#346: Finding Love & Rediscovering Oneself After 50: Inspired by Niamh McAnally's Voyage Around the World

Kevin Lowe: And to be honest, she didn't know what she would do. But thankfully, Niamhhas a spirit like nobody I've ever met, and she realized that there was something more.

Kevin Lowe: And so she would embark on an adventure, traveling the world for a year, Working just for food and lodging.

Kevin Lowe: Now, where her story really gets exciting was the last trip, the last go-round, before settling down, getting back to that, quote, normal life.

Kevin Lowe: She was going to help a solo sailor crew his sailboat from Florida to the Bahamas.

Kevin Lowe: Now, what happens next? That is only a story that Niamhcan share herself.

Kevin Lowe: All I can do is to urge you to not go anywhere.

Kevin Lowe: As a matter of fact, I want you to be sure that you listen all the way through today's episode.

Kevin Lowe: Even if you have to take a break, you come back a few times, be sure you finish it. because there's a story at the very end of our conversation that ties it all together.

Kevin Lowe: It's a part of her story that you never knew you were missing, but once you hear it, you realize you can't live without it.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, this is a story that I hope is going to set your soul on fire.

Kevin Lowe: It's going to have you wanting more out of life because that, after all, is the whole point of sharing it with you. With that said, I welcome you to what is episode 346 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Yo, are you ready to flip the script on life? Because those bad days, they're just doors to better days.

And that's exactly what we do here at Grit, Grace, and Inspiration. Your host, Kevin Lowe.

He's been flipping the script on his own life, turning over 20 years of being completely blind into straight-up inspiration, motivation, and encouragement just for you.

So, kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your host, Kevin Lowe.

Kevin Lowe: I am in the studio today with a woman who I have been looking forward to meeting again because the first time I talked to her, she stole my heart.

Kevin Lowe: I love her. And I'm excited to get to introduce her to you right now.

Kevin Lowe: Niahm, welcome to the podcast.

Niamh McAnally: Thank you so much, Kevin. Lovely to be here with you.

Kevin Lowe: Oh, well, I am excited to dive into your story all the way back from Ireland, all the way to Florida. We're going around the world today.

Kevin Lowe: And I guess I figure, you know, we might as well start back at the beginning.

Kevin Lowe: And specifically, I would love for you to kind of dive into a story, sharing with me a bit about life growing up in Ireland and specifically growing up in a family that were all actors.

Niamh McAnally: Right. So both my parents were actors. So I kind of grew up in that theatrical background.

Niamh McAnally: And it's kind of hardly surprising that I ended up in the business myself originally in theater and eventually became a television director.

Niamh McAnally: The best part about it that has been useful for me in my life has been the fact that they were both freelance actors.

Niamh McAnally: So they would get cast in a show for three or four weeks at a time and they would never know necessarily where the next job was coming from.

Niamh McAnally: Now, they were both very good.

Niamh McAnally: They knew they had the talent and they knew they had, you know, the demand, but they would never know for sure.

Niamh McAnally: So as a result of that, like variety was very much part of our norm growing up and you didn't know what was going to happen in two months' time or three months' time, people would ask them for commitments for six months out and they'd be like, well, we don't know because we don't know if we're going to be working then or not.

Niamh McAnally: And that really helped shape my outlook on life in terms of reinventing myself all the time.

Niamh McAnally: I've had like five careers across five different industries, but it just seems normal. You just start again.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, that is fascinating. Now, you had siblings as well who were into acting also, correct?

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, both my brothers were in the business as well. they were in front of the TV cameras and also behind them and then into radio production and music television production.

Niamh McAnally: So, yes, there was it was quite a family event.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, that's fascinating. Now, growing up, did you pretty much just know like after school and stuff that you would want to get into that line of work?

Niamh McAnally: I wasn't sure, to be perfectly honest, because I didn't.

Niamh McAnally: My parents were both so talented. I wasn't sure if I would have enough talent and I didn't want to disgrace them.

Niamh McAnally: So Ireland at the time, it was very much a homogenous society.

Niamh McAnally: And it wasn't a foregone conclusion that everybody would go to college.

Niamh McAnally: And to me at the time, it seemed like it was mostly, you know, people who wanted to be teachers and professors.

Niamh McAnally: And also, I had read an essay for our leaving certificate, the equivalent of like high school graduation, by Cardinal John Henry Newman, which was the idea of a university.

Niamh McAnally: And in it, he said something that has resonated with me my entire life was, it's a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter.

Niamh McAnally: And so I thought to myself, well, I'm not going to see that diversity in Ireland.

Niamh McAnally: Now, certainly it's a much more diverse country now.

Niamh McAnally: But at the time, I also loved English and I loved French.

Niamh McAnally: So I took off as a teenager to Paris, France, and went to study French language and literature at an international class in the Sorbonne University.

Niamh McAnally: And that opened my eyes to the world, if you like, because everybody was from a different country.

Niamh McAnally: And also I was living in the family with a French family minding one of the children.

Niamh McAnally: So I thought, hmm, there's so much to do and see in the world. and I wanted to go.

Niamh McAnally: But I came back to Ireland at the end of, I think it was 18 months, not quite 18 months.

Niamh McAnally: And it was time to, well, maybe I should try and support myself now and get a job.

Niamh McAnally: And it was coming up to the Dublin Theatre Fest. I remember it was autumn time.

Niamh McAnally: And I got a job working as the assistant stage manager on one of the shows that was a couple of weeks in rehearsal and then two weeks playing in the Olympia Theatre, I remember.

Niamh McAnally: And then that was like, I really like this.

Niamh McAnally: You know, it was it really kind of helped me with my artistic talents and creativity.

Niamh McAnally: So I kept going and I was working in theatre for a number of years and then ended up with the Abbey Theatre, which is the National Theatre of Ireland.

Niamh McAnally: And I trained as a trainee director, had another bit of experience over in London with one of Sir Peter Hall, who was a director who took on trainee directors.

Niamh McAnally: And then finally, I moved into the area of television and became a TV director.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. Wow. So you were the woman behind the scenes, making everything work.

Niamh McAnally: Right. Exactly. From the beginning, I was kind of like I was testing the waters in front of the scenes, if you like.

Niamh McAnally: But then after that, it was like, no, behind the scenes was where I really felt that that was my spot.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Well, you mentioned about reinvention, reinventing yourself.

Kevin Lowe: And I'm going to assume from the little bit I know that those reinventions are probably going to guide our conversation a lot today.

