We’re having a shindig for our middle boy next week, he turns five. Now I don’t know who he has been conversing with, I suspect perhaps J-Lo’s party planner – a woman familiar with big budget productions – but the child wants a dinosaur party complete with a seven foot volcano with dry ice and smoke. He wants a life-like dinosaur with a motion sensor (that’s on sale at the toy shop for a mere £450). And he has also demanded, I mean requested, that we construct an elaborate dinosaur bone yard in the back yard and kit all his mates out as palaeontologists.
What the boy wants and what the child gets will probably be two completely different things.
The child will get a few balloons, a dinosaur card and a cake that I burnt down the kitchen to bake. We can’t break with tradition.
Regular readers will know that in reality I go all out for my kid’s birthday parties. None of this hour in the adventure centre and cake for my lads. Oh no. It’s three weeks of hard core stressing over what other mas will think of my house, 30 screaming kids, kitchens on fire, kamikaze-related bouncy castle injuries, permanently painted limbs and mental trauma caused by discovering doggy graves in neighbouring gardens. That and the twice-annual threat of divorce over the husband’s glaring lack of artistic skills and enthusiasm for 4-year-old birthday party planning.
Case number one – the oldest boy’s last race car themed birthday when 10 minutes before the party started the husband displayed a startlingly lack of preparation and indeed thought by taping three bin bags to the living room floor, drawing a chalk line down the middle and calling it a race track.
Case number two – the time he stapled (a skill, by the by, he does not excel in) crisp boxes together and told a crowd of 4-year-olds they were racecars. Maybe had I slipped a bottle of whiskey into their birthday punch drinks they might well have believed him. From where I, and the kids stood, they looked like badly stapled crisp boxes. I think the word one of the children used was, and I quote, ‘super cr*p’.
They are still talking about it in the playground. I think most of the time parents just bring their kids along just to see what hilarity ensued when I let the husband loose unsupervised with a pair of jaggy-edge scissors.
I will not stand idly by as my reputation as a fantabulous party organiser is ripped to shreds by lack of artistic flair or an ‘it’ll do’ attitude.
The husband was this week taken off planning duties when he suggested that we compliment the dinosaur theme by splashing fake blood on the walls and put the ‘man getting eaten by T-Rex on the toilet’ scene from Jurassic Park 1 on loop on a big screen in the kitchen.
This party will be the stuff of legends, for all the right reasons this time…
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Are you listening Feis Mammies?
So yummy mummy Kirsty Young has accused us ordinary mums of seeing our children as an extension of our own successes. She thinks that by plonking our offspring in front of Baby Einstein, sending them out to Mandarin Chinese lessons and forcing them to attend ballet lessons we’re trying to turn Junior into the next Sir Isaac Newton, and therefore living out our own failed dreams.
The millionaire mum, who has two young girls, says stay at home mothers are the very worst culprits. Thanks Kirsty.
I’ll admit hovering around the ‘How to Have the Most Brainy Child in the World’ department in Easons and even picking up ‘Quantum Physics for Toddlers’ and seriously pondering a purchase.
So how does one know if one is a pushy parent? I considered the following online questionnaire and have submitted my answers, maybe you should too. I am eagerly awaiting my official Pushy Parent membership badge and bumper sticker in the post.
Question 1 – Do you give options?
No, I just make demands and expect them to be carried out, to the letter, on time, every time.
Question 2 – Do you hear the word ‘no’?
Of course I do, but only when I say it.
Question 3 – Are your reactions appropriate?
They certainly are. I find screaming and throwing a strop to be perfectly appropriate behaviour for a grown up who doesn’t get their own way. Also bashing stuff with tree branches and kicking household appliances.
Question 4 – Have others complained about your ‘pushiness’?
Yes they have and most have found a stay in hospital is often as refreshing as a week-long holiday.
