Jennifer Horgan: Any little light that breaks through the darkness is worth celebrating

It makes me smile, even when it’s raining and I’m trying to hold my umbrella against the wind when I’m running late or I’ve forgotten my earphones or my lunch or anything else I need to make it when I can’t quite fake it.

I love all the little touches outside this modest, uplifting home. There are black and white tiles up to the front door. There’s a sage-painted table with gourds to the side. Brass barometers hang on the porch wall below an old-fashioned light fixture.

Over the next few weeks, my beloved house will turn festive and I know already that it will be a charming Little Women kind of seasonal.

I started thinking this week about why some people put so much effort into the front of their homes when they barely see it.

A colleague suggested that it’s to make themselves happy as they approach it. I think there is something in that.

We don’t want to see a job we’ve forgotten to do as we put the key in the front door; a gutter to clear, a gate to re-paint, so we keep the front of our homes, maybe even more than the back of our homes, looking well.

It’s a ‘keeping up appearances’ kind of thing, somewhere between pride and a need for order.

But I don’t believe it’s as simple as that, and as Christmas approaches I’m inclined to think of the word resilience.

Yes, I know it’s overused, particularly in schools, but it’s still worth repeating.

The word came to me as I wandered through Cork City, looking up at the bright lights along Oliver Plunkett Street. I thought to myself, these are more than just lights, the decorations across our towns and cities; they capture the strength and beauty of the human spirit against the darkness of our general, but also our individual winters.

Midleton is the perfect example; only weeks after a devastating flood, their Christmas lights shine brighter than anywhere. Midleton is adorning itself to remind the country and the world that its spirit is indomitable.

I think people who make the front of their homes special, do it to spread joy in their own hearts and in the hearts of others, against the odds, against what the world might be telling them.

Maybe the person who makes my morning brighter does it because they need to resurrect themselves in some way.

Maybe they need to say to the world that, yes, this has happened, but no matter what, I will keep the lights on, and the path to this home open and clear and welcoming.

Perhaps I’m thinking about resilience this week for a few other reasons.

I’m honoured to have some writing in a beautiful book called Stories From The Heart Of Ireland. All proceeds go towards the Make A Wish Foundation, a charity that grants wishes to very sick children. It’s a perfect Christmas gift if you’re short on ideas.

Brendan Power, who compiled work from 59 people, has a very special entry, remembering his beautiful granddaughter Niamh who died at the age of nine. She was first diagnosed on Stephen’s Day at the age of seven.

He writes: “Niamh always had the biggest and brightest of smiles, bright enough to light up even the darkest days.”

His heartbreak is held in and between every word of his contribution. 

He put the book together not because he is okay, even close to recovered, but because it is so often what we humans do, we carry on, we put the light on in the porch; when the world is bleaker than we could ever have imagined, we somehow keep going.

The book is a sad book at times but it is also joyful and it is brimming with resilience.

A few weeks ago, I chatted with Palestinian doctor and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Izzeldin Abuelaish for this paper. He lost his three daughters and his niece in 2009 and in recent weeks, another 25 members of his family.

He spends his days speaking to the media about peace and the sanctity of human life. He refuses to hate or glorify war. His spirit is imbued with love, pain, and strength.

How can a man, with such a past, a past filled with true horror, make us all feel a certain kind of joy in being human?

I read somewhere this week that joy is as short-lived as the word itself. I couldn’t agree less. For me, joy is like an elixir, a syrup you swallow that coats your spirit for hours.

On my walk to work, joy is the expression on a child’s face looking to their parent as they pass me, or it’s the chat between two strangers at a petrol station coffee machine.

It is that beautiful house. It comes in small things but its power is neither small nor short-lived.

And I bet every reader has a similar house in their lives — that one house they pass regularly when they walk the dog or make their way to the bus stop. Some mornings, they probably won’t notice they are noticing it. But the essence of a joyful sight lingers. It gets inside your bones and carries you when you most need carrying.

Because life is hard.

Even little things like packing your kids for school, and yourself for work, and getting somewhere on time can be hard.

Living with the knowledge of what’s going on in the world is hard. The victims of last week’s attack in Dublin are suffering this week, as is the city of Dublin, and the rest of Ireland along with it.

Any little light that breaks through the darkness, a big or small darkness, past or present, is worth celebrating.

I was reminded of a Heaney quotation recently, an imperative from beyond the grave: “Walk on air against your better judgement.”

This stranger’s home, on my walk to work, is exactly that. Against my better judgement, this person’s home makes me walk on, not quite on air, no.

But it makes me walk on and towards the next thing, with a hint of a spring in my step.

It reminds me of all the good people in the world, with nothing but good intentions. All those beautiful people who have experienced love and happiness, hurt and devastation, and keep going.

I send them love and nothing but good intentions back.

And I look forward to covering my own gate with lights this weekend, and hanging a wreath on my door to mark another year of living.

Brendan Power’s Stories From The Heart Of Ireland is available in all bookshops or can be ordered through 

https://www.makeawish.ie/get-involved/stories-from-the-heart-of-ireland