I woke up this morning like any other day, not realizing at first that today is actually a special day. This evening, my husband and I will suit up in team colors for my younger stepson’s very last home high school football game.
I have the schedule posted on our refrigerator, so I don’t know how this fact escaped me until I was getting ready for work this morning. My husband and I were joking around, messing around, like we do every morning as we get ready for the day, and he mentioned the game tonight. I told him I think tonight is the last home game, and then it really hit me: it’s not just the last home game of this season. It’s the last home game, period.
My stepson is a senior, so this is his last year playing for this team. (He deserves better, anyway, since this team’s roster is full of inflated egos, drama kings, and big mouths not backed up with substantive talent.)
Even so, it’s just odd to know this will be our last drive to this school’s stadium for a game. This will our last time finding our seats, the last time our butts will warm the bleachers, our last half-time, the last time we will pack up our seat cushions after the game and climb down the steps to head home.
It’s sad, actually, because my stepson hasn’t played in weeks, thanks to a knee injury. This is not what any of us imagined for his senior year of playing football.
For some reason, after the doctor prescribed physical therapy, it took nearly two weeks for any meaningful action to be taken to schedule that first session. Personally, if he lived with us, I would have called that same day to schedule his first session, because it’s important. I suppose not everyone’s priorities are the same as mine, though. As it is, since nothing has gotten better since that doctor appointment weeks ago (surprise, surprise), he won’t be playing the rest of the season.
It’s not the same when he’s not playing. I love football, but our favorite player is on the sidelines, with no hope of returning to the field. On top of that, I know he is upset and disappointed, and there’s just not a whole lot I can do to help him with that.
Tonight’s game will be odd, just knowing that everything we do is the last time we will do it, at least at this stadium. Of course I knew this day would come, had years to prepare for it, so why does it seem like it sneaked up on me and blindsided me?
Sweat & Sparkle 