Perhaps I’m not a fully fledge Pushy Parent yet, but as my kids grow I will endeavour to put opportunities their way. I’ll buy violins, drum kits, trumpets. Whatever they show an interest in I’ll encourage. Not because I want them to be an extension of my own obvious greatness, I just want my kids to be the best they can be. It’s their life, their future.
For example, my oldest son seems to like all things medical so I encourage this behaviour by letting him watch Casualty and cheering while he operates on Action Man’s dodgy ticker with a desert spoon. I do this not because I myself tried and failed to be a doctor but because, in my twilight years I quite like the idea of him becoming a medical professional and therefore having prescription drugs on tap to aid my planned hardcore eccentricity.
My middle child wants to be a rock star. I encourage his singing and air guitar antics because in my eccentric twilight years I quite fancy the idea of hanging around rock concerts in my prescription drug-induced blissful state.
My youngest child will hopefully decide to progress from sticking magnetic numbers on the front of the fridge to become a bank manager. Thus funding his old mum’s prescription drug and rock concert preferences.
So there you have it Kirsty Young. You haven’t got all us pushy mums worked out. Try and stick me in a category will you? Well, when you work it out, stick that in your pipe and smoke it. I suppose you’re now going to tell me that letting children under seven smoke pipes is bad parenting too Kirsty?
The millionaire mum, who has two young girls, says stay at home mothers are the very worst culprits. Thanks Kirsty.
I’ll admit hovering around the ‘How to Have the Most Brainy Child in the World’ department in Easons and even picking up ‘Quantum Physics for Toddlers’ and seriously pondering a purchase.
So how does one know if one is a pushy parent? I considered the following online questionnaire and have submitted my answers, maybe you should too. I am eagerly awaiting my official Pushy Parent membership badge and bumper sticker in the post.
Question 1 – Do you give options?
No, I just make demands and expect them to be carried out, to the letter, on time, every time.
Question 2 – Do you hear the word ‘no’?
Of course I do, but only when I say it.
Question 3 – Are your reactions appropriate?
They certainly are. I find screaming and throwing a strop to be perfectly appropriate behaviour for a grown up who doesn’t get their own way. Also bashing stuff with tree branches and kicking household appliances.
Question 4 – Have others complained about your ‘pushiness’?
Yes they have and most have found a stay in hospital is often as refreshing as a week-long holiday.
Perhaps I’m not a fully fledge Pushy Parent yet, but as my kids grow I will endeavour to put opportunities their way. I’ll buy violins, drum kits, trumpets. Whatever they show an interest in I’ll encourage. Not because I want them to be an extension of my own obvious greatness, I just want my kids to be the best they can be. It’s their life, their future.
For example, my oldest son seems to like all things medical so I encourage this behaviour by letting him watch Casualty and cheering while he operates on Action Man’s dodgy ticker with a desert spoon. I do this not because I myself tried and failed to be a doctor but because, in my twilight years I quite like the idea of him becoming a medical professional and therefore having prescription drugs on tap to aid my planned hardcore eccentricity.
My middle child wants to be a rock star. I encourage his singing and air guitar antics because in my eccentric twilight years I quite fancy the idea of hanging around rock concerts in my prescription drug-induced blissful state.
My youngest child will hopefully decide to progress from sticking magnetic numbers on the front of the fridge to become a bank manager. Thus funding his old mum’s prescription drug and rock concert preferences.
So there you have it Kirsty Young. You haven’t got all us pushy mums worked out. Try and stick me in a category will you? Well, when you work it out, stick that in your pipe and smoke it. I suppose you’re now going to tell me that letting children under seven smoke pipes is bad parenting too Kirsty?
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Hey Santa!
The Christmas school holidays are over tomorrow and although it was great spending time with the kids, it’s like that old saying: ‘Kids are great but it’s great being able to hand them back’, like to the parenting experts – their school teachers.
Not that they aren’t glad to be going back also. A certain type of cabin fever sets in in the O’Neill house when we spend too much time together under the one roof – for example more than two hours. People start sniping and getting agitated, calling one another names, insulting each other’s appearance, pointing out annoying habits etc. And the kids can get a tad tetchy too.