Kevin Lowe: And just as kind of like a sneak preview, would you mind sharing as an overview what those reinventions were that you've done?

Niamh McAnally: Sure. So earlier in 87, I had been introduced to scuba diving.

Niamh McAnally: And I met somebody that was also on the instructor program when I became a scuba instructor.

Niamh McAnally: And we were together and it was like, oh, let's go travel the world and teach scuba diving. We can go to all these wonderful places.

Niamh McAnally: And at that stage, I was a television director and I thought, oh, yeah, that sounds great. We just take off and travel.

Niamh McAnally: And so that's when I got into the professional end of scuba diving instruction.

Niamh McAnally: And that's what brought me originally to Belize, where I was working on a volunteer project. and then ultimately from there to Key Largo, Florida and stay there a number of years.

Niamh McAnally: Now, the relationship didn't work out. So I kind of figured like, well, what's next?

Niamh McAnally: And down in Key Largo at the time, the biggest kind of employer I could see at the time outside of Scuba was one of the hotels. It was a Sheraton hotel at the time.

Niamh McAnally: You know, a little bit brazen. I went down there thinking, well, I'm Irish and we're supposed to be renowned for hospitality.

Niamh McAnally: So how hard could it be to work at a hotel?

Niamh McAnally: It's like it's like I had this idea like somebody comes in and you say oh good evening here's your key off you go you know I mean with absolutely no respect for all the people who have like gone to college and gone to hospitality degrees and everything else like that you know but anyway I started working in the hotel they very graciously gave me a job with zero experience and pretty soon though they realized that I had you know managerial kind of style of working so they offered me a job as the, I think it was the front office,

Niamh McAnally: a front desk supervisor originally.

Niamh McAnally: And anyway, from there, I did more and more and I kind of backdoored my way into it.

Niamh McAnally: I then started doing my certificates and my diplomas and all that good stuff.

Niamh McAnally: And I ultimately became a manager of a hotel and living over on the island of Sark in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, just off the coast of France.

Niamh McAnally: And I lived on this amazing island, which was three and a half miles long, a mile and a half wide, accessible only by ferry.

Niamh McAnally: There's no cars on the island, no paved roads and no airport.

Niamh McAnally: So it was incredible. And it rises 300 feet up out of the ocean, if you like.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, it's quite a stunning, stunning location.

Niamh McAnally: In fact, Enya, the singer Enya actually has an album out called Dark Sky Island.

Niamh McAnally: And it's about that island, Sark, because they became the first island in the world to get dark sky status, you know, where there's no light pollution and you can see these amazing stars. So that's how that came about.

Niamh McAnally: So that brought me into hospitality.

Niamh McAnally: At the end of 2014, I had been on Sark for five years at that point, and the owners decided they weren't going to open the hotels in the year of 2015.

Niamh McAnally: So I thought, hmm, what's next? so I was so involved and addicted to volunteer travel every time I went on vacation I would volunteer to try and you know live in the community and I thought I know what I'm going to do I'm going to take a year out and I'm going to travel the world as a volunteer in one direction so start out in London and head west and keep going the whole way around the world and take 12 months to do it that was my plan and it worked out really well I did some amazing projects like in St.

Niamh McAnally: Barthes, down in New Zealand. I was in many of the islands in South Pacific, like Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, French Polynesia, back up through Palau, across Asia, and then eventually back to London, right? Job done.

Niamh McAnally: And then I saw one more project on this website that I used to go to, to find these volunteer projects.

Niamh McAnally: And it was to help a solo sailor crew his boat from Florida to the Bahamas.

Niamh McAnally: And it was only going to take a month. So I thought, perfect, I'm going to apply for that.

Niamh McAnally: And in the meantime, I'll send out my resumes and then I'll be back in time by the time I get interviews, et cetera.

Niamh McAnally: Well, I get on the boat and let me just say, it was supposed to last a month and I lived on that boat for six years. Yes.

Niamh McAnally: And then and then it turned out one of the things is the captain captain gary was not looking for a relationship neither was i by the way but when you live 24 7 in a 40 foot space on the high seas and you have to rely on your fellow mariner for your safety and there's no wi-fi no internet no self-service per se.

Niamh McAnally: Guess what you do after the day is done? You sit and you talk.

Niamh McAnally: And we got to know each other so profoundly, you know, through chit-chat, but then some really deep conversations because Gary had a degree, a master's degree in spiritual psychology.

Niamh McAnally: And I had spent a year after Fiji, after my first trip to Fiji with the Tony Robbins program, which really taught me an awful lot about why we do things and, you know, and how you motivate yourself.

Niamh McAnally: And so the two of us came at similar conversations with similar approaches, but they were still different enough for us to, you know, have meaningful conversations.

Niamh McAnally: So after that, It was like, hmm.

Niamh McAnally: And then about, I think it was four years on the boat and we were down in the Caribbean on a little island or anchored off a little island called Bequay.

Niamh McAnally: And it was Thanksgiving and the sun was setting and he proposed on the deck.

Kevin Lowe: Amazing.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, yeah, that was quite extraordinary. And then we were planning, that was 2019, and then we were planning on getting married in 2020.

Niamh McAnally: And we're going to have a big wedding over in Ireland. His family was going to come over. and my family would be there. But of course, then COVID hit.

Niamh McAnally: So it took another year and a half. We eventually, we ended up doing a legal ceremony down in Antigua where we were.

Niamh McAnally: And then about 18 months later, we were able to have a wedding, but it was still quarantine time.

Niamh McAnally: So we flew to Ireland and we had a wedding reception for my family and then flew back to America and had one a week later.

Niamh McAnally: Same outfits, everything, just hiked them up, put them on the plane and off we went. And we did another wedding ceremony in America for his family.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. Wow. I love it. Well, that is quite the overview of this journey.

Niamh McAnally: Just the overview. Sorry about that.

Kevin Lowe: Oh, my goodness. That is insane. So I'm so excited. Let's go back a little bit.

Kevin Lowe: And I'm curious about when you finally you went off and you became doing a scuba diving. and then that kind of just opened the door to all these new adventures.

Kevin Lowe: What did your family think of you leaving this industry that they all were in?

Kevin Lowe: Did they think you were crazy or were they in full support?

Niamh McAnally: I think everybody I know thinks I'm crazy most of the time.

Niamh McAnally: I'll tell you when the crazy comments came for sure, it was when I said I was going to go to sea with a man I'd never met before. That was like definitely on the top of the crazy list for them.

Niamh McAnally: They said to me like, you know, how do you know he's not an axe murderer?

