The Things we do for kids

The Things We Do For Kids ©

By Michael Casey

I’m listening to Bread on Spotify and the song is “Make it with You” which is how kids are made in the first place, between 3 and 4 am after a graveyard shift also works if anybody out there is having trouble creating a baby. Don’t worry be happy, when I was in the hotel years ago one girl blurted out that another wanted to breed with me because I had such cute kids. My standard joke is that ugly dads have beautiful kids, and cute parents have ugly kids, its balance, God’s sense of humour.

Once you have your kids you will do anything for them, you will wear shabby clothes just so your daughter can have that nice dress for the prom. I just remembered my dad had a made to measure suit, something unheard of for a working-class man, a blacksmith and steel worker. I only just remembered that story, and yes I paid for it, that’s an old memory from maybe 40 years ago, the Jewish tailor was very good, his name may come to me later on as I talk to you. Mr Rice comes to mind, but I may be confusing him with somebody I met in my travels.

My dad did so much for me and all his brood, and yes he had his heart broken by us all, and he had to heal our broken hearts, as did mum as do all mums. The Power of Love is such a great thing, and we all remember in the Bible the passage about achieving great things, but if there is no love, then there is nothing. I can remember our Jewish head boy  Hart was his name read the passage out in school assembly maybe 45 years ago, I remember him because his younger brother was in my brother’s form.

It is such a simple truth, and it is this simple truth that pervades us all, we love our kids to the death, to our own death, I was called “boy” by my dad till I was 40, he still cared and treated me like his little boy, even though I weigh as much as a heavyweight boxer, more to be honest.

Now I am a dad myself my duty and it is duty is to go out in the wind and rain to the corner shop to buy chocolate and other snacks while my girls study hard. Last generation was Oxbridge and this generation may equal that, or I may just give a Dr and the next Julie Walters to the world. Julie Walters used to live just up the road from our house when she was a humble nurse, washing a sleeping patient who was in fact dead.

I’d come home from an evening shift and dad may have the 1^st forkful on his fork about to eat it, he’d offer me the food from his very mouth, just as birds feed their young, dad claiming he was not hungry. This is the standard I grew up with, so this generation means I go out in the rain for snacks for my girls, which is nothing compared to what my dad did for all his brood.

If is being sung by bread on Spotify now, if as they say is a very melancholy word, did we thank our mum and dad enough, did we say “I LOVE YOU” long enough and loud enough while they were alive, do we feel guilty about it when they are gone. My generation never went around saying this and doing that, just like reality tv people.

I did visit my dad every single day while he was in the old people’s home, and after 3 years of visits I met my wife, it’s all in Padre Pio and Me by Michael Casey, on the internet, so does that count as saying I love you? Bread are singing Everything I Own, and the words are so powerful, you can apply them to any form of lost love. Do I plan this, no I’m not that clever, but I am very quick at reacting, hence that’s why I mention Bread in this story.

Love binds us together as families, it’s in the breed and it’s in the blood as my dad used to say. We all would say kill me, save my child, have everything I own but save my family. If you love your things, your flash car or your big house more than your kids or more than your girlfriend then I would say you have never heard that Bible passage Without Love.

Today is Ash Wednesday 1^st March 2017, just in case anybody finds this story in future years. Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust if God Does Not Have You Then The Devil Must as we used to say as kids, but I’d say it’s true. WE are given our kids to treasure to love as long as we live, we should love them as much as life itself, and to die for them if we have to.

Just as Christ died for us.