Renewal or Let Me Try Again

Renewal Or Let Me Try Again ©

By

Michael Casey

Renewal is a good thing, it makes things better, as good as new even. As Barry White sings , you are the answer to all my dreams, because we can try again. That bunch of flowers, stolen from the nearby cemetery begins a renewal in your relationship, your girl was going to leave you, now she’ll stay. Luckily the card from the flowers, We’ll miss you Darling Granddad, falls off as you hand them to her and you kick it under the sofa. So the pair of you snog on the sofa as granddad looks on in spirit from under the self same sofa.

A teenage daughter may think that a bathroom is a water sports arena, thus sparking a few family disputes. But when you have diarrhoea because of small daughter’s cooking, all will be forgiven just so long as you can get you bum sat on that throne. And when the teenage daughter throws more Andrex through the half opened door, then all is forgiven. And when you are in there so long that you could murder a pint of Stella Artois and that is rolled through the bathroom door by the small daughter, then you have a family united in love. United by a dad sat on his smelly throne, a can of Stella Artois in his hand surrounded by bathroom destruction, with his pants round his ankles.

These are just two examples of renewal of love. When your sister tells you she doesn’t think your poems don’t stink, and that it’s alright to wear flowery shirts that too denotes a family on the mend. Though if big sister knew you had read all her diaries, and were going to use them as source material for an epic 12 poem calendar of immaturity then she might just castrate you instead. The usual sibling slanging match.

Family is the thing that saves us, despite all the heartaches it can bring, because we are made to match and to fit into one another. Pain can come, when mum’s false teeth are left on the sofa and Sarah her son’s new girl sits on them and gets a love bit right on her bum. No more short skirts of bikinis for her for months. She was so angry she threw them on the fire. Only Rex the family dog jumped and caught them and swallowed them. Sarah was so full of remorse she offered to walk the dog for a week with a poohper skooper, so she could catch mum’s teeth when they finally exited the dog. But these events bonded Sarah to your family, she wasn’t a stuck up B____ after all. She even bought some Jeyes Fluid to wash the false teeth in, before mum put them back in her mouth. Mum’s bark was never as big as her bite after that.

I’m sure you all have your own family stories, even if they are not as true as the examples I’ve given. We are are made of of collections of families, of love and hate and argument. But we’ll kill anybody who mocks our own Adams Family and its values. You have to renew and remake your family as it grows and  strides forward, ok, maybe you just stagger to the next pub or Bingo Hall, or May Ball if you are posh.

And why am I talking to you about this tonight? Well while I spent a night in hospital again last night, with my pain problem I did have time to think and I realised, as annoying as a wet bathroom floor is the most important thing is the Love that binds us. I did pretend to be Gene Kelly and dance Singing in the Rain in the bathroom, and I could hear my mother’s words, get out of the way or I’ll hit you with the mop.