Niamh McAnally: And what I didn't know at the time, what we've since laughed about, is that his friends were saying to him, you're taking on somebody you never met.

Niamh McAnally: How do you know this woman isn't a modern day pirate?

Niamh McAnally: I'm going to take your boat away from you when we're 12 miles offshore.

Niamh McAnally: And you know i'll tell you what kevin the thing that all of those comments really resonated with me and something a decision i've made in my life, People out of the best interest, maybe they think they have your best interest at heart and say, oh, be careful with that or you shouldn't do this or, you know, you might get hurt there, that kind of thing.

Niamh McAnally: If you allow somebody else's fears infect you, you'll get stuck.

Niamh McAnally: You won't go, you'll get stunted. You won't be going and doing the things that your heart sings and wants you to do.

Niamh McAnally: Do you know what I mean? so I've I took a while to learn that in life because you know early on we kind of do things we should do we we ought to do for maybe for approval maybe for people say this is the best idea for you you know and until such time as you step into your own persona and listen to your intuition listen to who you really are and uncover all of that you can allow that to stop you and And that's one of the beautiful things that I've learned from traveling is that now I just listen to my own gut and

Niamh McAnally: it really hasn't steered me wrong.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to ask questions and we're going to dive into this just crazy thing of going sailing with a stranger and then turned into just this beautiful love story on the sea.

Kevin Lowe: But I feel as though it's important for us to back up a little bit in your story because you were involved in another relationship. You were actually married before.

Niamh McAnally: Right.

Kevin Lowe: Will you talk to me a little bit about that chapter in your story?

Niamh McAnally: Sure. I was married. And one of the things the reason I ended up getting married was because I was in my 30s and I had that baby clock ticking away in my brain.

Niamh McAnally: You know, I wanted to be a mother.

Niamh McAnally: I wanted to have children. I wanted to have a family and I hadn't quite met the right person for me.

Niamh McAnally: And then I got into this relationship and, you know, it was all very fine, but I kind of had a feeling it wasn't the right relationship for me.

Niamh McAnally: And yet I, the wedding invitations had been sent out and I went ahead with it.

Niamh McAnally: But here's the interesting thing.

Niamh McAnally: I grew up in a country and at the time there was no divorce in Ireland.

Niamh McAnally: In fact, it didn't come in on a limited version of it came in in 1994.

Niamh McAnally: So I grew up where, you know, you got married and that was it.

Niamh McAnally: And there was always an expression.

Niamh McAnally: You was like, oh, you've made your bed. Now you lie on it.

Niamh McAnally: And that was drilled into me subconsciously, consciously and all through this relationship.

Niamh McAnally: I couldn't give myself permission to leave, even though I was married in America.

Niamh McAnally: I was living in America at the time.

Niamh McAnally: It would have been easy enough to go get a divorce if you needed to.

Niamh McAnally: So it took an awful lot for me to say, this is not right for me.

Niamh McAnally: I was sublimating who I was as a human being in order to make it work.

Niamh McAnally: We were just not the right two people being together.

Niamh McAnally: And I went to various different counseling sessions. and one woman, a lady called Dana Vince, I know she won't mind me sharing her name of Healing Hearts Counseling. She was in Florida at the time.

Niamh McAnally: She's actually up in Tennessee now and she's a wonderful counselor.

Niamh McAnally: But she listened to me for about two or three sessions. And one day she said, I'm not telling you which is the right direction for you to go in here.

Niamh McAnally: But if this is your decision. And if you do decide this is not the right marriage for you, why wait one more day to be happy?

Niamh McAnally: And somehow that just one question really penetrated all my sort of self-imposed jail, if you like.

Niamh McAnally: And I really heard her and I thought, yes, I know this isn't right.

Niamh McAnally: In fact, I knew like very early on in the marriage, it wasn't the right marriage for me.

Niamh McAnally: And, but I date with that kind of cultural traditions, you know, and internal chatter going on.

Niamh McAnally: And once I got to that place, I went, yes, it's it's OK.

Niamh McAnally: And, you know, why wait one more day to be happy? This is not good for you.

Niamh McAnally: And ultimately, it's not going to be good for the other person if you're not being the best version of yourself.

Niamh McAnally: So and that's that's made the decision for me that I had to leave that marriage.

Kevin Lowe: How long were you in that relationship?

Niamh McAnally: I was married for, what, eight and a half years.

Kevin Lowe: Wow.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, I'm a slow learner.

Kevin Lowe: You know what? I think the truth is, is that when we're stuck in a situation like that and you don't know what else to do, you just do it. You're just there.

Kevin Lowe: And before you know it, it's not until you get so far down the road that you look back and you think, my gosh, what am I doing? I've just wasted all this time.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah. And, you know, people have asked me that, like, you know, if you go back in your life, what would you do differently?

Niamh McAnally: But you know what? That experience for me is part of my DNA now.

Niamh McAnally: It's part of who I have become, the lessons I learned during that experience.

Niamh McAnally: So I wouldn't change it for the world. You know what I mean?

Niamh McAnally: It's like that was presented to me in such a way that it's part of who I am.

Niamh McAnally: And it also knowing what I knew then, once that moment came when I was there so long, if you like this, I started out in my 30s and when I was in that relationship so long, by the end of it, at that stage, it was too late for babies anyway.

Niamh McAnally: And when I got to that place and I realized I'm not going to be a mother and I don't have a partner either, and I'm certainly not going to start trying to do this by myself.

Niamh McAnally: Once I got to that, I was, you know, I was upset naturally enough.

Niamh McAnally: It was something I wanted in my life, but now I didn't have the opportunity.

Niamh McAnally: I said, I can either stay here boohooing about this for a while, or I can try and look at it from a different aspect.

Niamh McAnally: And what I did was I said, okay, if I can't have children, what is it I can do that mothers and family, you know, parents that have children and they're raising them and all those responsibilities, what is it I can do that they cannot do?

Niamh McAnally: And that's when the answer of long-term travel came to me because i'd always wanted to travel so i i mean i could take off i was independent i was just me you know i didn't have the responsibility of raising family at that point so i thought that's what i had to do and from then on every time i came across a situation that on the surface didn't look good i would say okay well what's the gift in this and if i couldn't find a gift i would say okay well what's the lesson hmm.

