“It’s Coming Home”

It’s Coming Home – PSP doesn’t have to be all nightmares and fears, it can include dreams and hopes too

Tonight, like millions of other Brits, PSP or no PSP, I’ll be hoping that football is finally “coming home”. I’ve hoped before, many times. Every tournament seems to begin with the same optimism, the same dreams and, more often than not, the same disappointment.

Just maybe this year will be different.

As I found myself humming the familiar Three Lions anthem, it struck me that those three words have come to mean something very different to me.

“It’s coming home.”

Not football.

Hope.

When I was younger, my hopes and dreams stretched a long way into the future. They were ambitious but, I hope, realistic. I never dreamed of lottery wins, fame or unimaginable wealth. I wanted a fulfilling career, a wonderful family, meaningful friendships, to contribute something worthwhile, and to leave the world a little better than I found it.

Looking back, I’ve been incredibly fortunate. Many of those hopes became reality.

Hope has always carried me through difficult times. It reminds us that today is not the end of the story, that tomorrow may yet surprise us.

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy changes the nature of hope. Left unchecked, it replaces hopes with fears, dreams with nightmares. It tempts you to measure life by what you’ve lost instead of what still remains.

I can’t live like that.

My hopes today are certainly different. They are less about the distant future and more about tomorrow morning. A decent night’s sleep. A day with a little less pain. Holding on to my independence for as long as possible. Sparing those I love as much heartache as I can.

Yet some hopes refuse to shrink.

I hope to continue leading prayers for as long as my voice and body will allow. I hope to keep my mind sharp enough to continue learning, writing and sharing my journey. I hope to keep finding reasons to laugh. And yes, I still hope England wins the World Cup in my lifetime, so they’d better get on with it.

The biggest hopes, though, are no longer for me.

They belong to my children, the lives they are building, and, G-d willing, to my grandchildren and the generations still to come. Watching their future unfold has become one of the greatest privileges of my own.

In many ways, PSP has brought me home.

Not by choice.

My world has become smaller. I spend more time within these four walls than I ever imagined I would. Many of the places I once took for granted have quietly slipped beyond my reach.

But home has become something else too.

It is where family gathers around the table. Where grandchildren fill the rooms with noise. Where prayers are whispered. Where books are read. Where blogs are written. Where friends visit. Where laughter still finds a way through. Where hope refuses to move out.

Perhaps that’s what I’ve learned.

Home isn’t where dreams come to an end.

It’s where they change.

As the Three Lions song says:

“No more years of hurt.”

For me, that doesn’t mean pretending PSP isn’t painful. It means refusing to let pain become the author of my future.

And for England?

“No more need for dreaming.”

Football may or may not come home tonight.

But hope already has.

Come on England!!