What do you have on your bucket list?
Do you want to go sky-diving? Visit all the countries in the world? Finish a novel? While some of us have may smaller goals to cross off the list than others, probably all of us have things we want to experience before we die. While a โbucket listโ is typically just the leftover things you havenโt done yet late in life, it can also be a way of working backwards.
For 81-year-old Tommy Hagan, his bucket list is designed to help him relive a childhood he missed out on.
Hagan spent most of his young life in an orphanage in Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Though these homes are designed to care for children who have been abandoned or who otherwise donโt have anywhere else to go, Haganโs stay at Quarriers Care Home was not an easy one. Instead of being loved and cared for, Hagan says it was a constant struggle full of physical abuse:
โThey were supposed to look after us but they didnโt do it. There was a woman and a man. The woman carried a belt in her hand all the time. I got beaten every morning.โ
Still, despite all the hardships that Hagan has been through, heโs not giving up his youthful exuberance.
Hagan was finally able to leave the orphanage when he was 16-years-old and had a hard time adjusting to normal life on the outside. Still, he persevered. Recently heโs been helped in his journey by Mind Mosaic, a non-profit organization which provides affordable therapy and counseling services. Throughout the process, theyโve encouraged Hagan to have a little more fun.
As a result, heโs written out a bucket listโand is well on his way to completing it!
One of the big items on it was to see the butterflies at Edinburghโs Butterfly World.
Still, Hagan has also accomplished other childhood dreamsโincluding learning how to be a rock and roll drummer! For their part, the counselors at Mind Mosaic say that Haganโs resilience has inspired them more than he may ever know. Elaine Wroe, one of the support workers, told STV News:
โHeโs taught me to have resilience and to keep going. He can tell you the name of every plant and bird. He still has that drive to grow and keep going. Heโs had a hard life and deserves our help to have a good life now.โ
Congratulations on your second life and good luck completing your list, Tommy!
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