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| image courtesy of pixabay |
It finally feels like fall in North Carolina.
Hurricane Michael has come and gone, and somehow left a bit of crisp air in its wake.
I'm catching up on my DVR, and although I know it's Saturday, my body, mind, and my TV make me feel like it's Sunday.
Because all I'm seeing.
On all the channels?
Is game after game.
Is football.
Although, admittedly, what's airing now is college football, it's football, just the same.
And over much of my life?
Weekends were for football.
On Sundays my dad would sit in front of the TV and we'd watch the Giants play.
Or the Cowboys.
Or the Dolphins. (Fine. That was me.)
Or whoever might have been on the air on that Sunday.
And it never struck me as anything other than what we were supposed to be doing on that particular day. Never struck me as something that would tug at my heart many years (decades!) later.
Weekends were for football.
I started working with a client recently, and though I can't tell you anything about them, they did make mention of playing football in high school.
I immediately flashed to my father.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't.
I didn't tell the client that. Not yet.
I might.
I might not.
That's neither here nor there when it comes to this post - I know.
So.
Back to today.
I sit on the couch.
Watching anything but football as I shuffle through my recorded shows.
And I think, my daughter won't have those same memories.
She won't connect to football in quite the same way.
And then.
I say to myself.
She's only eleven.
There is so so much time.
So much time to share that connection with her.
So much time to show her why football holds so much meaning for me.
Weekends were for football.
And can still - might still - be.
I hope you can find the joy in football again. You're in the South--it's in your face--I'm sure it's not easy. And, if you can find a way to share that joy with your daughter, it will be so special. That's the legacy you can share from father to daughter/mother to daughter.
ReplyDeleteI've been a football mom--my oldest played in high school. I always went to my high school's games when I was a teen. There wasn't as much football on TV when I was a kid compared to now, but we caught the Eagles when we could. Sadly, I didn't go in college when I had free tickets; I worked every Saturday. Then, after college, I was dating my now-husband, and football became life. He's a die-hard Giants fan. His uncle had season tickets to the Redskins, so we'd get one game per season. We went to college games. Watched football on TV. I think our first party as a married couple was a Superbowl party. All three of our boys love football, and they each root for a different team.
It's so embarrassing, but in the beginning, my husband would refuse to go anywhere on football days. We missed parties and other events. He'll go now, grudgingly.
The four years my son played, we followed the team to all of the stadiums to watch him play. I even became the football team mom senior year--I asked the coach a question about team dinners and in an email he listed me as the team mom. lol.
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