The last two days Daniel and Caolan have spent the day sitting in their rooms, playing with their Santa toys and presumably writing letter of reply to Santa, noting their dissatisfaction at their lot this year.
Santa,
This is Daniel and Caolan O’Neill. I suppose you’re kinda wondering why we’re writing to you this late after Christmas. But I suppose you could take this as being an early warning for next year.
Well, we would very much like to clear up certain things that have occurred since the beginning of the month. While filled with illusion we wrote you a letter asking for an Nintendo DS, A Wii and a PSP each. We positively destroyed our brains with school work the whole year. Not only was I, Daniel, the first in my class, but I had the best marks in the whole school. I'm not going to lie to you, Santa, there is not one single person in our entire neighbourhood that behaved better than me and my brother. Like no one.
Well, on Christmas morning we woke to the sound of toy trains chugging along a toy track. You totally disregarded our wish list and left us educational toys and things that look slightly second hand. We wanted a bloody Nintendo DS, A Wii and a PSP each. We wrote you three letters, told you in person twice. Do you even remember meeting us and making those promises. Were you infact drunk?
What were you thinking leaving us some books, a train set, a remote control car and a few random action figures? You are clearly senile. You are not welcome back next year, we’re blocking the chimney with the large lego blocks you left us. Get past that fatty!
You have taken us for fools the entire year. You gave that bad boy across the street a quad bike. Are you crazy? He was a maniac behind the wheel of that pedal tractor you got him last year. The people of this neighbourhood will never again be safe to walk the streets.
Don’t come back next year, you’re not welcome. You come to this house we’ll torch your sleigh and you’ll be walking back to the North Pole, just like we have to since you didn’t leave us those Lightning McQueen bikes we asked for.
Regards, well not really
Daniel and Caolan O
Not that they aren’t glad to be going back also. A certain type of cabin fever sets in in the O’Neill house when we spend too much time together under the one roof – for example more than two hours. People start sniping and getting agitated, calling one another names, insulting each other’s appearance, pointing out annoying habits etc. And the kids can get a tad tetchy too.
The last two days Daniel and Caolan have spent the day sitting in their rooms, playing with their Santa toys and presumably writing letter of reply to Santa, noting their dissatisfaction at their lot this year.
Santa,
This is Daniel and Caolan O’Neill. I suppose you’re kinda wondering why we’re writing to you this late after Christmas. But I suppose you could take this as being an early warning for next year.
Well, we would very much like to clear up certain things that have occurred since the beginning of the month. While filled with illusion we wrote you a letter asking for an Nintendo DS, A Wii and a PSP each. We positively destroyed our brains with school work the whole year. Not only was I, Daniel, the first in my class, but I had the best marks in the whole school. I'm not going to lie to you, Santa, there is not one single person in our entire neighbourhood that behaved better than me and my brother. Like no one.
Well, on Christmas morning we woke to the sound of toy trains chugging along a toy track. You totally disregarded our wish list and left us educational toys and things that look slightly second hand. We wanted a bloody Nintendo DS, A Wii and a PSP each. We wrote you three letters, told you in person twice. Do you even remember meeting us and making those promises. Were you infact drunk?
What were you thinking leaving us some books, a train set, a remote control car and a few random action figures? You are clearly senile. You are not welcome back next year, we’re blocking the chimney with the large lego blocks you left us. Get past that fatty!
You have taken us for fools the entire year. You gave that bad boy across the street a quad bike. Are you crazy? He was a maniac behind the wheel of that pedal tractor you got him last year. The people of this neighbourhood will never again be safe to walk the streets.
Don’t come back next year, you’re not welcome. You come to this house we’ll torch your sleigh and you’ll be walking back to the North Pole, just like we have to since you didn’t leave us those Lightning McQueen bikes we asked for.
Regards, well not really
Daniel and Caolan O
Friday, 1 January 2010
My resolutions....
