Fingers to the bone

Old Blog - from a year ago, that I revisited tonight. Times are still really hard for my son. We call him once a week when he is working away. He's fitting out a 'Howdens' store somewhere, I've forgotton where. Staying in a B&B/dole hostel and still working 16 hour days on 28 days straight without a day off. In these hard time, his survival instinct makes him perfectly well able to cope. This is what I wrote a year ago,  Froogs xxxx

My son came to visit me on Sunday. I looked at his hands and unknown to him, I wept over those hands when he left.

I'm extremely proud of my boy; I always have been. He was the most beautiful child and after a difficult birth, lay in my arms and clasped his hands together almost as if in prayer. These are the hands that played the piano and the guitar and never dropped a passed rugby ball. These are the hands I held when he needed me and stretched out when he wanted picking up.

These are now the hands of a skilled carpenter who can't get work where he lives so he goes wherever the work is. These are the hands that earn a living to put a roof over his girlfirend's head to support her whilst she finishes university. These are the hands that have fitted out shops, offices, built extensions, put roofs on, laid floors, built kitchens and built his granny's kitchen without payment..........so why did I cry?

As work is so scarce, when he has work; he works sixteen hour days and they are bruised, suffering white finger and shake when he holds cutlery. These are hands, that due to the fragility of the economy can't take a day off when they are in pain, bleeding or scarred. These are the hands of someone who doesn't complain but is grateful for every day's work he can get. These are a contractor's hands who doesn't know where the next job is or where he will lay his head next week. These are the hands on the end of the arms that held his mum tight on mother's day. These are the hands that will be working long after I've gone to bed and carry a takeaway back to a B&B to be eaten in the back of a van long after day.

We so often look at our own lives and the triviality of our own worries and have to remember that there are many hands that ache every day from the toil of just trying to keep a job. So I looked at my son's hands and no matter how proud I am of him, wept for the pain he suffers; just trying to stay in employment in hard economic times.

Love Froogs xxx