A Six Year Old Celebrity.

The golfer, Seve Ballesteros, was a man I admired greatly when he was alive. I was lucky enough to meet him once. But it was a quote he made many years ago that stuck with me more than actually meeting him.

A journalist asked Seve after he won the British Open in 1979, what motivated him. Seve had played a shot from the tarmac of the car park, which had everyone around the world talking about his prowess and talent.

“It’s not how good your good shots are, it’s how good your bad shots are.”

The same could be applied to your working day. It’s not the good days you remember as they can be quite forgetful. It’s normally the bad days that are stressful or eventful. But every once in a while, you remember a very good day for all the right reasons.

I had the occasion of meeting a young lady this week that made everyone smile. Her name was Saoirse and she was six years and three months old. This young girl had just spent five days in Euro Disney with her grandparents and was on her way home to Dublin.

She had an amazing time and told us of what characters they had met. But she was also looking forward to seeing her friends again.

Saoirse was not an incredibly chatty young lady. She was quite shy, but once we all kept talking to her, she slowly came out of her shell. Her face lit up at every turn of phrase, seeing wonderment in everything the world threw at her.

Her grandparents were very kind and sincere and you could see this characteristic of theirs rubbing off on Saoirse. She offered me one of her Wheelies (crisp snack) and some of her chocolate. Her gran stated that she had been like that since infancy.

I wondered why her grandparents had accompanied her on the trip, and not her parents. I asked rather delicately and politely why her parents hadn’t made the trip instead. The gran was quite upfront and honest.

“We thought that we’d give them a break themselves. Sure they haven’t had a holiday since Saoirse was born.”

“A break?”

“Saoirse has Cystic Fibrosis.”

This young lady showed no outward signs of having anything physically wrong with her. She was a beautiful child with blonde pigtails, sparkling blue eyes and the most disarming face. She was of average build and height for a six year old. She was one contented and relaxed child.

The granddad was fiercely proud of his granddaughter.

“It was our absolute pleasure to take Saoirse away for a few days. I’ll never forget this trip. The time together was amazing – she loved every minute of it.”

I could tell by the pride in his eyes that he enjoyed it too. But then he revealed something that made me just realise that I had been chatting for the past hour or so, to an actual celebrity.

Saoirse is the new face of Cystic Fibrosis Ireland. She recently had a photo shoot with Miriam O’Callaghan for the organisation to help promote their cause.

So when you see a bus shelter advertising, an ad in a newspaper or a big poster on the side of a double decker bus – you will see the prettiest and most gentle looking face peering back at you. And I’m not talking about the RTE television host.

 

 

I’m talking about Saoirse – the six year old celebrity.