Well after much pondering I present to you my New Year resolutions. Understand that these are set in stone. Understand that I will most positively, definitely stick to, no matter what – even if it upsets the balance of the universe. A tad dramatic, yes, but that’s how very serious I am about stuff.
1. I will try to be much less serious about stuff, relax more with regards insignificant details, beginning January 3rd at 07:35:24am GMT exactly.
2. I will try to be less rude and hostile to my bank manager – I will answer his persistent phone calls and desist in crossing the street when I see him. I may even invite him for Christmas dinner next year and introduce him to one of my single cousins. A bank manager in the family would be very handy for getting credit which I can ill afford to pay back.
3. I will try to be more rude and hostile to the alternative religious freaks/catalogue salespeople/telephone providers who call to my door three times a week at the crazy teatime hour trying relentlessly to convert me to their random religion/fashion boutiques/telephone services. Instead of listening I shall perfect my mental powers of persuasion, or the Vulcan death grip, to convert them all to the Jedi faith.
4. I shall attempt to improve my concentration, ahmm what was I saying there? And keep my mind on one thing….oh look a bar of chocolate.. at any one time.
5. I will no longer waste my time relieving the past; instead I will spend it worrying fiercely about the future.
6. Invent something, like time travel or a space-age device that sucks up crumbs and small household debris into a magic bag that can be emptied straight into the bin. I have been talking about this for years and eventually someone is going to get there before me. What? Who’s Hoover when they’re at home?
7. Give more strangers advice about how to raise their children. While I have never claimed to be an expert in raising children, I do have some pretty strong opinions on the subject developed over years of doing things exactly right and without flaw. I shall also try to be open to others' ideas on parenting, misguided and completely deranged though they may be.
9 Learn and use my children's names properly without prefixing them with ‘Jesus Christ!’, ‘God Almighty’ or ‘PUT THAT KNIFE DOWN!’
10. Promise to never to make another ridiculous and impossible-to-stick-to resolution list again.
Wishing each and every one of you a peaceful and prosperous New Year. Here’s hoping all your dreams come true, even the one about losing 10lbs in January.
Love and warmest wishes from the O’Neills.
1. I will try to be much less serious about stuff, relax more with regards insignificant details, beginning January 3rd at 07:35:24am GMT exactly.
2. I will try to be less rude and hostile to my bank manager – I will answer his persistent phone calls and desist in crossing the street when I see him. I may even invite him for Christmas dinner next year and introduce him to one of my single cousins. A bank manager in the family would be very handy for getting credit which I can ill afford to pay back.
3. I will try to be more rude and hostile to the alternative religious freaks/catalogue salespeople/telephone providers who call to my door three times a week at the crazy teatime hour trying relentlessly to convert me to their random religion/fashion boutiques/telephone services. Instead of listening I shall perfect my mental powers of persuasion, or the Vulcan death grip, to convert them all to the Jedi faith.
4. I shall attempt to improve my concentration, ahmm what was I saying there? And keep my mind on one thing….oh look a bar of chocolate.. at any one time.
5. I will no longer waste my time relieving the past; instead I will spend it worrying fiercely about the future.
6. Invent something, like time travel or a space-age device that sucks up crumbs and small household debris into a magic bag that can be emptied straight into the bin. I have been talking about this for years and eventually someone is going to get there before me. What? Who’s Hoover when they’re at home?
7. Give more strangers advice about how to raise their children. While I have never claimed to be an expert in raising children, I do have some pretty strong opinions on the subject developed over years of doing things exactly right and without flaw. I shall also try to be open to others' ideas on parenting, misguided and completely deranged though they may be.
9 Learn and use my children's names properly without prefixing them with ‘Jesus Christ!’, ‘God Almighty’ or ‘PUT THAT KNIFE DOWN!’
