Making the Team

I am cutting an onion and squinting into the stinging tears blinding me to my task.  But it feels good.  It matches my mood and I actually welcome the feeling.

We didn’t want, or expect it, but we have received the opportunity to help teach and guide our son through one of the difficult life lessons of overcoming disappointment and adversity.  Given the choice I don’t suppose there is a parent anywhere who would say they would choose to see their child go through these “life lesson” experiences, but then, it isn’t a choice of whether to go through it, typically, it’s a choice of how you decide to navigate through the fallout.

For me, it’s like there is a marble in my brain and it is rolling around in one of those maze games trailing down every path, every wrong turn, every dead end, trying to analyze every minute detail, every angle, every scenario of our current situation, not to place blame or point fingers, but to find some way, any way, to make it not hurt my son.  In the end, though, the marble comes to rest at the natural landing spot, the one that says, there is no way to make it not hurt.  It does.  He is.

Those old enough to have perspective on life, to have survived this type of thing and look back with wisdom and knowledge that time heals, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and you can make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks; those people will say that this type of experience will build character, or light the fire of a competitive spirit, and will turn good athletes great.  But those living in the moment just feel bad.  

Our son didn’t make the team.  We were sick as we faced the task of delivering the news and watching our sweet vulnerable boy experience the sharp pain of rejection, knowing we could do nothing to soften the blow, protect him from the fallout, or preserve his self esteem at the place it lived before.  He is too smart.

Looking into those sharp blue eyes, he called every bluff, he cut through every attempt to cushion the blow.  He got it.  Life isn’t fair, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s going to happen, like it or not. 

Here’s what I have learned. Delivering news to your child that you know will break their heart and crush their brilliant spirit changes a person.  For the first time that I could remember, I couldn’t hold him and say, “It’s OK.” In time it will be OK, but right now, it’s really not OK.  For every way parenting has stretched my emotions beyond anything I thought I could feel, this brought me to a new level, the other darker end of the spectrum of the joy I never knew I could feel until I first laid eyes on my son after he was born, or watched him speak, walk, and run for the first time.  The other side of joy is where I had now traveled.  This new place wasn’t nice, I didn’t enjoy it, but I’m changed because I went there. 

I also know this; my son reacted as I expected, with tears, questions, and heartache.  But my mind reels, and my heart melts at what else I witnessed.  I saw a grace beyond what few adults could hope for in accepting the unexpected news from his dad, I saw a depth of strength to muscle a smile for his mom through chapped tear stained cheeks so that I would feel better, and I glimpsed the man I would one day send into the world to face other unseen adversity, knowing there is more to life than making every team.  I saw someone I am proud of beyond anything words can describe, someone I love with every sense I have, and someone who is already a superstar, not because he made a sports team, but, this time, because he didn’t.