Two Walls and a Roof (50 page)

Our device would be simple and beautiful and above all friendly
,
and I met the Cork engineers to go over the design. The unit cost was always the problem
though
and we had no money to develop a prototype.
The banks were no use at all either
,
and all we could do was to try and market the concept to possible investors.
We both passionately believed in the idea and I still do
,
as
I’m
quite sure Martina
does too
. Martina was by then working in the print business and she designed a fantastic brochure to be sent out to anyone we thought would come on board with us
,
and we began the posting. The Irish
magazine Business Plus
did a full article on us
and our Infomate
,
to our sheer
amazement
,
and I think the
national Sunday
papers carried an article or two
as well. We did meet some people
and
even
tried to get the Enterprise Ireland on board but we were two unknowns with no money
and
just a
wonderful
dream.

One night Martina said why
we don’t
send our brochure and a letter
to Richard Branson
,
surely he might be interested and he has the money to make it fly. We wrote a simple and honest letter to that great man
,
and months passed
by without hearing
from him
,
and we became very disappointed and low. We met
regularly
once a week and tried to ‘push forward’ the idea
but still nothing from
Mr.
Branson
or anyone else either
.

I was driving in West Cork to a transmitter site and I heard the song ‘The Living Years’ by Mike and the Mechanics come on the radio. I have always associated that song with my father who had passed away
,
and I think of him when I hear it. Usually when I think of my dad he will send me a ‘double rainbow’. Hard as that is to believe
,
it is completely true and has happened to me hundreds of times since his passing. As
the song played away,
I got sad and wondered about life and if my dad was able to
connect with me still
and was he ok
, so I said “Father if your there
and happy,
send me a really big sign today not just rainbows”. Then the
skeptic
in me kicked in and I said, “Send me a sign that will be so awesome, so impossible that I will not be able to doubt it”. I drove on thinking what sign I could ask for that would be meet my criteria
,
and then it hit me. I wanted to hear
from Richard
Branson before the day was over.
I told father that
I didn’t
care if he wanted our
Infomate
idea or not
,
just a letter
of acknowledgment
would do.

The phone rang
shortly after my chat with my dad,
and Martina told me that she could not make our meeting that night because her child was sick
,
and of course I said no problem the
next
night would be fine. I thought no more about my dad
,
having handed him the job he was to do
,
and I did my work
for the rest of the day
on the transmitter site.

Driving
home
east in a day of showers
,
I began to see the sky brighten and my mind returned to my father and his task. Almost immediately I saw a rainbow form to my right
,
but its brightness took my breath away. I started to smile both inside and out as the second one formed around it. Then as I drove it moved right in front of me and literally went over my jeep
,
but as I stared in amazement the impossible happened. I saw the rainbow surround and cover the complete bonnet of my jeep
,
and I got such a shock that I screeched to a halt and dialed America.

JoAnn answered and she knew by my voice that an amazing thing had just happened
to me,
and the rainbow was still there though fading fast now. We talked briefly and said it was a great sign and I clicked off and thanked my dad for the sign, but it didn’t
end
there.

By then it was about
five
thirty in the evening and I seemed to be driving on autopilot. I was going over and over
what I saw and tried to use science
to ex
plain what had just happened but
there was none. Then the phone rang again and it was Martina apologizing for not making our meeting
,
but then she dropped the bombshell, she said. “Hey John,
are
you ready for a surprise”. After my day
of surprises,
nothing would have surprised me
by then
or so I thought.
“John I am holding in my hand a letter from Richard Branson”.
She said he thanked us for our letter
,
but at that time it was not a project he would be interested in
,
but he wished us luck with it. She was disappointed but I was elated. Far more important to me than millions then
,
was the knowledge that my dad was very much in communication with me that day. Later I told Martina all about it and she too took comfort from such an event but she said, “I believe it John because it has happened to us
,
but no one else will”
.

Maybe
even today,
no one will believe me, but I’m sure she
still has that letter
. Time passed by and our idea got shelved and Martina move
d
to the UK
,
where I am sure she is prospering, the millions were not coming from that idea but I had many more.
  
 
 

During my many chats with JoAnn over the years, I often described a day trip I had taken to Seville
. T
his city seemed to fascinate her so much that I promised to return there one day in t
he future and marry her in the c
athedral, even if it was only a personal ceremony. Like most of the things that meant a lot to me, it seemed like an impossible dream at the time, but I held fast to my promise. Time moved on
,
and after JoAnn had left her husband
,
she was free to do what she liked
. H
owever money
,
or the lack of it
,
was the great limiting factor
,
and many months went by without us meeting.