10. Promise to never to make another ridiculous and impossible-to-stick-to resolution list again.
Wishing each and every one of you a peaceful and prosperous New Year. Here’s hoping all your dreams come true, even the one about losing 10lbs in January.
Love and warmest wishes from the O’Neills.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Bad Santa
I’ll probably go to Hell for this but I have to come clean and admit my very real dislike of shopping mall Santas. They have no air of mystery, no magic – they just take parent’s money, give the kid’s a cheap present and spit them out onto the street again.
I was thinking along these lines as I waited for the husband beside Santa’s grotto in a shopping centre last week. The queue, some 40-people deep, was made up mostly of stressed, grumpy parents who couldn’t believe the price of a visit and kids who didn’t really believe the dude was the real Santa.
“Is Santa from Creggan mammy? I thought he was from the North Pole. Do they speak in Derry accents over about the North Pole?”
As I stood there I got all cynical thinking this Christmas lark can get a bit fake if you let it. From the rubbish shopping mall Santas to the notion that one must spend a fortune to have the truly picture perfect festive season – all woolly jumpers, warm fires and smiley faces.
Perhaps it’s because I’m older and jaded by the ever-lengthening holiday season, the Christmas music beginning on Halloween, the in-store decorations getting dusty even before November’s out, all presided over by the retail juggernaut. Is it wrong to want the real magic of Christmas, the one that doesn’t cost anything?
And I wondered if the real Santa, as in the real one who doesn’t charge you £12.50 for a three second conversation, ever gets a bit cheesed off with the whole shenanigans. I wondered if he has ever been tempted to fire off a few cheeky replies to those millions of Santa letters he gets.
Dear Santa,
I left milk and cookies for you under the tree, and I left carrots for your reindeer outside the backdoor.
Love, Aoife
Dear Aoife,
I am severely lactose intolerant. Milk gives me debilitating cramps and the reindeers really hate carrots, as in like totally HATE them. Whoever started this milk, cookie and carrot rumour needs a good slap. You wanna make me happy? Forget the milk; leave me a tall glass of red wine, one of Dad’s big cigars and some Toblerone for the reindeers.
Thanks!
Santa
Dear Santa,
Do you see us when we're sleeping, do you really know when we're awake, like in the song?
Love, Jessica
Dear Jessica,
You are really that gullible, kid? Good luck in whatever you do in life, I'm skipping your house.
Best
Santa
Dear Santa,
I really, really want a puppy this year. Please, please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE, could I have one?
Danny
Hey Danny,
That whiny begging stuff may work OK with your folks, but it doesn't fly up here, right? You're getting a stupid Christmas tree jumper and Simpson’s socks...again.
Santa
I think I need a large dose of Christmas spirit or indeed a miracle. Perhaps if Santa left me a new Apple MacBook Pro (with all the apps, in silver please) I might be slightly less cynical next year….
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Santaphobic no more....
There hasn’t really been much chat about Santa in our house over the last few weeks until the weekend. Then bam! – out come the catalogues. Bam! – foot long lists. Bam! – Santa may put his head between his legs and kiss his ass goodbye because he is either going bankrupt or he’s going to have to organise a huge overdraft facility with the nice people at the bank (Hi there Brid!).
We had PSPs, Ninetento DS’, Lightning McQueen DVD and TV sets, expresso machines, ice-cream makers, wide-screen TVs, vacuum cleaners with personalities and stupid names like Henrietta. I was half way down the list before I realised the kids had been consulting the Curry’s catalogue instead of the usual Argos one. If I hadn’t have rectified the situation Santa’s sleigh would have groaning under the weight of several tons of electrical equipment with smiley faces and a ridiculous amount of pointless white kitchen goods.
I remember the days when our two boys were severely Santaphobic. Every year my comedy shopping mall Santa photographs take pride of place on the mantelpiece alongside the nativity scene. I have several good shots of Daniel’s tonsils, one of Santa trying to flee from a raging Caolan, two or three of the husband and I sitting alongside Santa, smiling pathetically whilst trying to restrain a child and one of Santa holding his face after Caolan clawed his skin while trying to make good an escape over his shoulder and out the window.
