journeys end I stopped the meter and handed back €20 of the €40  he had given me.
His wife said "If he gave you €40 its yours."

It is a pity he couldn't meet his parents, or even if he could know more about them.
The movie Philomena has done something to let people know what went on in the past.
One other thing of note is that the older babies were SOLD to parents in America and Australia.
Go to the RTE website and look for Doc on One to listen for more.



So some light is shining into dark corners and it is becoming a better world.

An old guy called Mike told me that you should not dwell on the past where wrong was done.
If you were not the guilty party then you shouldn't carry guilt. The Germans gassed millions of Jews, the Americans dropped 2 atomic bombs in Japan killing millions of innocent people. America slaughtered thousands of innocent people in Vietnam.
Awful as these crimes were they are outside of your control.
We were driven from our lands by the white settlers.
Then when winter came we allowed hundreds of them to die from the cold in the winter.
Yes we allowed baby's to die from the cold when we could have shown them how to survive.
But they took our land and God took them.

Mike was an American Indian and a very wise man.

If someone is unkind to you or throws verbal daggers at you, that person has a problem---
Why make it your problem too?
You might not love what a person is doing, but you must love the person, because if you're going to say you love a Higher Being, you have to remember.He created that person also.If you can't forgive,then that's a challenge for for you to work on until you can pray for that person and mean it.
Then a big load is going to be lifted from you .
Until you do that, you carry a nagging aching feeling all the time.You can't even rest with it at night..You lie and toss and turn and all kinds of dreams come up--your inner consciousness is trying to get through to your brain, but it can't get through because its all clogged up with anger.It's one thing to talk about love and forgiving, but another thing to truly forgive.
Break the word forgiving down "for giving"
Giving what?   Giving love.
That is why love and forgiveness are intertwined,,,

From the book  "The wind is my Mother" by Bear Heart   a road man for the native American church.

You could learn a lot from the Injuns for sure