You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Watching something and wondering if this is the last time you will ever see it again.
I wrote this sentence July 2013.
“Hey you being anti social?” one dad asked me with a laugh from the edge of the track.
That dad screamed that at me 15 months ago. I was being anti social. I was nowhere the other parents. I was sitting close to the playing field. I was watching my son. I was concerned.
15 months ago, I remember the horrible feeling of dread. While the other parents stood around the track talking nonsensical parent talk, I was sitting Indian style on the edge of the field.
15 months ago; my Soccer Hope was fleeting.
Anti social? At the time, I could barely acknowledge the question. I was feeling SO sick to my stomach.
15 months ago, I could feel Soccer Hope fleeting like air seeping out of an old birthday balloon.
I am a dad. I can’t fix tendons that are sore? I am a dad. I can’t relax muscles that are stretched to the breaking point during an absurd growth spurt that would make the Jolly Green Giant wince.
I am a dad. I am a sad dad. That was my feeling 15 months ago.
After a lifetime of being a soccer dad, taking soccer for granted, thinking it would always be there, Suddenly it was gone.
Like so much breath lost from a birthday balloon, my soccer afternoons were over.
Soccer was my constant. Through good days and bad, soccer was always there.
Years of watching in the heat, in the rain, in the snow, now over.
Years of thrilling wins, and heartbreaking losses from Atlanta to Kentucky, gone like vapor whistling from a teapot.
15 months is a long time in the growth spurt of a teenager.
Last night, the thrill returned.
It was only a practice. It was only a pick up game. It was only an indoor scrimmage.
But for me, it was a return to something I love.
I am at the indoor soccer arena on a Saturday night.
My son, now 15 months older is on the artificial turf banging the ball off the wall. He’s 15 months behind the other boys who have played non-stop.
Have his talents atrophied in 15 months? Probably. How could they not?
I am eager to see how he plays. I am antsy as he runs, stops suddenly like a car wreck and slides across the synthetic grass like a runner breaking up a double play.
I am a seismometers of emotion as I quietly crush my cell phone in my hand.
Get up I think to myself. Just get up without a limp, please.
He does.
I never use to worry when he went down. Now, I’m worried all the time.
I watch as he races across the arena. I am sky high as he strips the ball from a year round player, and starts the action the other way.
I am nervous when he slips awkwardly, his new indoor shoes not giving him the traction promised on the box. He gets up again. No obvious sign of pain.
Thank God.
Then I watch the speed.
I forgot about the speed.
I watch him chase down a kid and knock the ball away with a toe poke.
I wonder, is that kid slow, or is my kid still fast?
That’s when I hear the words that are Christmas music to a mall Santa.
“He’s still fast,” a player shouts.
His words rise over the plexi glass and fill my ears with hope renewed.
“He’s still fast.”
I feel a smile in my heart.
My kid’s game was speed and quickly assessing defensive angles.
Ball. Player. Goal. It’s a triangle of angles.
Pick a line and intersect that line.
It’s the geometric reality of defense.
Some kids don’t have it. Some kids do.
But to intersect the line, to make the play, you need speed.
If my kid is fast, then maybe he can still play, I silently think.
“You hear what that kid said,” I whisper to my friend. “Kid said he’s still fast. That’s telling.”
In that moment, 15 months of worry about knees that are always sore float away. In one kid’s yell I feel hope filling life’s birthday balloon.
I watch my boy run with speed with agility.
“He looks pretty good,” I say in a whisper.
“If you didn’t tell me he was hurt, I wouldn’t have known,” my friend says.
She’s right.
Just then, he toe pokes the ball from a year round kid, dips, dodges, and streaks into the scoring zone.
The ball clings to his new shoe.
Bang.
The ball rips off the back of the net.
The goalie is clutching at air.
I watch my kid skip back to the center of the field.
He is smiling. I can’t remember him ever smiling prior to the injury.
A smile?
Not ever.
Even when he was 7 years old scoring 11 goals in a game, he played like a German industrialist taking over a rival company.
Cold. Emotionless. All business.
He use to play like an assassin, cool and calculated.
He always told us he loved the game . He was a natural talent. But I always wondered. Was it too easy?
Did Picasso like to paint, or did he need to paint?
I’m not saying the kid is a virtuoso. He is not.
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Is this what I am witnessing?
I look through the thick plexiglass and I see the kid seek me out in the crowd.
My friend smiles and flashes him a thumbs up.
Pre injury, he wouldn’t have even looked. Pre injury, he wouldn’t have smiled. Pre injury he wouldn’t have reacted.
Pre-injury? He was Jason Bourne with an icicle for a heart. He had the emotional detachment of Dick Cheney on a hunting trip.
But now, 15 months later, he is a kid with a spark.
He smiles back and flashes us two thumbs up.
I haven’t seen a smile and a thumbs up from this soccer kid since he voted in the last Iraqi election.
I don’t even know what that means.
As I watch him prance up the field I suddenly see hope renewed.
15 months ago, I was upset.
These are my words as the coach 15 months ago approached me during a water break.
“Hi I’m the coach. Whose dad are you?”
A million thoughts dance through my mind. I’m so sad I can’t stand it. I want to scream. I’m the dad of the kid limping across your field. I’m the dad of the kid who once upon a time use to score 11 goals a game. I’m the dad of the kid who use to spring like a cheetah to a spot that only he saw before the ball even got there making a defensive play that was artistic cat burglary.
That was 15 months ago.
Tonight, I see a kid with a smile. I see a kid running without pain. I see a kid who loves the game, not like an assassin, but like a kid who missed 15 months.
Soccer Hope renewed.
Life’s Crazy™