The past few years have been a little better. The photos a tad more civilised – no assaults, no screaming, no drama.
They now know that the big man in the red suit really is a good guy. Yes he’s a strange and mysterious bearded man who breaks into our house in the middle of the night. Yes he sneaks around and eats our food but hey, he also leaves some really good stuff.
And this year Caolan, our middle son – the one who loved to run into walls with the wash basket on his head and breaks everything he touches – will actually star as Santa in the school play. This is a big thing for us. Since the child has only been in the school for four months I’m not sure they actually know what they’ve gotten themselves into. I suggest that the front row wear crash helmets and St John’s ambulance are on standby. Also I shall request a few extra fire extinguishers be available, or maybe I might call ahead to the fire station and tell them that the school will probably be on fire at around 10.15am next Wednesday.
After what was probably the worst year in living Breslin family history this Christmas will be a strange one but we’ll make the very best of it for our kids.
All the family will be here. My husband and I will fall out over who makes the best stuffing, my sister and brothers will drink too much home-made mulled wine and have to retire conveniently early before the dishes are done. We’ll all wear stupid party hats and fight over the remote control. The kids will scream, we will shout, but we shall be thankful for our blessings – for our beautiful and wonderful family, the great times we shared with our Dad over the years, and the good times that are still to come for us, for our health and the love we all have for each other.
We had PSPs, Ninetento DS’, Lightning McQueen DVD and TV sets, expresso machines, ice-cream makers, wide-screen TVs, vacuum cleaners with personalities and stupid names like Henrietta. I was half way down the list before I realised the kids had been consulting the Curry’s catalogue instead of the usual Argos one. If I hadn’t have rectified the situation Santa’s sleigh would have groaning under the weight of several tons of electrical equipment with smiley faces and a ridiculous amount of pointless white kitchen goods.
I remember the days when our two boys were severely Santaphobic. Every year my comedy shopping mall Santa photographs take pride of place on the mantelpiece alongside the nativity scene. I have several good shots of Daniel’s tonsils, one of Santa trying to flee from a raging Caolan, two or three of the husband and I sitting alongside Santa, smiling pathetically whilst trying to restrain a child and one of Santa holding his face after Caolan clawed his skin while trying to make good an escape over his shoulder and out the window.
The past few years have been a little better. The photos a tad more civilised – no assaults, no screaming, no drama.
They now know that the big man in the red suit really is a good guy. Yes he’s a strange and mysterious bearded man who breaks into our house in the middle of the night. Yes he sneaks around and eats our food but hey, he also leaves some really good stuff.
And this year Caolan, our middle son – the one who loved to run into walls with the wash basket on his head and breaks everything he touches – will actually star as Santa in the school play. This is a big thing for us. Since the child has only been in the school for four months I’m not sure they actually know what they’ve gotten themselves into. I suggest that the front row wear crash helmets and St John’s ambulance are on standby. Also I shall request a few extra fire extinguishers be available, or maybe I might call ahead to the fire station and tell them that the school will probably be on fire at around 10.15am next Wednesday.
After what was probably the worst year in living Breslin family history this Christmas will be a strange one but we’ll make the very best of it for our kids.
All the family will be here. My husband and I will fall out over who makes the best stuffing, my sister and brothers will drink too much home-made mulled wine and have to retire conveniently early before the dishes are done. We’ll all wear stupid party hats and fight over the remote control. The kids will scream, we will shout, but we shall be thankful for our blessings – for our beautiful and wonderful family, the great times we shared with our Dad over the years, and the good times that are still to come for us, for our health and the love we all have for each other.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
The week that was...
I’ve just finished what was probably the most difficult and surreal week of my life.
My father was laid to rest after three days which passed in a blur of tea, sandwiches and sympathy. Hundreds of people came to our house, hundreds more called and emailed. It was wonderful to see how much a positive impact my Dad made on so many people’s lives.
