Inner Strength

Inner Strength ©

By

Michael Casey

As ever I did not know what to write about, but today’s events forced this idea to the top, so this is what you get today. I never plan, though very occasionally I do, like for Tears for a Butcher ideas, but you’ve heard all that before. So today I’m going to talk about inner strength. I don’t choose the topics they choose me, which sounds stuck up my own rear end, and I was going to use the A word. But here’s what has percolated to the top, and me an instant coffee drinker.

My parents were incredibly strong, physically and mentally, Irish farming stock, so what do you expect, just the best from Kerry, the Kingdom. When mum died in 1996, dad said of her that she was as strong as a horse, high praise indeed from a Blacksmith. He nearly followed her just 8 bare weeks later, it’s all in Padre Pio and Me, which is on my site. However as he was strong as an Ox, he survived, and the rest you know if you’ve read Padre Pio and Me.

When on 11^th Nov 1977 when my life was trashed, unfairly, but that’s another story, I can remember my dad shaving in the kitchen sink, the bathroom upstairs was too cold, and we used our electric central heating sparingly. When God Made Time He Made Plenty Of It, dad explained, then I had 6 fallow months until I got into computers on the ground floor in 1978, that’s 42 years ago now. It was his 56^th Birthday so I remember that day forever.

I was lucky I had parents who loved me and a mother who could pray like the Devil, so to speak. Mum used to watch Dallas, and her pinny pocket would be jumping as she watched, she has a Rosary on the go as she watched JR. Later she’d go upstairs to say her prayers for an hour, I still have her battered Prayer Book stashed away somewhere, with Holy Pictures littering it, even prayers cut from newspapers within. So this is my Legacy, it’s been poured into me. When she died I did not shed a tear, she said no tears for years, so I obeyed her. Any Faith I have comes from her, it’s secondhand, though with such a teacher I’ve done well. She used to go to Mass daily at Saint Patricks, opposite Dudley Rd  hospital, of City as the now unglamorously call it. And yes she had 5 priests say the Funeral Mass.

Does this mean I’m Holy, no not at all, I can and will curse like a Blast Furnace Man, if the occasion arises, dad did start as a Blacksmith in Kerry and then spend 40 years at The District Iron and Steel Brasshouse Lane Smethwick. You have to be tough to work there, 400 degrees, lose half a stone in sweat every day. So dad’s refrain to the idle rich on tv always was, did they sweat? BOLLOCKS. And other such words as the occasion demanded. But his kids went to Oxford and Cambridge, so “posh” folks could kiss his arse.

And no he did not behave like an oaf, he was a gentle gentle gentleman, who washed his hands in washing powder because the grit got the dirt from the furnace off. Mum called him soft, she would lash offenders with her tongue should the need arise. A perfect mix of ying and yang. Mum gave dad her £300 and he gave her 6 kids in return. I suppose I am the “failure”, 19 books, 1,530,000 plus Words, readers in 80 countries, and up to 10 Translations in one day being read from my Wordpress and Blogger. My map of the world is bigger than The British Empire one. But still no money, so if you judge by money, I am a failure.

However I never ever give up, did they give up on the Long March, or pushing the Nazi scum from Mother Russia, or getting to the Moon? No they did not, you never never give up, and yes The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword. So if I can persevere and thrive, so can you. If you read a pretentious self help book you may learn stuff, but experience is the best and harshest teacher. Just imagine me in red Lycra, skin tight with a feather duster, threatening to tickle you to death.

I just threw in that line to see if you have been paying attention. But the point, does there have to be a point? IS. Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England, is strange, as strange as British Humour. And the point is, that my Inner Strength is humour, humour will save you, as it has saved me. I’ll finish now as I want to watch the late news, and as I do so I remember my dad, as I can hear his echo, did they sweat, BOLLOCKS, they can kiss my arse. For I am after all a son of Kerry parents, and we are as good as ANYBODY. And so are YOU.