Kevin Lowe: That is amazing

Niamh McAnally: Things go wrong in our lives and we're all tested in various different ways and some can be minor some can be major and the only way i i have found to get through those times is to try and flip it on its head and look for something look for some kind of good in it what is the gift there's a gift here for me somewhere and i mean it could be as simple as missing your airplane you know are you going to meet somebody else sitting in the waiting room or in the lounge area that you wouldn't

Niamh McAnally: have met otherwise, you know, those kind of things.

Niamh McAnally: And if I can't find a gift, I've got to find a lesson.

Niamh McAnally: You know, there's got to be some reason this is happening for me and not to me.

Kevin Lowe: I hope anyone and everyone listening to this just took note of that because I mean, that right there is, I think, reason enough for a lot of people who click play on this episode is they need to hear what you just said. That's powerful.

Niamh McAnally: Great. Well, that's good. I mean, and that's the other reason I wrote a memoir was to try and use my story not to write a book about, oh, me, me, me.

Niamh McAnally: But to use my story and if any of the stuff that I've been through on that journey resonates and is helpful for somebody else.

Niamh McAnally: And I mean, that's why I went quite deep and quite personal, you know, quite vulnerable, if you like, was to try and share that story if it was helpful for somebody else.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. So if I understand correctly, it would be then that you embark on the year of traveling.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, it was a little time later. I kind of rattled around for about two years in America trying to find out where my niche was.

Niamh McAnally: And I just couldn't settle. You know what I mean? I tried living in various places. I had been in CaliforNiahm. I'd been back in Florida. I'd been in Texas.

Niamh McAnally: I was running around the country trying to find my feet, if you like.

Niamh McAnally: And I ended up down in Fiji on a volunteer program. I was down there for about four months, maybe.

Niamh McAnally: And I got called back to Los Angeles to help somebody and help them drive.

Niamh McAnally: They'd been in an accident and was trying to help drive them to and from work.

Niamh McAnally: And I was on the road in LA where driving is a challenge.

Niamh McAnally: And, you know, the traffic was crazy. And I, one day I was in the car and I said, Oh, get me on an Island without cars.

Niamh McAnally: And I went back home and you know what I did the the absolutely normal only thing you could think of doing was I I googled islands without cars and believe it or not oh Google said I'll help you out there here's three islands that don't have cars or don't have any roads per se and there was three of them there was one in Greece called Hydra or Hydra is probably called And there was two in the English Channel Islands.

Niamh McAnally: And that's how I ended up finding Sark.

Niamh McAnally: So that's when I thought, OK, time to pack up in America and head back across the Atlantic.

Niamh McAnally: And my mother was still alive at the time and I wanted to be a little bit closer.

Niamh McAnally: So I moved to Sark. Now, the irony of that is.

Niamh McAnally: On Sark, you have to get a ferry to Guernsey. From Guernsey, you have to fly to Southampton or London. Then you got another plane to get to Dublin.

Niamh McAnally: I, when I was in Florida, could have jumped on a plane in Orlando and been in Dublin in eight hours much faster, you know?

Niamh McAnally: But that's why I was living there. I was living there for about five years.

Niamh McAnally: And it was then I ended up doing this world travel after those hotels closed.

Kevin Lowe: Okay. Wow. I love how all these pieces. So, I mean, it's rough.

Kevin Lowe: It's rough when you look at it from the big picture, but when you look at it kind of from today, it all kind of keeps piecing itself together.

Kevin Lowe: One step leading to another.

Niamh McAnally: Exactly. Exactly. And all those different professions that I did, they all end all along.

Niamh McAnally: I have been a writer, but I haven't started being a professional writer until 2016, until I got on that sailboat with Gary.

Niamh McAnally: Because I showed him one of my short stories from back in the day and he looked at me because oh Niahmmh you've got to do this full time so I went yeah really and on the boat yes I had a little bit of time but most of the time it was like galley slave deck duties you know hoist this, hang on to that get under the boat start scraping the barnacles off so it was a it's a busy busy time but anyway I started writing full time then on the boat and I started writing my memoir following sunshine and the

Niamh McAnally: interesting thing all these careers all this experience and everybody has it in the same way all your life experience all sum up into who you are today and and also having worked in five different industries i've got a lot of things to draw for so so if i start writing novels now instead of true stories you know i'll have a ton of stuff i have a in fact a friend of mine gave me a mug that says be careful or you'll end up in my book.

Kevin Lowe: That is great wow well i'm curious to know before we continue I want to hear the full story about how you came to meet Gary on this boat.

Kevin Lowe: Tell me the story of how this whole thing came about.

Niamh McAnally: Well, it was at the end of the year volunteer traveling.

Niamh McAnally: He was looking for a volunteer because he was a solo saver.

Niamh McAnally: He had come out of a long-term marriage and a long-term land-based career. He was an entrepreneur.

Niamh McAnally: And he actually, believe it or not, in terms of counseling, he had gone to talk to a counselor as well and at the time apparently they said to him oh you know 80 is not the end of the world and it's not necessarily the end of your life but you know whatever age he was at that time was in his 60s he said um you know how would you want to spend the next 10 to 20 years of your life and he said i there's things i want to go and do etc so he bought a boat learned how to sail although

Niamh McAnally: in fairness he learned how to sail first and then bought the boat but but again somebody who was embracing something later in life and saying, you know, I can learn it's not over just because I'm in my sixties. It's not all over.

Niamh McAnally: And he spent about six months fixing the boat up and getting it ready.

Niamh McAnally: And he was in Florida and he needs some crew and he advertised and I saw it and I went, Oh, I've always all along. I always wanted to work at sea.

Niamh McAnally: And funnily enough, here's is a funny story for you.

Niamh McAnally: Once upon a time, I applied for a job on a cruise line that did the rivers in America.

Niamh McAnally: And I got to second interview and yes, all my experience in hotels, all my experience on boats, you know, working in scuba diving and working on the boats, everything was going great.

Niamh McAnally: And then they said to me, right, the last thing we need from you is your transcripts from your bachelor's degree. And I'm like, OK, I want to say, but I went to the University of Life.

Niamh McAnally: You know what I mean? I don't have that one piece of paper. I have tons of certificates and diplomas in all sorts of industries, including one I forgot to tell you about, which is for 10 years, I was a retirement financial advisor and insurance agent for life, health and all that good stuff, long term care.

Niamh McAnally: And I mean, that was state exams. I had all these pieces of paper that were exams, but they weren't all tied up in a bow in a bachelor's degree.

Niamh McAnally: And they said, well, I'm sorry, we can't hire you.

Niamh McAnally: And I went, OK. And they would sooner hire a 21 or 22 year old with zero life experience, but had that piece of paper.