It was a week which saw my children introduced to death for the first time. It wasn’t something I had intended to do, but we tried to make the whole process as natural and as normal as possible.
And the kids – mine, my brothers and sister’s kids – were like little rays of sunshine in what were some really dark days.
As we walked towards my parent’s house on the morning of the funeral my boys pointed out a rainbow which seemed to arch perfectly over their home – starting in the front garden and ending in the back. Granda made that, they said.
When I showed them Granda laid out in the wake house I heard Daniel tell his younger brother that the coffin would bring him to heaven. Caolan asked his older, wiser sibling about the logistics and practicalities of how exactly the coffin would fly to heaven his brother informed him that it had been fitted with special rockets.
The night after my father’s funeral the lights in the entire city went out for three hours. As we sat around in my mother’s kitchen talking by candlelight my boys told us the blackout was caused by Granda who may have fused the electrics while he was fixing the central heating in heaven, much like he often did at home.
And my brother’s beautiful newborn son made a guest appearance at the funeral. It was quite moving to see a child starting off on life’s path being part of the final journey of his grandfather. It was quite overwhelming, yet still beautiful, to be a first-hand witness to the juxtaposition of life and death.
And despite the sombre proceedings there were a few lighter moments too. I discovered that Bishop Edward Daly is a huge fan of this very column (I swear I shall never again take the Lord’s name in vain) as is President Mary McAleese, who wrote a beautiful personal letter to my Mum a few days after the funeral after she read about my Dad in this very paper.
While standing outside our house I saw my uncle, who had just returned from Las Vegas, lighting people’s cigarettes with a lighter shaped like a naked lady who shot a double flame from – lets just say incase the Bish is reading this – the area around her cleavage.
All in all it was the week from hell. My family have been living under a dark cloud for the past few months with my Dad’s illness. Some day soon the sun will shine through.
My father was laid to rest after three days which passed in a blur of tea, sandwiches and sympathy. Hundreds of people came to our house, hundreds more called and emailed. It was wonderful to see how much a positive impact my Dad made on so many people’s lives.
It was a week which saw my children introduced to death for the first time. It wasn’t something I had intended to do, but we tried to make the whole process as natural and as normal as possible.
And the kids – mine, my brothers and sister’s kids – were like little rays of sunshine in what were some really dark days.
As we walked towards my parent’s house on the morning of the funeral my boys pointed out a rainbow which seemed to arch perfectly over their home – starting in the front garden and ending in the back. Granda made that, they said.
When I showed them Granda laid out in the wake house I heard Daniel tell his younger brother that the coffin would bring him to heaven. Caolan asked his older, wiser sibling about the logistics and practicalities of how exactly the coffin would fly to heaven his brother informed him that it had been fitted with special rockets.
The night after my father’s funeral the lights in the entire city went out for three hours. As we sat around in my mother’s kitchen talking by candlelight my boys told us the blackout was caused by Granda who may have fused the electrics while he was fixing the central heating in heaven, much like he often did at home.
And my brother’s beautiful newborn son made a guest appearance at the funeral. It was quite moving to see a child starting off on life’s path being part of the final journey of his grandfather. It was quite overwhelming, yet still beautiful, to be a first-hand witness to the juxtaposition of life and death.
And despite the sombre proceedings there were a few lighter moments too. I discovered that Bishop Edward Daly is a huge fan of this very column (I swear I shall never again take the Lord’s name in vain) as is President Mary McAleese, who wrote a beautiful personal letter to my Mum a few days after the funeral after she read about my Dad in this very paper.
While standing outside our house I saw my uncle, who had just returned from Las Vegas, lighting people’s cigarettes with a lighter shaped like a naked lady who shot a double flame from – lets just say incase the Bish is reading this – the area around her cleavage.
All in all it was the week from hell. My family have been living under a dark cloud for the past few months with my Dad’s illness. Some day soon the sun will shine through.
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