Translator: Peter van de Ven Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
The first thing you should know is ...
this is not my voice!
(Laughter)
Unless I am an awesome ventriloquist and mimic,
but alas,
no gottle o' geer moment here.
However these, dear friends, are my words.
This is Dexter - I'll tell you about him in a moment.
(Laughter)
So, no, this is not my voice, but these are most definitely my words,
and with them, a bit later,
I want to do something spectacular:
I want to plant a tree.
Confused?
Hang on in there; you will see.
In 2003, my life took a bit of an unexpected turn.
I suffered a brain stem stroke.
That wasn't in the marvelous Dawn Faizey Webster game plan,
I can tell you.
One day, I woke up and found myself locked within my body.
I put the key back in the ignition, tried again -
nothing.
But here's the strange thing.
The utterly beautiful brain that is creating these words just for you
is unaffected.
It remains as sharp as a razor.
But apart from blinking my left eye, I'm pretty much stuck.
My body just wasn't talking to it anymore.
And so my fully functioning body,
that I've become quite attached to over the years,
is paralysed.
So what should I do?
For a while there, I was tempted to throw up my hands -
metaphorically speaking.
You see, I'm trying to move my hands for you now, but can't.
No, I was tempted to say, 'Life, you suck big time',
'I'm giving up on you, life, you rotten swine'.
And then I realised something.
I realised I would be giving up on me.
And one thing I will never do is give up on me,
and I will not give up on my son,
Alexander.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's been tough.
When I used to see people playing with Alexander,
cuddling my son when I couldn't,
any mother would find that tough.
But that's the important thing:
I am still and will always be his mother.
Back then, when I came out of the coma,
my legs were causing me the most terrible pain,
but the stroke had silenced me,
so I could not tell a soul about it.
Imagine that.
If you want a definition of suffering in silence,
that's a pretty good one.
Imagine your loved ones looking at you in a hospital room,
and you are screaming at them: 'I'm here',
and they can't hear you.
They can't hear a single word
and you realise they will never hear
a single word you will ever say again.
But I'm going to be frank with you because I think we're now friends.
Early on, I wanted to die.
It was too painful.
It was too much, just not my legs, but the loss,
the loss of everything I'd had in my lovely life,
everything I'd treasured most.
I've never done anything to anyone else;
I tried to help people, always, my fantastic students -
and life does this to me.
So, yes, I wanted to die.
And then I discovered something,
just one little thing we all take for granted -
I know I did -
blinking.
So for the last 15 years,
I have communicated with the world by blinking my left eye.
Forgive me for saying so: it is a bloody brilliant left eye.
(Laughter)
I guess most of you can type in one way or the other
and probably do, what? 20, 30 words a minute.
I do one.
One glorious word a minute.
But the way I look at it, one is better than none.
So proceeding at my lightning pace, my left eye has been rather busy.
With it, I've done a degree in ancient history -
that took me six years blinking -
I did a master's in history of art -
two more years blinking like mad -
and then, just when academia thought it was safe,
last September, I started a PhD in architectural history;
that's going to be interesting.
But I will do it;
nothing will be able to stop me.
And that's what I want to tell you.
No, nothing is going to stop me,
but I have, over time, come to the conclusion
that very often, it is we who stop ourselves.
One of the words for my condition is locked-in syndrome.
Locked in, and no one has the key.
But, you know what?
I've come to realise that what happens in life,
through no fault of any one's,
is that we become locked out.
The sheer daily pressure of life locks us out
from appreciating and treasuring the things in life that are simple,
that matter.
Things like introducing my son to the delights of Blackadder;
discussing the finer points of Monty Python's 'Life of Brian'
with anyone who will listen;
listening to music, especially heavy and death metal;
going to the cinema.
I recently had a girls night out.
I went to see 'Fifty Shades Freed' -
but no one's perfect.
(Laughter)
Things like shopping and buying extremely unsuitable shoes -
I mean, come on,
look at the babies on my feet now.
(Laughter)
I came to meet Dexter Dias QC, here,
when he was researching a book called 'The Ten Types of Human',
and Dexter asked the question you're probably asking yourself:
how does she cope?
Which is really code for the more interesting question:
how would I cope
if something like that happened to me?
Well, here's the thing.
We seem to have something in us that helps us;
I believe almost all of us have.
What I would like to share with you is something else
because I've come to realise
that the life that almost left my body in 2003
as I was sitting on a sofa pretty much minding my own business,
that life can also lock us out
of appreciating the small daily miracle
of sharing our lives with those people,
the weird people around us, we call family and friends.
It can lock us out of understanding
how this cosmic blink of the eye we inhabit
may not be the best of all possible worlds
but is a pretty wild ride nevertheless.
Notwithstanding the odious twerps
that will cross your path,
and cross it, they will.
Life can be maddening, yes,
but also fan-blooming-magnificent if we want it to be.
If we grasp it with both hands, as I have tried to do,
by the simple, excruciating, monotonous,
and magical act of blinking.
So, dear life, you arrogant swine,
know this:
You did not beat me.
Pick on someone else your own size next time.
Because here's the thing folks:
If I could do it,
if I could fight back,
if I could find my voice
when the words that used to pour out of my mouth were taken away,
then so, my dear, dear friends, can you.
You see, when I was first silenced, I couldn't speak about my pain.
And that is what I worry about,
about the people out there who are silenced,
who cannot speak about their pain.
And I'm wondering how we can change that.
One of the things is to spend time with them;
not to ignore them;
to look them carefully in the eyes, so carefully you can see them blink.
Then, I think, you will see.
There is an old Chinese proverb:
the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago,
the second best time is now.
So let's go planting
because life in all its maddening magnificence
begins again today.
Thank you.
(Applause)