Niamh McAnally: And from that, I was like, oh, I always want to work a seat.

Niamh McAnally: This is not going to work out.

Niamh McAnally: And so then when that volunteer job came up with Gary, I went, oh, here's my chance. You know, I could do this for a month and just live on the ocean and see what it's like. So that's how that happened.

Kevin Lowe: Okay. Interesting. I am so glad that they turned you down on that river cruise.

Niamh McAnally: You know, it's really funny. You should say that only about a week ago we were talking.

Niamh McAnally: I don't know if you've heard of the movie Sliding Doors, where they set up this premise where this person was actually going down a tube, you know, underground to get on a tube or a metro or something like that.

Niamh McAnally: And somebody bumps into them on the way down the stairs and they missed that train.

Niamh McAnally: And the story unfolds in two versions. One is their life as it would have happened had they got on the train.

Niamh McAnally: And the other was the life that happened because they didn't get on the train.

Niamh McAnally: Anyway, the movie is called Sliding Doors. And I was talking to Gary recently about sliding doors.

Niamh McAnally: And I said to him, You know, if I had to have the bachelor's degree, I would have been working on that cruise line and we would never have met.

Niamh McAnally: And then we started talking, well, would we or would we have met in a different way?

Niamh McAnally: And the really funny thing, remember, I was telling you I was in Los Angeles and I was driving somebody around and I was actually staying in Marina del Rey, which is the harbor out there on in Los Angeles.

Niamh McAnally: At the same time that Gary was looking for a boat, but we never met.

Niamh McAnally: So amazing. Isn't it? And the whole thing about that is we weren't meant to meet at that point.

Niamh McAnally: And people have said to me, because we have such an incredible relationship, and then they joke and laugh, oh, you little newlyweds, you make us sick.

Niamh McAnally: But the funny thing about it is, is neither of us were ready to meet the other person at that time in our lives.

Niamh McAnally: We both had our own journeys and we had our own baggage to work out.

Niamh McAnally: And it wasn't until we were both ready. And I think that's what's making this particular relationship work really, really well.

Niamh McAnally: We've come into it as whole human beings.

Niamh McAnally: And there's three of us now. There's a me, there's a you, and there's an us.

Niamh McAnally: Rather than you hear that expression, oh, my better half or the other half of me, all that kind of stuff.

Niamh McAnally: But you need to be your own individual person and not bring too much suitcases with you into the relationship.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious what happened after that month sailing trip with Gary.

Niamh McAnally: Well, I stayed on for about four months.

Niamh McAnally: And because the reason I didn't go back to work immediately was because I was heading to Ireland for a family reunion that summer. And as time was going on.

Niamh McAnally: I was not, I didn't get a job for, you know, it was, it was pretty difficult trying to do interviews while I was on the vote originally.

Niamh McAnally: And I wasn't getting hired or nothing was coming through. So I sort of said, I'd stay on.

Niamh McAnally: And interesting, back to the people, and it wasn't family, but it was friends were saying to me, you need to come back to America. You need to settle down.

Niamh McAnally: You need to get a job. You need to do this.

Niamh McAnally: And I started to think about it. I said, well, what would I do if I went back and earned a ton of money? What would I do with my life eventually when it's time to retire.

Niamh McAnally: I know I'd buy a sailboat and go to sea.

Niamh McAnally: And then I thought, I'm already here. Why would I give it up right now? Right.

Niamh McAnally: So we ended up staying on the boat together for four months.

Niamh McAnally: And then he, we brought the boat back to him. I went all the way down to the bottom of the Bahamas and came back up to America.

Niamh McAnally: And he and I said goodbye to each other.

Niamh McAnally: He was like, you know, I'm not interested in having a long-term relationship.

Niamh McAnally: I've been in a long-term marriage. I just, you know, I need some space and time and I'm not ready to commit to relationship.

Niamh McAnally: And I totally got that, even though I knew he was such a special human being.

Niamh McAnally: But for the first time in my life, I was able to let somebody go out of my life with absolutely no qualms.

Niamh McAnally: I was sad, but I wasn't clinging, if you know what I mean. Yes.

Niamh McAnally: And I just said, you know what, Niahmmh, there but for the grace of God, there goes one of the best people out of your life. However, you're a better human being as a result of meeting him and being with him for four months.

Niamh McAnally: And you know what? Once I went through that process, it wasn't 10 minutes later and the phone rings and it's Gary calling me from Los Angeles.

Niamh McAnally: Now, the hilarious part is I was still living on his boat in the marina.

Niamh McAnally: I was driving his car, you know, because he said, oh, well, if you're not getting a job between now and then, you know, the boat's going to be in the marina you might as well stay on it that's fine and i said oh i can still volunteer so i was working like five hours in the morning you know polishing the stainless steel doing all that good stuff and then writing in the afternoons and so he calls me up and he said he first of all said what year did your father die and i went that's a funny kind of question and

Niamh McAnally: i said 1989 why and he says oh well i'm sitting here with some friends and one of them is an actress and she thinks she worked with your dad and i'm thinking hmm here's a guy who is not into relationships happens to be back with his friends in califorNiamhtalking about who.

Niamh McAnally: And i in my mind i didn't say to him i in my mind i went you are so busted you know so so anyway long story short he decided to come back to take his boat out and he says i'm coming back here to take the boat and i said okay no problem i thought i'll find another volunteer project for the length of time before i go to ireland he said well i'm actually taking it up the east coast of america do you want to come sail with me and i went okay sure what why not right and he says up to new

Niamh McAnally: jersey and i said what's in new jersey and he said newark and there's a non-stop flight to dublin ireland and i went uh-huh because i had previously invited him to come to ireland but in conversation since i learned he was like i'd love to go to ireland but i can't go to ireland because all our family's going to be there and there's some of our friends are going to be there what would say about me? Oh my God.

Niamh McAnally: So anyway, he did end up coming back.

Niamh McAnally: But the funny thing is when he came back and we started sailing, I thought initially that meant that he was like, okay, ready, that there was something between us and that it would continue.

Niamh McAnally: And when he got off the airplane, I went to pick him up in his car, mind you, when I went to pick him up, I looked in his eyes and I saw he wasn't ready and he he was back and we've since talked about it and sure enough his his feeling at the time was he wasn't ready to commit but he wasn't ready to let me go either um.

Niamh McAnally: And so we basically took it a day at a time. And, you know, that phrase where I like you pretty much, let's see how this goes.

Niamh McAnally: And that's what we've done. And believe it or not, every day since that, or at least on a weekly basis, we check in with each other and say, do you still want to be with me? Yeah.