One evening, as I was having a bath, I got this powerful feeling that we should just go to Seville and get married
,
even if it was just in our own personal ceremony. I could ill afford it and she could not afford it at all,
b
ut I had this crystal clear vision in my mind of us both in Heathrow heading for Seville
,
Spain.

Exactly as I had seen it in the bath, down to the smallest detail, it all came to pas
s some weeks later. To this day
I do not know how I got the money for it, but it came. Within a day of JoAnn landing in Shannon, we we
re in Heathrow holding hands
as happy
as could be
and heading for Spain, where we did marry in our pers
onal ceremony.
In the days before she arrived I m
ade out a ‘charter of marriage’ with
little things we would agree to try and do for each other, such as always to say I love you at least once a day
, among others.
I had left places for us to sign our charter when our l
ittle ceremony was over in the c
athedral. All this we did in the sight of God in that church, and to this day I still believe we were first and truly married on October thirty first
,
long before any legal ceremony in Jamaica.

Later that day
as we too
k a boat trip on the Guadalquivi
r
R
iver, an Italian man came and sat right down right in front of us. The back of his shirt showed a map of Old Route 66. The town in the middle of his back was Cuba
,
Missouri
,
nine miles from where JoAnn had lived all her life. As we disembarked from the boat, a happy young couple stood kissing each other beside us
. T
he girl was wearing a beautiful golden Cladagh ring. Missouri and Ireland became linked by total strangers on the day we had married in Spain. We took this as another great sign for our future, and this type of link has been repeated over and over since then, with more and more strange synchronicities happening all the time. Then after our Seville week
,
JoAnn had yet again to return to America and we parted once more.

Almost exactly six months went by, and with my birthday near, I was missing her terribly
. O
n a mad whim I decided to go meet her in New York for a weekend. I had always wanted to see New York
,
especially the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building
. D
espite the cost
,
I would get to see my JoAnn on my birthday, always assuming she could get time off from the factory, and she did.

I landed in Newark first, and as I had bought a Paul Brady album in Shannon
,
I almost w
ore him out trying to kill time
while waiting for the woman I loved to arrive from St Louis. Eventually I saw her on the escalator and we began a most awesome few days in New York City. When we got to the Statue of Liberty, as if by an unknown instinct, both of us rushed forward and put our hands on the plinth at the same time, then looking up at the outstretched arm I asked God to bring me back again soon.  I had booked us a cheap hotel and on arriving
,
our little room was so small th
at we had to step over our suit
case to even get to the window
. D
espite all this, as I slept on the morning of my birthday
, JoAnn
rose early and secretly decorated the whole room. She had filled it with balloons and decorations, and gave me
my gift. It was a small, metal r
ed Corvette, the car of my dreams. She said one day the real one will come too, and I know it
’
s just waiting for me to pick it up.  We had a most wonderful few days that ended all too soon, and yet again we parted.

Over the next few years we would visit New York two more times
,
and on the last trip with my finances improving and a glimmer of hope in my heart, I bought her our engagement and marriage rings.
 
Later that day we were walking around Chinatown
, and in a small shop window
I spotted a most unusual glass o
rnament. It was a beautiful cut-
glass piece with a drawing of three Spanish galleons engraved on it, as well as a strange Chinese inscription. I fell in love with it instantly and decided to see what it might cost, so in we went. The old Chinaman told me the cost, and I was in two minds
,
thinking it had been an expensive day
. Then
I asked him what the inscription meant.

He tried to explain in his poor Englis
h that it meant
‘push forward’
. I thoug
ht I was hearing things,
so he repeated them again, this time with his elaborate hand gestures of pushing forward.

We had just bought our wedding rings, and though four thousand miles from my home town of Buttevant, the glass ornament I was holding had a Chinese inscription writ
ten on it that had the words ‘push f
orward’. Only I knew that those words were the war cry of the Barry Clan, on whose castle window I sat on the day I first got sight of JoAnn. Was it just a coincidence that I looked in
a window and saw that ornament
on the very day we ha
d officially committed to marry?
   I was absolutely astonished at the sign presented to me, and took it as the greatest of all good omens for our future. I bought the glass ornament
,
and it’s sitting in our house in America now as I write
. W
hen the day comes that we return to America
for good, then
our amazing circle of life will be completed
. I
n the meantime JoAnn had to return to the factory, and with her hands failing, she was eventually told to go
. S
o much for corporate America, and thank God for trade unions.

With no job and no way to work, life then became very hard for my American
. A
nxiety hit her as well as a deep depression, then finally her husband filed for a divorce. Almost a year had passed by since I last saw her, and those last months had been the worst ones in her whole life. It was long past the time when she should come home to Ireland for good.