What we do in life echoes in eternity. So said the gladiator. He’s right.

John Lundy pointed out to me in passing the other day that teaching is in the genes in my family. His remark was apropos something else entirely but it struck a chord. How many influenced and better people thanks to Angie, my mum, my dad, Patsy? And the rest.

Around the same time a work contact told me he had been talking to an old friend of my dad’s. My father certainly influenced many, most for the better, few for the worst. I have even come to terms with reading the words of a former pupil who slated him online. For him I am saving a special revenge but that’s for again.

Reflecting on all of this, it occurs to me that number one we don’t tell people what we think of them when we have the opportunity because, well, it discomfits them; two it embarrasses us and three we think perhaps we can put it off until another time. By then it can be too late.

In writing this I am thinking of a small number of people that have given me much more than I have ever given them.

It is time to do that, and perhaps it would be a better reason for a day off work than the faux Oirish celebration of the day that’s in it.