The Last Game
Wow! What a ride! I feel like I just got off the worlds biggest rollercoaster and I am still woozy! I don't know to laugh or cry. I feel a sense of relief, yet disappointment. I even dream to jump back on. I dare not for my heart may not take another ride!
My son started football as a freshmen boy, and now four years later, a senior, played his last game. He has learned a lot about life; the ups and downs that come without warning. He's learned life isn't always fair. Sometimes you watch life "happen" for others, while on the sidelines wondering what's wrong with me? The sweat and tears. Oh the tears if I had a bottle to catch them all! Tears of joy, disappointments, dropped balls, the what ifs, only ifs, the injury's. The list goes on and on.
My mind wanders back over the years to my own tears and emotions.
In two hours time I was capable of love, hatred, excitement, disappointment and great anxiety! I was a mom all week packing lunches, carpooling, cooking and breaking up fights before school, after school and at the dinner table! Trying to make the home a safe haven for our kids!! ON Friday nights I turned into a screaming, poor sported fan, full of pride.
The first time I sat at a game and screamed I looked around to see who it was, I couldn't believe that noise came out of my mouth. And so it was my glorious life for four years. Kool aid mom during the week, and crazy, screaming fan on Friday nights! A couple times I even thought I'd make a great coach! I always knew what the coach should have done after the play was over!
I ask myself, "Would I do it again?" The answer is most assuredly a YES. I'd do it again and again and again and again! I will never forget the last game. The kids all squished together in a circle of unity, chanting, swaying back and forth holding their helmets up high into the sky. ON this night it came clear to me it wasn't about any one player or position. It didn't matter who started or ended or just watched from the sidelines. This was a family. Sometime, somewhere and somehow, along the way, they became ONE.
Copyright © 2006 Theresa Gober
The ups and downs of kids sports. This is my thoughts on our oldest son's last football game. I learned a lot about myself and what it means to be a "team" not an individual "star" player. My son taught me a lot his last year. We moved him his senior year and he went from a varsity starter to a backup quarterback that sat most nights on the bench. In the end I became a mother of a son that transformed into a man before her eyes, and I learned what it was to be a team player, and not a poor sported football mom!
Share a comment or thought about this story with Us: Email Us
Read additional offerings from Theresa:
Letting Go
The Last Game
The Bully
Lost Sunshine - A Christmas Story