Niamh McAnally: How's it going? We need to connect. No, really, we do.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah. And, you know, it keeps it fresh. It keeps us ticking over.

Niamh McAnally: And there's times, especially now that we're kind of half, well, we are land-based at the moment, even though we go out in the water on a smaller boat, it really helps us to notice when we're not fully connected, you know?

Niamh McAnally: Like, you live in a 40-foot space, you are on top of each other 24-7, and there's time and room for meaningful conversations.

Niamh McAnally: But when you get into busy life on land you could go a couple of days and you'd be like uh-huh uh-huh i'll see you i'll see you later baba and then you might not have actually really connected and so we go through that exercise to to keep us on target so.

Kevin Lowe: We're all like can you just cut to the chase and where does the love story really begin everybody's like enough of this dancing around it

Niamh McAnally: Well it took a year i think i think it was on the anniversary which we call the boat of my stepping on the boat for the first time was january 15th of 2017, when he eventually got the love word out of his mouth, yeah another slow learner yes another slow learner i love it yeah it was it was quite amazing and there's a thing on boats when you're traveling up and down the different islands you have like you know a business card where now they have boat cards and it's a picture of you know

Niamh McAnally: your boat on one side a picture and usually a picture of the people and then you know all the details on the back and that's how boaters stay in touch and nearly all a lot of the people out there were couples who'd saved up into retirement.

Niamh McAnally: They're going to do this for a while.

Niamh McAnally: Well, Gary had his boat card and it was a picture of him on the front and people started asking, well, who was Niahmmh?

Niamh McAnally: And then you would eventually write my name on. And then that day on our first boativersary, he hands me a card and it's a picture of the two of us together on the front. So that's when I knew.

Niamh McAnally: And I jumped in the dinghy. We were down actually in a marathon in the Florida Keys at the time.

Niamh McAnally: I jumped in the dinghy and I drove around all our friends and all the different boats in the Angers and I was like, I'm on the cart! I'm on the cart!

Niamh McAnally: And they were saying, oh, that's as good as a wedding at sea, you know? That's some commitment right there.

Kevin Lowe: Oh my goodness, that is so...

Kevin Lowe: So special. Wow. So at that point, because so so when you you guys did the you spent four months together at the first.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. You were separated for not very long.

Niamh McAnally: No.

Kevin Lowe: You reconnect. How long before you guys get married?

Niamh McAnally: So that was 2017 when I got my picture on the front of the boat card.

Niamh McAnally: And the proposal was Thanksgiving of 2019. So was that almost three years?

Niamh McAnally: And then we were married.

Niamh McAnally: We were legally married in Antigua on our boat-aversary. So it was like four years from the time I stepped on the boat.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Okay. We're going to go back to Antigua after I ask you this question.

Kevin Lowe: Okay. You guys got married three times.

Niamh McAnally: That's correct.

Kevin Lowe: We want to hear about this because most people get married once.

Niamh McAnally: Right. And, you know, like three times to the same person.

Niamh McAnally: So we had what we called a toes in the sand wedding in antigua and there was two couples who were there as witnesses they were also on boats and they became our great friends on the ocean and they have to be in in antigua at the time or actually one couple flew in especially for their boat was down in trinidad at the time, And so we had that wedding, which was very special, very intimate.

Niamh McAnally: And we were like signing the legal document out of the back of a van on the side of this dessert.

Niamh McAnally: So very us. And there's a picture of us afterwards where we are like, oh my God, what did we just do?

Niamh McAnally: And the funniest thing about it is that we had been back in America about, oh yeah, before that Thanksgiving moment when he apparently had bought the engagement ring and I didn't know anything about it.

Niamh McAnally: And so when he gave me the engagement ring, I was like, wow.

Niamh McAnally: And then of course we were still out there in the Caribbean on the ocean when it came time for this Antigua wedding.

Niamh McAnally: And the justice of the peace lady from Antigua who was on the beach with us, this is a deserted beach, right?

Niamh McAnally: And she says, now Gary, blah, blah, blah, it's time to put on the ring.

Niamh McAnally: So he goes and puts the ring on me and I do the wed and all that good stuff.

Niamh McAnally: Right. And she turns around to me and she goes, and now Niahm, if you're a ring for Gary. And I'm like, huh?

Niamh McAnally: I don't have a ring for him. I didn't know what to do. Right.

Niamh McAnally: And so one of the lads who was with us as witness had, he says, don't worry, Niahm, I got you covered.

Niamh McAnally: And he hands me his keys. Right.

Niamh McAnally: So we take the keys off his key ring chain. And of course, you've got that little ring that's left over. Right.

Niamh McAnally: And so and Gary's looking, knowing full well, I don't have a wedding ring for him. He knows I don't. Right. And so I'm going, not a problem.

Niamh McAnally: And then I just out this. Well, there's a photograph.

Niamh McAnally: And I tell you what, he's cracking up laugh. And he goes, I got me this most beautiful diamond ring with sapphires.

Niamh McAnally: Like, you know, it looks like us two diamonds in a sapphire sea. And I get a key ring.

Niamh McAnally: Oh, my God. It was priceless. absolutely priceless but i will in fairness now i did get him a ring when we got back to land so that is adorable i know yes.

Kevin Lowe: So where were the other two weddings

Niamh McAnally: So the other two weddings one was in ireland in county wicklow we had this manor and like i said it was it was put off for 18 months because of covid and everything shut down and we weren't able to travel So that was 18 months later and we had that wedding and there was a lady down, beautiful, I wouldn't call her a tailor, a couture called Noreen.

Niamh McAnally: And in Antigua, she makes these dresses and like she makes them in the cruise ship. People come in, they get a gown.

Niamh McAnally: She like tailors it and then she delivers to the ship, you know, so she's got some gorgeous stuff.

Niamh McAnally: So anyway, she had made a dress that I was going to wear at my official wedding.

Niamh McAnally: And it was because of COVID, it was hanging up in the closet on land.

Niamh McAnally: And it was looking at me every time I thought, are you going to eat that biscuit or are you going to wear this dress? You know, it was it was hanging there, mocking me for about a year and a half. Like, yeah.

Niamh McAnally: And then it was finally it was one of Gary's grandchildren said, when are we ever going to have this wedding? Because I invited her to be a bridesmaid.

Niamh McAnally: And we just couldn't make it happen to bring the two families together.

Niamh McAnally: It would have been put off. And I said, you know what? I'm wearing this dress this year or I'm not wearing it at all. That's it. I'm done.

