Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader is Tina McGeever, who is one of the featured individuals in the Parliament’s travelling exhibition, which encourages people to engage with the Parliament in various ways. Tina has become a wonderful ambassador for our public petitions system, and we are delighted that she is with us today.
In March 2006, my life changed for ever in one sentence. All future plans vanished in an instant. I then realised the difference between living and just existing. In fact, I did not see the point of being on this planet at all.
I was dragged out of that by the determination and resilience of the human spirit, which guided me gently by its support, protection and cajoling, and basically by giving me a kick up the backside, which came from close family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, strangers and people in the Parliament.
I do not envy you your jobs. When you get it right, you are the bees’ knees; when you get it wrong, you are consigned to room 101. However, being part of that tenacious human spirit, you—with all those others—have allowed me to sit and watch someone I loved belly laugh with an old friend over the outrageous antics that they got up to when they were younger, argue over politics and football, renew old friendships that we thought we had lost, gain new friendships that will last for ever, and just sit and enjoy the company of others and each other. If you asked me what the greatest achievement in my life was, I would say that it was having those extra precious moments with someone I loved.
I look at you as MSPs and I know that you go home sometimes and take off your MSP hat, kick off your shoes and breathe a sigh of relief. You are not being defined by your job; you are just being yourself with people you love. When you have to put on your MSP hat again and be an MSP, please remember who you are, the people you love, Michael Gray and all those who are in his situation today and in the future who may be given that extra opportunity through the tenacity of the human spirit.
I want to finish by reading a couple of verses from a poem by Maya Angelou entitled “When Great Trees Fall”.
“Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us,
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”