Back to School

Tomorrow is the start of the spring term.It hurts saying that as Kieron died at the end of the spring term last year.
Today should have been 'buying school shoes' day. I used to coerce Kieron into coming with me as it generally also involved sweets or a comic once shoes were bought or the spending of what was left of his Christmas money.
In earlier years, Kieron's big brother came too and they would nag me until I let them go into the computer games shop. They would spend ages working out the best deals and Kieron would let Callum decide what to get and hand over his financial contribution. Kieron would carry their purchases as he thought it was cool to walk around the town with a bag advertising the fact that they had bought PS2 or in later years, Xbox games.
Off to the shoe shop and the battle would start..
'I want those ones that look like trainers'
'you can't have those'
'WHY?'
'because they look like trainers and you might get in trouble at school'
'Kyle wears trainers to school'
'well you're not Kyle and you're not having those. How about these ones with velcro?'
'only kids have velcro, I want laces'
'they haven't got your size in lace ups so it'll have to be velcro for now and it's quicker to get them on and off anyway'
'okaaaaaaaay' (mouth turned down in defeat).
Battle fought and won, we head home. The games are unwrapped en route and the debris litters the car amongst admonishments to take the rubbish indoors and to put it in the bin. There were always stray bits of wrappings left in the rear footwell despite my request, but that's what kids are about.
Run indoors, new shoes left in the hall still in their bag, an obstacle for everyone to fall over and a race upstairs to try out the latest purchase. Demands to move them unheeded. Not out of malice, but out of the knowledge that mum 'expects' to fall over the new shoes.
Today I went in a shoe shop, I saw size 5 school shoes and tears filled my eyes. If only Kieron was here for me to buy him shoes...with gold plated laces.