Niamh McAnally: You know, so that's why we ended up with the two extra weddings, one in Ireland and then one in.

Niamh McAnally: In america for him oh.

Kevin Lowe: My goodness i love it and you know what i mean it's something as special as a wedding why do you have to just have with just one you know right exactly

Niamh McAnally: Exactly and and now you know there's a there's an expression in ireland where we say oh to be sure to be sure well you know it's like now i'm married to be sure to be sure to be sure.

Kevin Lowe: Oh my goodness i love it so i mentioned about wanting to go back to antigua because you're gonna have to correct me if this is the start of your writing endeavor or if this was just along the way because i know that you met two men in antigua at some point that kicked off writing for you.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, I had already started and actually finished my memoir, which is called Following Sunshine.

Niamh McAnally: And while we were there, as you said, two men came ashore having rowed a 20-foot wooden boat 3,000 nautical miles across the Atlantic.

Kevin Lowe: Wow.

Niamh McAnally: Exactly. I was like, what? And to put it in perspective, Gary and I had done a 10-day open water passage from the Bahamas down to Puerto Rico in 2018.

Niamh McAnally: And let me just say it was less than ideal. I remember getting off the boat thinking, oh, my God, I've done two open water passages in one, my first and my last.

Niamh McAnally: And it was really, really rough. And so I was fascinated by these guys.

Niamh McAnally: And when they cross the finish line in the mouth of the harbor, they have this kind of Olympic podium moment where they light their handheld flares and hold them up.

Niamh McAnally: And it was such a moment and we were out there in our dinghy and I had my uh long lens camera with me and I started you know pretending I was a sports photographer I was going click click click, and at one moment I just turned around to Gary I goosebumps I'm actually getting them now talking to you about it I just said oh my god Gary I've got the shot now I didn't know what was going to be for I didn't know it was going to be anything and I turned around I was actually crying at that point,

Niamh McAnally: just because it was so incredible.

Niamh McAnally: And I said to him, I said, this moment is going to live with me for the rest of my life.

Niamh McAnally: And we dingied back to shore. They came ashore and they literally had to be helped off because they were what I call marine lagged.

Niamh McAnally: You know, their legs weren't wobbly because they'd been on the ocean for so long.

Niamh McAnally: And we found out that they had no family on island to greet them.

Niamh McAnally: Now there was locals and there was a couple of people from the race officials who were there to greet them.

Niamh McAnally: And so we went over to them after the whole ceremony was over and we invited them on to our sailboat for their first home cooked meal the following night.

Niamh McAnally: And we showed them the photograph I'd taken.

Niamh McAnally: And one of the lads, Paul, he was 55 at the time and his partner doing the rowing with him was 65.

Niamh McAnally: And Paul had started out to do this challenge because he had survived a brain hemorrhage.

Niamh McAnally: He was a firefighter and he thought, oh, I'm going to do something good with my life. And so he decided he was going to do the toughest challenge you could find.

Niamh McAnally: And that was to roll across the Atlantic. There was only one slight problem.

Niamh McAnally: He didn't have a rowboat and he'd never learned to row before.

Niamh McAnally: Why would that stop him? So, so I showed him this photograph and I, and he said to me, he said, that doesn't just sum up the 70 days at sea, but it also sums up the four year struggle it took to get to the starting line.

Niamh McAnally: And we started talking about it and they found out I was a writer and I was fascinated by their story and it was like you couldn't make this up if you put this in a novel people wouldn't believe you they'd say oh it's contrived so I said to them yeah I'd be interested in writing their true story on one condition it couldn't be about how to row an ocean but if they would dig deep spiritually psychologically and emotionally as to why they rode the ocean how it affected their families and

Niamh McAnally: after they had time to reflect how had the experience changed them as human beings i said that's the story i'd be very happy to write and that's what it is and and it turned out that that photograph became the front cover of flares up a story bigger than the atlantic Wow.

Kevin Lowe: Wow, that is so amazing Again, the puzzle pieces They just fit together

Niamh McAnally: Absolutely. And I was working with that book for, it took me about a year and a half to write because I couldn't write it out of my head.

Niamh McAnally: It was all Zoom call interviews. This is all during COVID as well.

Niamh McAnally: Zoom call interviews, emails, phone calls, everything to try and get the story, but not just the story, but to get their feelings behind it.

Niamh McAnally: You know, every time they'd send me a little note saying, oh, this happened this day.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, well, how did you feel about that? And what did you think about that?

Niamh McAnally: What happened when you called your family? All those kind of things, you know.

Niamh McAnally: And I interviewed all of his, their wives, their people that they worked with, children, so many people.

Niamh McAnally: And even the guy who built the boat originally to try and get it authentic.

Niamh McAnally: And I wrote it to read like a novel.

Niamh McAnally: And the beauty of it is, and this is a God-given talent I got.

Niamh McAnally: Yes, I learned my craft of writing, but I have this innate ability to put people in the situation.

Niamh McAnally: And the amount of people have come back to me and said, I felt I was in that boat with them the whole way over, you know. And I mean, it's not all just in the boat.

Niamh McAnally: Obviously, the whole run up to it. I think the first third of the book is actually them preparing and, you know, their family dynamic.

Niamh McAnally: And so it's not all in the boat. And then, of course, you see what happens to them afterwards. words.

Niamh McAnally: So after I'd finished all that and we had it out, it was published by a UK publisher.

Niamh McAnally: And then we were doing some marketing on that.

Niamh McAnally: Then I went back to my memoir, Following Sunshine, and I brought it up to date in the epilogue to the moment that I took that photograph.

Niamh McAnally: And so it just came out. And the subtitle of Following Sunshine is A Voyage Around the Mind, Around the World, Around the Heart.

Niamh McAnally: And it's my story. And that first part around the mind is like what we've been talking about growing up in ireland how it was impactful you know growing up in the family i grew up in and then the second part is around the world which is that year i spent volunteering in all these different places and the third one around the heart is from the moment i stepped on the sailboat and met gary krieger oh.

Kevin Lowe: My goodness yeah that sounds amazing

Niamh McAnally: Yeah it's a good it's a good old read let me tell you and.

Kevin Lowe: And for somebody dying to read it where can people go to to purchase this book

Niamh McAnally: So in america yeah obviously it's on amazon and it's in local bookstores and the best place to follow me or to find me and find all my different things that are coming out in new books etc is on my website which coincidentally is called the writer on the water.com.

Kevin Lowe: Original.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah, very original.

