The Jigsaw

The Jigsaw ©

By

Michael Casey

Well yesterday I was wondering what to talk about then as I mused while I looked out the window then I thought of my big daughter. She’s been away on NCS or something these past couple of weeks. She did a few days up near the Lake District, basically walking in the rain. Then she came home with a suitcase of smelly washing.

The highpoint was when somebody said they did not like the food, so my daughter said “beggars can’t be choosers”, to which this other 16 year old replied “are you calling me a Beg?” Which is some rough modern slang for something, go ask your own kids. To think I handed our large dictionary to the charity shop yesterday when I could have donated it to this child. VOCABULARY MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR LIFE, as does common sense.

This week my daughter is at the local university, having a play at being a student, so that in 2 years time when she does go to university she will have a clue what the life is all about. She’s due home in 2 hours, so I have bought Cadbury’s chocolate and glazed do-nuts ready for her return. I have also decided that I’ll buy her a car, provided that she gets into Cambridge University to study Medicine. So all of you out there have 2 years to buy some books, otherwise I’ll just have to die to finance the car promise. Though I could get into medical school before her, as a cadaver, sounds quiet impressive, Michael Casey at Medical School.

What’s all this got to do with Jigsaws? Well a family is a jigsaw, all the parts make the whole, just as the parts of the body make the whole person, the whole person. There is a piece in the Bible about it, concerning unity makes the whole work better, don’t argue with yourself. Go and annoy your local priest if you want the detail. Ditto regarding the family, if smelly grandpa in the corner wasn’t there you’d miss him, though perhaps not the smell. Why do grandpas fart so much or belch so much. If yours does not maybe its a stranger who’s been sitting in your living room all these years. Ask him to show you his ID, you know the one he uses when he goes down the off licence for his Blue Nun.

A family has many part, the sister that does nothing as she is on the phone or WhatsApp whatever that is. The sister that tidies all the time because she joined Green Peace and thinks it’s her duty to corral all plastic into a corner, so Sky can make a film about it. There’s the mum or granny who always bakes, badly, but you never tell her. You just put an extra dollop of butter on her burnt offerings, she must be related to Alfred or something.

There’s dad who’s always hunting for his glasses behind the back of the chair. They were in that nice metal glasses case the dog found when they were on holiday to Abegele. Only the dog thinks the glasses case belongs to him and repeatedly buries it in the sand at the bottom of the garden, Doopy the dog thinks he’s still in Abegele, so he keeps on burying the case and glasses. Luckily dad has a metal detector so he can find his glasses.

These are the pieces of a jigsaw that is a family. But when one part is missing the family does not sit well together, its like the 3 legged coffee table that is propped up by three tins of backed beans. Grandpa fell over the table when he had too much Blue Nun and broke one leg of the table. They should have thrown it out but grandpa cried because it was the first piece of furniture that he and Nana had bought when they married an eternity ago. Now Nana is gone so the rickety table is like her ghost, her remembrance, hence the tins of beans keeping it up.

Once in the snow storm they ran out of food, only Nana fed them, her three tins of baked beans, it also formed smelly central heating too. So none of the family would ever dare throw away that coffee table, it was Nana, a piece of the family jigsaw. You all have your own family dynamic, even its just you and your cat. Without this person or that person, or just the cat the family would be incomplete. We are a mosaic of colours, of experiences each and every one of us, without all the pieces we are incomplete. So remember that next time you trip over the cat, or grandpa lets rip with a bunker busting fart, a family is made up of many many parts.