Waiting

Waiting ©

By Michael Casey

Waiting, we all wait, for this for that and for anything else in between; we may have even suffered Waiting For Godot while at grammar school, which is ten times worse than double Latin on a Friday afternoon, two hours of Latin, I know I was that man. Waiting they say is good for the soul, wait for your exam results, wait for the bus to come, waiting for the girl to give in. All sorts of waiting, each of which brings out  all sorts of emotions, how could waiting have so much power over us? Are we impatient?  Do we want things now, are we the now generation?

We are the Internet Generation, my girls ask me questions and I try my best but if I don’t know I direct them to Google, “dad you are our Google” is what they say, as usually I do have some answer. Waiting for the postman to bring news from  some foreign field, each letter treasured, then one day it’s not a letter but a telegram, a dreaded telegram, a telegram means death. Sadly all over the world this is still what’s going on, death in a letter, then waiting for the pension, waiting waiting waiting; sons can go to war but their sacrifice is not recognised, their wives and kids can wait and wait and wait until finally the pension letter arrives. Why did they have to die?

Is something better if you have had to wait? True love, sex, that car, that house, that job, does it taste sweeter if you have had to wait? I remember my cousin’s wife telling me that her husband really treasured their children as marriage and family came late to him, so he loved them all the more. Perhaps fifteen years later, “the urge” as they call it in County Kerry  came knocking on my door, waiting was over I have a family myself, my Irish cousins say I got all my luck in one go, the waiting was over, I have a family, a Shanghai wife and 2 daughters. Now I am forever waiting for them, 3 girls in the house is fun, but you wait a lot for them, waiting while they change or comb their hair, what’s the nursery rhyme? Dan Dan washed his face in the frying pan, combed his hair with a leg of a chair? Well that’s me, but my 3 girls, I’m forever waiting, but at least it’s not as bad as Waiting for Godot.