Niamh McAnally: Let's just put it this way. It's a whole lot easier to spell when I'm doing a radio interview.

Niamh McAnally: People are like, what? Rather than my name, right? Which, as you know, is a Gaelic name. So there's a lot of letters and consonants in there.

Niamh McAnally: So my whole brand is called TheWriterOnTheWater.com.

Kevin Lowe: The Writer on the Water. What a beautiful name for a beautiful story with a beautiful woman. And honest to goodness, you yourself are amazing.

Kevin Lowe: Your story is just so joy-filled.

Kevin Lowe: I think that's honestly the thing that I love the most about you and your story is a perspective on life that I wish more of us had.

Kevin Lowe: Of looking at life for the beauty, for the joy.

Kevin Lowe: And finding those little moments in amongst it all to just appreciate it.

Kevin Lowe: And listening to you and telling the story that's turned into this just amazing love story.

Kevin Lowe: I think it gives all of us a little bit of hope, no matter where we are in life, that sometimes you just got to keep going because you never know what the decisions you make today, how they're going to impact tomorrow.

Niamh McAnally: Absolutely. And I mean, speaking of joy, there's no one better than you than looking at life through joyful eyes and, you know, and encouraging everybody else with your podcast.

Niamh McAnally: And I think the one thing that I would share from my experience is, number one, it's never too late.

Niamh McAnally: And number two, never put off a dream.

Kevin Lowe: I agree. I love it. Before we end,

Niamh McAnally: Is there anything.

Kevin Lowe: Else that you want to be sure

Niamh McAnally: That this person.

Kevin Lowe: Listening today knows about you about your story about what you do or what you have coming up

Niamh McAnally: Yeah let me just very briefly tell you about my time in Bora Bora in French Polynesia oh yes I kept putting that off and the reason I put it off was number one it's a very expensive destination it swallows your firstborn your wallet your house everything right and number two it is the honeymoon capital of the world.

Niamh McAnally: So I was single at that time trying to find my place when I was going around was before I met Gary and I kept putting it off.

Niamh McAnally: And then finally I found a way and I ended up staying eight nights on Bora Bora, the main island for the price of one night on one of the resorts.

Niamh McAnally: And I found a little pension and I ate from food trucks and I got to experience the incredible, beautiful blue Azure Lagoon and the whole experience.

Niamh McAnally: And that taught me the lesson, never, ever, ever put off a dream.

Niamh McAnally: And also, we don't know how we as one human being can impact another person.

Niamh McAnally: And a story that came up during the it's actually in the writing of a little bit of a spoiler alert. It's in the writing of Following Sunshine.

Niamh McAnally: Years and years ago, when I was in one of those despondent places is after, you know, I was out of a relationship and I didn't know what direction to go in.

Niamh McAnally: I ended up sponsoring a kid from Bolivia.

Niamh McAnally: You know, back in the day, you were able, oh, here's a charity.

Niamh McAnally: And, you know, you write to the kid every week and you sponsor them to help them either get more programs at school or something like that.

Niamh McAnally: And I did that and I did it for two reasons one I made it my number one job no matter what I, position I was in financial I was going to do that every month and number two I wasn't going to tell anybody and back to my whole psyche of freelance variety start again it was the longest commitment of my life that I had ever done at that point which was 10 years to do this every month and write back and forth.

Niamh McAnally: And when the kid turned 18, the charity said, okay, you're done and dusted.

Niamh McAnally: Here's another kid you could start with. And I went, no, I'd like to keep writing to him.

Niamh McAnally: Thank you very much. And said, no, we can't give you his details.

Niamh McAnally: So years and years and years and years passed by and I was never able to find him.

Niamh McAnally: And then one day I'm on the boat with Gary and this friend request comes up on Facebook and I'm like, the name is kind of familiar but i don't have no mutual friends who's this and it turned out to be the boy ivan who's now a man and guess what he became he from bolivia went on through that whole schooling and he became a doctor and he studied for nine years in cuba and then went back to bolivia to his local town and became the doctor in the local town.

Niamh McAnally: And I was like, oh my God, you know, we've no idea how we can impact another human being. And now talk about the butterfly effect.

Niamh McAnally: Look how he's impacting other people by taking care of them, you know, in remote areas.

Kevin Lowe: It's incredible. You know what it goes back to is love, is caring for one another, for taking the time to be there for one another.

Kevin Lowe: And you have to look at that and you have to know in your heart You had to play a massive role in where that where that man is today.

Niamh McAnally: Yeah. And Gary said to me, he said something like that to me.

Niamh McAnally: And I said, no, I just wrote to him and, you know, exchange letters and all that kind of good stuff.

Niamh McAnally: Well, here's a massive spoiler alert. I'm only telling you I haven't told anybody else in any any conversations or interviews I did.

Niamh McAnally: I said to him someday I want to meet him and I can't go to Bolivia because where he lives is like way up in the mountains. and I suffer from altitude sickness.

Niamh McAnally: Well, for my birthday this year, I have four rules.

Niamh McAnally: One is I always celebrate on the day, not the Saturday before or after because somebody else wants to not have a hangover going after a party.

Niamh McAnally: And number three, I celebrate Mother's Day on that, Mother's and Father's Day on that day, not the day that the card company tells me to do it because that's the day they became my parents.

Niamh McAnally: And number four, I have to do something I have never done before in my whole life.

Niamh McAnally: And this year it was like i'm running out of things because i've done quite a little bit of things right and i went i want to go meet him and it turned out he's back doing his special his specialty in hematology in cuba and we went down and we met him in person for the first time ever oh my gosh i know i can't i can't tell you how amazing that experience was yes wow Well.

Kevin Lowe: Niahm, if you have made my day, I can only imagine for whoever is listening, wherever in the world they are, that you've made their day.

Kevin Lowe: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here today to get to share just this little piece of your story with me, with my listeners. It means the world.

Niamh McAnally: Well, thank you so much. I love talking with you. You are such an inspiration yourself.

Kevin Lowe: Oh, well, thank you so much. And for you listening, wow, what an interview that was.

Kevin Lowe: A conversation with a woman who is just a ray of sunlight.

Kevin Lowe: An amazing soul who, I feel like we're all just been blessed by her presence today.

Kevin Lowe: So my friend, if there's somebody you're thinking of that you know would love to hear this, be sure to share today's episode with them.

Kevin Lowe: And if anything else, just take something you heard today, put it into action in your life, always in the hope of making today a little bit better than yesterday and tomorrow even better than next.