Pull your chair closer. Please. Just a little closer to the bed. Pour yourself a drink from whatever is left in the pitcher you're going to need it, because the wind coming off the northern bogs is freezing tonight, and it’s cutting right through these thin blankets.
And... let me hold your hand.
Don't be afraid of an old man's skin. My fingers are rough, calloused from decades of bogs, and shaking so badly that I had to drop the quill. I just... I need to feel a bit of human warmth right now. I need to know there is actually someone real sitting here with me, because the room is growing very dark, and I am so cold. I am just so incredibly cold.
If you came here looking for a grand, holy sermon or a proud list of miracles, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don't have any strength left to pretend. The truth is, I am just a very tired, very broken old man, and I am terrified of the shadows creeping into the corners of this room.
I’ve spent my whole life being "Patrick the Shield," "Patrick the Hammer," the fierce man who stood before kings and smashed stone gods. But tonight? Tonight my mind keeps slipping backwards. I'm not a bishop anymore. I’m just Succat the terrified sixteen-year-old boy who was dragged away from his mother in the dark all those decades ago, screaming her name into the open sea.
Do you want to know what the real tragedy of my life is? I never got to go home.
I spent sixty years building churches, wading through freezing mud, and bleeding on jagged mountains for a country that wasn't mine. I loved these people with every ounce of my broken soul. But tonight, as my breath gets shallower, there is no family standing around my bed. My parents died a lifetime ago across the sea in Britain. The friends of my youth have forgotten my name. I am dying in the dirt, surrounded by the shadows of a wild island, and the only person I have left to hold onto... is you.
Don’t let go of my hand. Please. Just keep your fingers locked in mine for a few more seconds.
People are going to twist my life after the breath leaves my lungs. I can already hear the whispers outside the door. They’re going to turn my pain into a global celebration. They’re going to build golden statues of me, wrap me in bright emerald green, and make me look like a majestic king who never wept, a flawless saint who never doubted. They’ll throw massive parties in my name, but they will completely forget the slave who cried himself to sleep in the freezing rain on Slemish Mountain.
They will forget me.
They’ll turn my heavy iron mallet into a corporate cartoon, and they’ll turn my heart-wrenching survival into a cheap fairy tale about leprechauns and pots of gold. Promise me you won’t let them do that. Promise me you’ll tell your children about the real man the flawed, uneducated dropout who was so broken, yet somehow kept moving forward anyway.
Look down at our hands right now. Look at how my dark ink has stained your own skin just from holding onto me. You are holding the last breath of my life. The wick of my candle is drowning in its own wax.
I can feel the soil of this island pulling at me now. It broke me when I was a slave, it wore me out as an old man, and now it’s claiming what’s left of my bones. There won’t be a grand monument over my grave in Downpatrick. Just a heavy, uncarved stone laid over the dirt to keep the wind from blowing my shroud away.
No, I am not going to close this cover. I refuse to shut this book.
Instead, I am leaving these heavy, tear-stained sheepskin pages wide open on the table, right here in front of you. The ink is still wet, and there is plenty of blank space left at the bottom of the leaf. I've left a trail for you to follow, a blank horizon for you to cross. I’ve handed you the hammer. I’ve shown you the shamrock. I am placing the quill right into your hands.
The room is completely black now. My fingers are slipping away from yours... I can't grip your hand anymore. I can't feel the warmth.
Thank you. Thank you for staying with me in the dark. Thank you for holding the hand of an old runaway slave when everyone else just wanted a miracle. I have no more words left to give.
My breath is failing... but listen to me. I’m looking right at you now, with all the love and all the ache an old man has left in his soul. Stop reading about my life, and go start living yours. Pick up the quill. Start writing your own story on the next page.
Leave the candle burning... step out into the rain... and go swing your own hammer out in the world.
The candle is out. Goodbye, my friend... goodbye.
Chapter 15