Nov 11th 2017 would have been my dad's 96th Birthday

so I've brought this piece back and a 2nd piece after the photos

 My Dad My Best Friend ©

 By

Michael Casey

My dad was my best friend, no I’m not boasting, he really was my best friend. How can I say that, well it all started with having a 2^nd ice-cream when all my brothers and sisters only had one. When you buy 8

ice-creams for your family buying another 8 is expensive, even in 1960s England. I got an extra one and my siblings called me the “pet” as they were jealous, to tease me they sung the song Michael Rows The Boat ashore, my dad used to say “leave the boy alone.”

I suppose it was because I was the 5^th child, the 5^th child in 8 years and they were not expecting any more that I was spoilt a bit, and yes I did enjoy it. Dad always seemed to wear an old sports jacket and when he came back from his weekend trip to the pub after his week of being in the furnace, he always brought us back cheese and onion crisps in the blue bag. Dad really really loved us, as mum did too, I don’t know about other families but we knew we were loved, it wasn’t said and we didn’t hug loads, we were loved and we knew it. The sky is blue and the moon shines at night, it was as certain as that, we were loved.

I spent a lot of time talking to my dad, I was the penultimate one to leave home, we spent hours talking every night, we were both news junkies, or should I use today’s language, we love current affairs. We both  loved Sir Robin Day the journalist, I still love journalists, we even have one in our Chinese family. Simple perhaps naïve pleasures, these bond you, glue you to your family. My dad also encouraged all of us to save, he wanted all of us to have a good start, we had lodgers and most loved drink too much, so leaning from their bad example we all saved for our futures.

“What’s a bit of food,” said dad as we stayed at home, modestly downplaying his influence, his role, his love for us.

“Do what you like but do your best,” was his simple yet sage advice when I asked what subjects to do at 3^rd year split. His children went to the best universities in the world, they worked hard, we followed his example. Dad would and could work 16hours a day, he even worked 7 days a week at times, perhaps even for years. A Kerryman will walk into Hell for his children and for 40years that’s exactly what he did. I hear people complain about this and about that and it makes me smile, people should try working as hard as my dad did.

My father survived a “fatal”  heart attack   back in 1996, I’ve written about it in Padre Pio and Me, he even found me a wife and perhaps even a job, then he had his last breakfast then he died. I did visit him every single day for over 3 years, then I met my wife. Dad lived long enough to see me marry, only today we found a photo of him holding my daughter in his arms; 8 months later he died, he died 5 days after I’d found another job after a long bleak spell.

Do I miss him? No. The day he died I wept and howled like a tortured dog, but that’s normal. When my mother died  I did not shed a single tear, I’d been ordered not to cry years before, so when mum died I shed no tears, she was in Paradise so I shed no tears. And what of now ? Dad’s in Heaven too, no doubt wearing a big thick coat, when you’re used to a furnace anywhere else can be cold, I hope he’s enjoying watching his 4 grandchildren growing up. I also believe he’s now met the Chinese side of the family and together they drink tea, both Chinese and English while they debate just how Irish or Chinese my girls look. The Chinese grandfather and the Chinese great-grandfather watch from Heaven and both will have to admit having some Irish blood is not a bad thing at all, at all at all.

 *****

there's another post about my dad after the photos

 Padre Pio and Me ©                    

  By

  Michael Casey

It’s a contradiction in terms immediately, how can I copyright  a Saint. A brand new saint at that. I first heard of him through some Religious reading I did. I feel embarrassed to admit it, but I am a practising Catholic, its not fashionable to have any Faith but its mine so I admit it. Immediately the prejudice begins, but if I WERE A Jew or a Muslim, it would be the same. I do feel that my catholic tastes have given me a broader outlook on life, as has my  eclectic tastes and rubbing shoulders with a wide variety of people. But I want to talk about Padre Pio. I had a crisis and was reading about him at the time, so I said my prayers to him and the way forward was revealed. Though Padre Pio always says go Higher, he is just a stepping stone on the way to a better place.

What is so hard to understand about Padre Pio  is how he suffered. He had the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Condemned by his own superiors, made to be quiet for a decade and so forth. Science Fiction teaches or rather amuses us about Time Travel, but with Padre Pio it really happened, he wanted to share in Christ’s agony so he thought, what if he too could have and suffer the wounds on that day of Crucifiction. So it came to pass that he suffered for 50years. He had the indignity of medical examinations and of being thought just to be a mental patient, but his work and life proved his holiness. So it’s nearly 1990 and I hear about him and read a few books, its hard to understand the value of suffering in this age of quick fix pain killers and the lets have a fix, whatever the fix might be, sex, drugs and rock and roll or whatever. Its like suddenly studying again after years of lying fallow, the learning curve is enormous. So too is it with Padre Pio, the idea behind his life is enormous, but so too is the capacity for love and help.

