I love you...fight hard

He leaned on me, and sighed. His red rain boot played with the chair in front of him. The little boy in the corduroy overalls and striped shirt asked “Why, why Aunt Tracy only an hour? Who makes this rule and why do we have to listen? They aren’t the boss, right? “He was mad, and he had a right to be, and he desperately needed someone on his side, someone on his team to ag...ree with this injustice. Been there? I placed my hand over his and we sat in silence-in this aspect we were perfectly paired, both of us content to figure “it” out in heads until we trusted our words, or maybe it was…the words were” too big” and we knew people might make “too little” of them with their answers or solutions. 

 We watched the girls score a basket and everyone cheered them on..and another sigh. “Aunt Tracy, they are still not going to win..look at the score.” I went to reply with the standard winning’s not everything and stopped myself. Wasn’t that the game I had been playing…isn’t that what I had fooled myself into thinking. Yes. I had supposed that if I could get enough people to join my team, to hear my injustices-To grab their pitch forks and join my angry crowd (think Little House on the Prairie for me here) that everything would work out and I would win-I would win!

  I played this game long and hard-- for so long-determined that I would be victorious to save the little people I loved, one of them sitting right beside me holding my hand…for a long time. Battle wounds, scares had incurred, the inside kind. Relationships had been lost or altered…but the game continued. I had the hardest time getting anyone..someone to join my team! I would win! I would conquer or plow you down in the meantime.

 The day came…someone joined my team. All my persistence and recruiting had paid off and I just knew that I was going to win now.
Winning felt so different that I had imagined, not at all like I had planned. I looked down at the small boy still holding my hand and knew…there wasn’t a winner-no valiant warrior. No, only hurting people, broken hurting people. I was one…the small boy beside me was certainly one..and the other team..my completion was broken-completely shattered. I didn’t expect the empty shell and far away looks, I didn’t expect that I would care so much about the other opponents…but I did and I do-horribly. I had expected my emotions to be those of victory and redemption..and they were, mixed with despair and fear of the unknown plays, strategies and positions that laid ahead of us all on the court.

 I said it then…”buddy, winning’s not everything”, they played a good game, and everyone’s learning. We cheer them all on. Even the other team…I now stand and cheer them-that other team, with everything that’s within me I need them to play hard, rise up from their broken smoldering ruins-and play hard. They score board has been against them for so long. Everyone in the stands is counting on them to make a comeback.

  I’m hoping we can be on the same team now, I’m hoping to win-winning is everything in this next round. I knew it, and he knew it…

 After the game is over, my daughter’s team shook hands with the opposing team some of them said good game. Me? I locked eyes this afternoon with my opposing team member and hugged her shaking frame..and whispered in her ear.. “I love You, fight hard.”