It's been more than a month of Sundays since my Father's passing. I use Sunday as reference because no matter what time of year it is one big sporting event or another is always happening on a Sunday. Obviously, this time of year, the focus on Sundays is the WNBA and Premier League Soccer. I'm kidding of course, thankfully that's never the focus. The focus is football, just as God intended. Football was always a bonding event in the Fun With Cancer Family. When I was little my Dad and I used to go to local high school games on Friday, UMaine football games on Saturday and then rush home from church on Sunday to make giant plates of nachos and watch the NFL. In the years since I moved away I don't think there was a single Fall Sunday that my Dad and I didn't talk at length about the games that week. Six Sundays have since passed without that conversation.
This last weekend, while laying on the couch half-asleep, feeling like death warmed over from my most recent chemo infusion, I was roused from my slumber by my cell phone. In one of those barely-awake-where-am-I states I checked the caller ID expecting it to read: DAD CELL. It took me a moment to place myself and my circumstances. Then another moment to compose myself upon remembering. After I got off the phone it occurred to me, football may never again have the same meaning to me.
I've learned far too many life lessons thanks to football for it to not hold a special place in my heart. Like the first time my folks dropped me off for a Police Athletic League game and my Dad stopped me as I climbed out of the car. He looked me square in the eye and said "Son, win or don't bother coming home." Or when I went to shake hands with the opposing team and he shouted "Sportsmanship is for losers!" Okay, he never said either of those things. That was Mom. She can't help it. She gets competitive when she drinks whiskey. From the bottle. You should have heard her at my Sisters softball games. The little girls would be in tears.
I can't imagine that football's importance in my life will go the way of the Olympics. A sporting event I once loved as a child and now cannot sit through more than a few seconds worth. All of my Olympic memories were based on the Cold War. Once that ended the US beating a third world country in a sport that I wouldn't bother to learn even the most basic rules of started to feel like a waste of time. Except the figure skating and the rhythmic gymnastics. I always break out my sequined tights and homemade scorecards for those two events. It's the pageantry that gets me. No, my football memories are not attached to international politics. They are attached to my youth and my Father. Those memories do not fade so quickly.
I feel as if I am now without a football season. Sure, the games are still going on but I am having trouble bringing myself to care. The thought crossed my mind that it may be years before they matter to me again. When my Lovely Girlfriend and I eventually have children perhaps then I will be able to share those same moments with my son (or daughter that I'm raising as a boy). Until then I'll keep watching but it won't be the same. Only my Mother's angry drunken rants will remind me of the days gone by.
This last weekend, while laying on the couch half-asleep, feeling like death warmed over from my most recent chemo infusion, I was roused from my slumber by my cell phone. In one of those barely-awake-where-am-I states I checked the caller ID expecting it to read: DAD CELL. It took me a moment to place myself and my circumstances. Then another moment to compose myself upon remembering. After I got off the phone it occurred to me, football may never again have the same meaning to me.
I've learned far too many life lessons thanks to football for it to not hold a special place in my heart. Like the first time my folks dropped me off for a Police Athletic League game and my Dad stopped me as I climbed out of the car. He looked me square in the eye and said "Son, win or don't bother coming home." Or when I went to shake hands with the opposing team and he shouted "Sportsmanship is for losers!" Okay, he never said either of those things. That was Mom. She can't help it. She gets competitive when she drinks whiskey. From the bottle. You should have heard her at my Sisters softball games. The little girls would be in tears.
I can't imagine that football's importance in my life will go the way of the Olympics. A sporting event I once loved as a child and now cannot sit through more than a few seconds worth. All of my Olympic memories were based on the Cold War. Once that ended the US beating a third world country in a sport that I wouldn't bother to learn even the most basic rules of started to feel like a waste of time. Except the figure skating and the rhythmic gymnastics. I always break out my sequined tights and homemade scorecards for those two events. It's the pageantry that gets me. No, my football memories are not attached to international politics. They are attached to my youth and my Father. Those memories do not fade so quickly.
I feel as if I am now without a football season. Sure, the games are still going on but I am having trouble bringing myself to care. The thought crossed my mind that it may be years before they matter to me again. When my Lovely Girlfriend and I eventually have children perhaps then I will be able to share those same moments with my son (or daughter that I'm raising as a boy). Until then I'll keep watching but it won't be the same. Only my Mother's angry drunken rants will remind me of the days gone by.
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