Today I will go to see my son play football for the first time!
Way back in April, hubby was telling me how much our boy wanted to play football this year. I had my doubts … doubts that our son was the one who wanted to play football. You see hubby loves football! He played in high school. When we met, and were first married, he coached high school football for about seven years. And, he loved it, and he was good!
But, our son … although he physically looks like a clone of hubby, and his mannerisms endorse that cloning possibility, his interests tend to be different from his dads. And, I was really not feeling confident that it was our son who was understanding of the level of commitment and physical exertion that would be required to play on a football team.
I was pretty sure that dad was hoping to live vicariously through son.
But, I was so wrong!
Although he is not yet twelve, and one of the youngest players on his team. He has been practicing three hours a week, since later June. And now that the game season has begun, practice hours are at four and a half, plus games. And he cannot wait to get to a single practice! And he watches the clock, so that he can be ready to go. And he comes home, totally exhausted, saying it was great (even when he gets knocked onto his behind regularly). And he loves his coach. And he loves playing with the guys.
And … he loves that it is just he and his dad :), because his dad, is also one of the coaches on the team.
His dad, more than genetic material, and disciplinarian, and caregiver … is his greatest hero. It is his dad whose opinion matters most to him, It is his dad whose every word, every step he watches, and tries to emulate. Even though their personalities are so different, he knows that it is in his dads heart and life, that he can see his own future.
In the past couple of years, as adolescence has been rearing it’s head, I have been silently mourning the loss of MY little boy. But, this summer, as I see the bond of father and son developing more strongly, more tightly, I am mourning less and celebrating more.
I can love my son tenderly and I can be the first to receive hugs from him (and wonderful bear hugs they are), but I cannot give to him the one thing he needs most … a model of what it is to be a man, and a model of what it is to be a man after God’s heart. It is in the model of who my hubby is, and wants to be, that our son can see hope for his own future, as he grows into manhood.
I am so thankful for the dad my son (and daughters) has. I know he will have the courage and wisdom to coach our son from the experiences (positive and negative) that he has had so far. And, he will also have the wisdom to tackle him into a bear hug, through the years to come.
And I will willingly sit in the bleaches, cheering them on, as he and our son grow and learn together.
I was in a shopping mall, doing a little shopping for a few little trinkets to bring home to my kids (okay, trinkets might be the wrong word … it just has connotations of a grandmother who is obsessive compulsive about little ornaments and ‘do-dads’, and her house is littered with them … providing ample opportunity to spend hours each week dusting, polishing and moving from place to place … but, I digress), when, all of a sudden I got an urge to pee (and, anyone who has given birth knows that an urge like that only means one thing … making it to the bathroom on time is like living with a ticking time bomb … never knowing just when, or how cataclysmic the explosion might be).
wearing pants, and the other a dress, I fought to not allow my fear of the unknown get to me. I needed to maintain my composure and dignity, and not go off running through the mall like a maniac, yelling ‘I gotta pee, where do I go to go?’
All joking aside, it is a commandment … the fifth (Exodus 20:12), as a matter of fact it says, “to honor your mother and your father, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” Now I don’t know what land God is giving to me … I have moved a few times, and I expect there are a few more moves to come. But I am not sure that ‘land’ in this context necessarily means land. I think that maybe it means place, location, culture, context … family.
As I was getting myself ready, I took all the essentials out of my bathroom cupboard, to ensure that I hit all body parts that needed morning attention. You know: toothbrush and toothpaste for the teeth (and for everyone around me), antiperspirant for the pits (and for everyone around me), brush for the mop of unmanageable hair, body spray for a pleasant scent, and hairspray to keep every hair in place.
was walking towards me with a look that said, ‘you are so pathetic, Mom.’ And yes, it is true, I was cheering like a banshee … for someone who was not my daughter. In the texted words of my older daughter, just moments later, “face palm.”
Finally, after ten months of school, and then spending June and July working at a second job, I am able to really enjoy my garden!
Yesterday I spent the day in the garden. I was pruning, and mowing, and trimming, and watering, and weeding, and feeding. It was glorious! I got filthy dirty (I do not even seem to be able to water my flowers without getting dirty), and used muscles that ached the next day (heck, they ached as they were being used), and not one minute of it seemed like work.
color they are, until finally they open up to reveal the beauty within. And oh, how I love to see the springtime buds on the grapevine, emerge into tendrils that reach far from where they began, to be followed by the minute clusters of ‘baby grapes’ that, like a newborn baby, grow bigger every day of summer, until they are finally mature, and ready to be tasted.
My garden is where I am Mother Nature, and my goal is to protect everything I love within my garden … it is truly a place where I am a mother hen figure. But, I am sadly not able to protect my green ‘babies’ all of the time.
This weight loss stuff is quite the journey … really more like a slow motion video than a journey. Back in January I began this process (no, this was not a New Years Resolution, it was more of a response to the fact that my hubby was dropping pounds like my beast drops poo! So I figured I better keep up with his fine example … it might have also been in response to that ‘sweety’ at church who said, “so have you been finding all that weight your husband has been losing?” … deep breaths … deep breaths … deep breaths! But, I digress).
itsawonderfilledlife 