My favourite story is how Padre Pio explains that The Wedding Feast at Cena happened because Jesus could not refuse his mother. Very Italian, or Irish or Spanish and so on, but could any of us refuse our mothers? So I thought more about what Padre Pio said, and his motto of Pray Hope Don’t Worry became my own. Carpe Diem is another good motto but perhaps this can be used by any Hedonist, or other kind of selfish person.Padre Pio reminds us to pray and that pray is not wasted, its perfume that is never wasted is a phrase I like. My mother always used to say that if you couldn’t sleep you should say the Rosary, and she was right. Though in today's world an hour on the Internet or with MTV might do the trick. So why the devotion to Padre Pio, I’ll cut to the chase. My mother died suddenly but peacefully in her sleep, my brother tried CPR, but she was gone. Imagine the angusih amongst her 6 children and her husband of nearly 50 years.

All except me, my mother had said no tears when she go,so I never cried, I was the odd one out.I know how prayerful she was, so I had no need of tears. Eight bare weeks later my brother, the same brother heard our dad fall out of bed, so he ran to his bedroom. My brother was facing the exact same situation, he tried CPR, the ambulance was called, an injection was given straight to the heart. On weekends there is a doctor in the ambulance, so Luck, if that’s the word was with us. The next day 4 of my brothers and sisters came around to tell me the news.

When my sister had come around 8 weeks previously I knew somebody was dead but I assumed it was my dad, he’s die first we all thought. So now 8 weeks later it was his turn to die. At the hospital dad was given 1 week to live, I cried like a baby, worse than a baby, but I loved him, so I told he he should go to our mother and not hang on if he didn’t want to. The next day I was in my sister’s house crying, we picked hymns for his funeral.Yet my father survived, 19 patients on a heart ward, 18 died my dad survived. Padre Pio was beseiged by my prayers, I put Padre Pio’s photo under his pillow. Dad lost his mind, he was in Dudley Rd for 3months, 12 weeks, more than half of them all tubed up. His life hanging in the balance. At the same time somewhere in Florida another man was at deaths door, he was a totally stranger to me, I didn’t even know his name, I’d never met him, he was give 24hours to live, a Chinese man from Shanghai was at deaths door. The Chinaman survived.

My dad’s memory was totally wiped, he did not know who I was, I’m your son was greeted with, am I married. I was the favourite son, he did not even know me. But still we prayed, it’s a feeling in your guts, just like when you are nearly killed as you cross the road, its in your guts and in your heart, Jesus save my dad, Jesus save my dad, Padre Pio help !!! This goes around your head like a merry go around or a kaleidascope. Finally dad awoke.

He said that he can remember hearing the doctor say to wheel him down to the end of the ward, because he’d be dead soon. At that moment my dad awoke, and the doctor dropped  his cup of tea in shock. No not an instanteous miracle, but as Dr Singh had said if he were 30years younger he’d have a heart transplant because dad’s heart was rubbish. Now, when I told my brother that dad was reading a newspaper he was shocked. His memory had come back. He knew who we all were.Every day for three months I walked the corridor at Dudley Rd, the longest hospital corridor in Europe, 1 kilometre long.

Finally he left the hospital, my sister had found a good home for him to live in, he was far too weak to live in the family house. For 3 years dad survived, like a Godfather with all his children making constant visits. Finally I met my future wife. It was her uncle who had miraclously survived at the same time as my father. It was her uncle who encouraged us in our love. From Shanghai to Birmingham.These great men, her uncle and my father never met, but I know Padre Pio must have  helped both of them. Further prayer was needed to bring me and my wife permanenetly together. A Chinese miracle happened.

 Now we are wed, we have a 2year old and please God a healthy second baby in the Autumn. The improbability of our meeting, plus the fact that both men HAD to live for us to be married and have a family, this may be a coincidence to some but I know a miracle when I see one. A miracle is something that makes you feel humble, it makes you know that God has whispered your name. When I look at my wife, I feel humble. Seeing our daughter laugh and play also makes me humble as will our new baby. Then you can look back and know that prayer is like perfume that can never be wasted, your life has led you to where you are now, yes at times sad and terrible, but be humble in the sight of God means something, not just for me, but for all Believers.

I once stood by the fridge and said to Padre Pio, I give up, you take over, all I want is to be married, and perhaps have a family, and do something useful with my life. That was just before my eyes were opened to my wife. I used to say that I got 2 out of my 3 wishes. Perhaps my current occupation is my 3rd wish, or a more outstanding miracle is waiting in the wings, but as Padre Pio  said,always ask for the big Grace.Perhaps we have to be humble enough to deserve it, because I believe it to be a fact that, truly great people are humble because they know just how little they really know