good morning blog reading friend,
i have huge news.
but let’s not rush things.
first i have to give you a trigger warning, because i am going to mention suicide and mental health, not in great detail, but i still want to protect you.
yesterday was a great day for us all, bigmoose as a team, bigmoose as a charity, and bigmoose as a living breathing legacy for my best mate, gary ‘moose’ cloonan, who we lost 17 long years ago to cancer as you know.
yesterday we learned through an email communication that our amazing therapists had saved another person from suicide.
another human being had reached a stage in their life where there seemed like no way forward, and they didn’t want to continue being here.
with some extremely dark trauma i encountered as a child, and my current health situation, i can only imagine how easy it is to slip into a dark place, and then struggle with getting out, but this person has been brave, and reached their hand out for help, and with the phenomenal team of therapists we have to help take them by the hand, and when everything seems dark with no way forward, they have managed to give them hope.
hope that it will be ok.
hope that what seems impossible can become possible.
hope that they can turn around from the path they are on.
and this person is our 50th person to tell us this.
50
50 people saved.
50 less funerals thousands of people haven’t needed to attend.
50 people still here to inspire others around them to live and never give up.
50
so i wanted to celebrate this number with you, as you ‘get it’, you get bigmoose, you get me, and no doubt you have helped bigmoose in some capacity on our journey, and as such you are directly responsible for helping save this persons life.
so i have a favour to ask of you.
in this super fast paced life we often speed past things, skimming over them, rushing, listening to voice notes at 1.5 speed, etc, etc, our time is very precious.
so my ask of you today is to afford me one minute of your time.
one minute to close your eyes, to think about how your involvement with bigmoose has helped us reach our beautiful number of 50 lives saved, and let it wash over you, think about the power and impact of every grain of sand placed on the positive side of the scale can have, and how together we can change the world for good.
so are you ready?
don’t be shy.
and close your eyes and visualise.
i hope the colours you saw were bright and vibrant, the trees were a beautiful bright green, and the sky a stunning bright blue, and i hope you smiled at how as a team, a community, we can do so much.
thank you for trusting us.
it’s a pretty cool purpose right?
and just in case my reference to my personal circumstances made you question if i’m ok, i responded to a friend this week enquiring how i was by telling him i was ‘buzzing’, and when he asked why, i told him ‘life, and the opportunities i have’ so i’m really good, but thanks for your concern.
just before i sign off this week, i just wanted to mention the stage show ’nye’ about the life of aneurin bevan the politician known for his contribution to the founding of the nhs, that i went to see this week.
the storytelling was genius, but as i stood in the welsh millennium centre shoulder to shoulder with the super enthusiastic audience during a rousing standing ovation at the end, i reflected on nye’s words when creating the nhs, that it will “always be imperfect” and it made me think, what a great metaphor for life, bigmoose will always be imperfect, as will i, but as long as we do our best, and that’s the challenge, but believe me with your help we will.
‘til next week, when i will talk about nepal, i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
