Tears and Things
By
Michael Casey
Well we all have tears in our life, even me, even you, even the Rock you depend on. Even the favourite child makes his dad cry, and the favourite child cries too when his dad dies. When miracles happen too then we cry as well, such as when my own dad came back from the dead, after having been given a week to live and we had even picked the hymns for his funeral. When we were told he would not be resuscitated.
So I know a little about tears and hope and despair, for I have been there. 1996 was the year, though 2015 was another bad year. My own quadruple heart bypass and a few other gems all happening together, which could have been enough to kill me off. 2018 was when we finally got the new bigger house, but cash flow is another story, but I won’t bore you with that. Just send me some numbers for the Lottery, and see if I can win some money. Or maybe some of you start buying the books on Amazon, or you are in the Media and you decide to use me, but it will be on my terms, I’m too old and cranky to put up with anybody telling me what or how to write.
So that’s me, what about you. Did you cry when the Pregnancy test said you were pregnant, or were you in despair? I cried. I cried with happiness. I was on the Graveyard shift at SMBC down in the basement computer room, on the 6pm to 2.30am shift, I told you I always worked the shifts others would not. The phone rang, and I took the call. My dream was becoming a reality, I’d have a family.
So I cried with happiness, the guy I was working with said wash your face. Why do they always say wash your face, just as when my daughter was born they pass tissues. Tears are a badge of honour, of joy itself, I am so happy, I am so happy. My daughter has just been born. I don’t want to wash my face, I want everybody to see my tears. They are like tribal markings, look I’m a dad.
Can you remember when your own child was born? Do you remember the tears of happiness? I can remember holding my daughter in my arms at my dad’s funeral, she was 8months, he died at 80. My aunty Hanna remarked on it, she knew that being a dad was all I ever wanted from life, a wife too. Material things do not matter, it’s the family that makes the home. A house is a home only when there is a family in it. Tvs and sofas and computers and fancy this and fancy that do not make a building into a home, only a family does. Or maybe I’m just too old fashioned, when you grow up poor your values are different, they are not Money based. Rich people love the money and the privilege, as you can see from any newspaper.
Sport unites us, we scream and shout for our team. Events in the news this past week, show the love and tragedy of sport. A life gone on the brink of a new chapter, dying in the English Channel, the pilot still missing today. With sport we can let off steam, and show love too. We sing and cheer as England or Japan or Brazil score a goal, pick your own country wherever you are reading this, maybe you are in Uzbekistan or Nigeria, my readers are so very far flung. You may be playing “polo” on the plains near the mountains. Wherever you are sport whatever kind you play is what makes your soul rejoice, that it is why it is worth your tears. It gives a bigger dimension to our lives.
I’ve only ever been to a live football match twice in my life, Barry took me to a Villa game, and Chris took me to one too. The crowd was alive was my observation, Barry laughed when I told him. But it IS true the crowd moves like one giant jelly moving with emotion and hope when their team plays. So if you have 50,000 all enjoying a match it is little wonder there are tears.
Exams evoke tears too, I can remember passing 11plus my mother picked me up and swung me around. 4 out of 60 passed I seem to remember, but that was nearly 50 years ago. Yes I look so much younger, but the scars and pain you cannot see. If you want to see the scars you’d have to be in bed with me, and I cannot hear any stampede, so just believe me ladies. Exams rate performance, and not referring backwards either.
Exams can change your life, or they can just be pieces of paper. To be honest I’ve met 100s of people with Degrees but no common sense, and some their “degree” really isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Give me experience any time. I’m not knocking degrees, my family is a family of over achievers, and my nephew has just announced that one degree is not enough. So he’s going to train to be a Doctor now. In actual fact I shed a tear, he was born just 6 weeks before my mother died, and now he’ll train to be a Doctor.
Laughter and Tears do go together, you can cry with laughter. So maybe I’ll finish with a bang, a good bang. My father worked in a steel works all his life but he had the softest of hands, why because he washed them in Persil washing powder. The grit gets the dirt off any steel workers hands, and makes them lilly white, it’s not so bad on the clothes either. Dad felt the cold, if you are standing next to a 400degree furnace all day, the Winter really was his greatest enemy, and I’m tearing up now as I tell you this.
Anyway one of my brothers, I have 3, gave dad an old army coat, in fact when dad wore it, in the dark he could be mistaken for a Russian soldier, that kind of design. One Winter’s evening in the dark, just by the Undertakers dad let rip, an explosive fart, a passing Jamaican lady screamed and jumped into the air in terror. Maybe The Russians are Coming, The Russians are coming, no it was just a shot in the dark, ask Clouseau.
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