One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

good at motivational speeches. He had exercised this skill in the long cold winter when they had questioned their motivations and when the pedalo they had trained in had been destroyed by a mob of teenagers. It had been Jedrek who made sure they raised the funding to fix it and continue on. It had set them back three weeks but they had done it.
    Jedrek knew that, to many, their goal was laughable, ludicrous even, but there was more to it than there seemed on the surface. Jedrek hadn’t worked properly for three years. A qualified engineer, he had made a good honest living for his wife and three children. He had loved his job, valued the friendships there and felt comfortable in his role as provider for the family. It was what he felt he was supposed to do, but not only that, it was what he was good at. When that duty was taken away from him, he lost his spirit, lost a sense of who he was. He felt useless to his family, a disappointment, as week after week he failed to get another job. He could forget searching in his field of qualifications, for there was nothing, but that had taken him a while to realise. He had fallen into a depression; he recognised that now, though at the time any mention of it from anyone had sent him into a rage. He had been extremely difficult to live with, moody, irritable, always looking for a fight, always feeling everyone and the world was against him, sensitive to every comment and problem in the world. But he was searching all that time for his role, any authoritative role at all he could find in the family.
    An acquaintance in their local had innocently suggested, with-out malice, that he go back home if there was nothing here for him. But what that man didn’t understand was that this
was
Jedrek’s home. He had lived in Ireland for fourteen years, his three children had been born in Ireland, held Irish passports and even had Irish accents. They were in education, had friends, their entire lives were in Dublin. To go back to Poland would not be returning home for any of them any more. Much of his family were dispersed across the world: his brother in Paris, his sister in New York. His parents had passed away so there was no focal point for them in Poland any longer, just his and Alenka’s memories, which they tried so desperately to share and recreate with the children on annual summer holidays back to Poland. But their eldest, at thirteen, was now tired of the forced pilgrimage to a place that held no memories, no connection and no excitement for him. Of course they had been unable to afford the flights home for the past three years and so family holidays and Jedrek’s quest for connection with his roots were lost.
    Their first Christmas without work he took a job stocking shelves in a supermarket at night. He had been ashamed, had told no one, but had felt a slight relief when he found himself working beside a reputable architect who similarly had swallowed his pride and saw the act of providing food for the family as the main goal as opposed to the job itself. This brought a little light to Jedrek’s situation, but having to watch his wife go to work in another home in an affluent area, to clean and do other people’s laundry had filled him with a guilt so deep, their own marriage had suffered. His wife was ever-patient, though they had their bad days. It seemed when one was up, the other was down, a seesaw marriage, which survived only if at least one person’s feet were dangling in the air.
    Since that job in the supermarket Jedrek had found jobs here and there – driving a van, furniture removal – but nothing solid, nothing that allowed him to use his skills and knowledge, or to breathe a single sigh of relief that his family was safe. But nine months ago, something had changed inside him. Nine months ago, when he met up with his friend Achar at Erin’s Isle Football Club, his spark, which had so obviously gone out, was ignited again.
    Achar had been a colleague of his in SR Technics and when they met again the friendship between their two families brought happiness and joy back to their homes. Their children were similar ages and enjoyed playing together, their wives got along and it made days out more pleasurable, plus Jedrek had the added support and conversation of a man who was going through exactly the same thing as Jedrek. He’d been unable to talk about it before but here was someone who understood.
    It was while on a family day out in Malahide Sailing Club,