You want your kids to be happy. Happy good humans that’s it really. There’s other stuff of course, of course, but really that’s as much as I’m asking for. Not to say that this is easy it’s not. It’s really, really relentless hard work, and often the reward is no reward. It can turn even the most pure person into the Grinch who stole childhood.
But occasionally they’ll do something that is so edifying and so fantastic that you’re moved. The best ones are the small ones, the unrequested please or thank you or maybe an act of kindness toward another person. You might think they’re few and far between, it can be easy to think they’re the one-offs and they might be, but it’s nicer to think that the ones you see are what’s really what and that they happen all the time.
Last month there was a bad car crash on the main route to school, thankfully not a bad one in terms of people and no one was seriously injured, but it happened at a key junction. The vehicles involved came to rest in, what I’m told was, an unfortunate arrangement and were sufficiently jammed together that it wasn’t going to be a short job to uncomplicate them and open the road.
The outcome was that the school buses could not make it to school and therefore were unable to pick up their precious precious cargo and deposit those delightful cherubs where they might. So, my child and her friend decided they’d set off walking. It’s not a huge distance, but it’s not inconsiderable either, 6 miles according to The Google. I set off in the car to get as close to the road closure as I could manage and save their teenage legs from the trauma of being used.
Weirdly, the roads were not chock-a-bloc with traffic as I had expected, but I decided I’d go the secret back way, which was, of course choc-a-bloc. The road between Halifax and Burnley is a busy one and has a lot of tiny rat runs, if you can face the cobbles and steep inclines.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I was able to track Child 1 as she and her friend made it quite the distance really and I came out of a tiny and ‘not suitable for road vehicles’ but clearly suitable for vehicles as there were many, side road.
I stopped, taxi in a movie doing a chase style, and parked sensibly and invisibly by engaging my hazard warning lights. Far from it being Child 1 and school friend, it was Child 1 and school friends. “Hey, my dad will take you home,” child 1 said to the group, and in they piled. Now, I’m going to say it was child 1 and three friends because that is how many seats I have in my car. The boot can take 2 people if they lay down, but never with the car moving or in fact ever, officer.
Making it back to Halifax was trickier as the main road was chock-a-bloc this time and there was no route back on the rat run I had used as though it is/isn’t suitable for motor vehicles it’s definitely only suitable one way. So, we went via Lud Foot. Anyone from the general area will know that means stupidly steep hills on cobbles. In addition, I was behind a newly qualified driver. The green L plate was visible to me, but not to the absolute prick in the pick-up truck behind me who loved his horn as much as his toxic masculinity.
It was a traumatic return, the NQD wanting more space than was available and giving way far too much, combined with pick-up man on a mission made it tricky to maintain my composure. It would have been made worse if I’d had two school kids in the boot illegally as well as the four up front so it’s handy that I didn’t. They all chatted about a teacher they disliked, bonding over how little that teacher knew and how the children themselves could teach the subject better – I bit my lip.
After much go and wait and maneuvering we started to make progress, but the going was slow. We eventually made it back to Halifax and I was directed to ‘generally my house’ by a very polite teen in the front. They all piled out saying a variety of thank yous and I think one of them called me a lifesaver, but I’m too modest to say.
Cargo of well-organised teenage bones and flesh deposited somewhere near their homes Niamh jumped into the front seat and I sprung on this chance to bond over a chat and asked “Who were they?” “No idea” she replied as she put her headphones on turned the music to 11 and stared out of the window.
“And how did that make you feel?” Asked the therapist.
“Amazing” I said.