it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Hut one, Hut two, Hike! The love of Football!

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Hut one, Hut two, Hike! The love of Football!: Sunday  evening, I found myself in downtown Charlotte, along with Franklin, Walker and Addie.  The kids were attending their "first Ste...

Hut one, Hut two, Hike! The love of Football!

Sunday  evening, I found myself in downtown Charlotte, along with Franklin, Walker and Addie.  The kids were attending their "first Steeler game."  In our family, it was like a Baptism. 

But as I posted our black and gold garb on Facebook, I felt a little dirty.  For two weeks, the nation was horrified with the NFL.  Many were announcing their deflection from football.

I cannot do it.  I cannot leave football. It is more than a game to me.  

When I was young, long before the Steelers were the six time Super Bowl Champs, they were the chumps.

I would ask my dad for something and he would respond, "as soon as this quarter is over."  When you are young, fifteen minutes is eternal.  When it is "fifteen minutes in football land", it is eternal.

So one day, Crazy Russell said, "sit down and learn this.  It is about math, you need all the help you can.  It is about 10 yards and getting 10 yards as fast as you can.  You know football, and you will get a boyfriend."  I didn't get a boyfriend out of it but I did get more.

I can still hear the sound of the oven door opening with a pot roast or pork roast being slid into the oven.  When you heard that sound, it meant one thing...We were going to church and the roast was for halftime.

Football Sunday, and the Steelers became about family.  And food.  Let's not forget the food.  Where were we going to watch the game and what were we eating.  We would track on over to my mamaw's...TV's upstairs and down.

After Terry Bradshaw showed up in Pittsburgh, things really changed.  We wore Steeler shirts, knew the players and the numbers and my Uncle Bernard bought season tickets to the games.  Was it wrong that we secretly prayed that other family members would get sick so your turn to go would come faster?  

And, after a Super Bowl win, we didn't have school.  We got the day off.  How cool was that?

And then I became a Mountaineer.  About the time they started to win.  Again, game day became, "who was I going with, what was I wearing and what were we doing afterward."  It was an event.  

It was about belonging to something, routing for victory, and memories.

As I grew older and graduated from college, my football Saturday's were at some one's house or they at mine routing on the WVU Mountaineers. 

And Sundays, The Steelers.  

In between those two days were phone calls.  I would call my mamaw or my mom during the games, my uncle, whomever, and we would discuss plays, coaches and players. Football was one thing that made us closer and a reason to talk.

I married a man who could care less about football.  He doesn't know a "holding in the backfield call" but he loves food.  He knows he is guaranteed a great meal on Sundays when the Steelers are televised.  And he loves watching my son sit there with me cheering and stumping, celebrating or cussing.

I do feel like the entire lineup listens to me from my home, telepathically, and I also feel a personal connection to them.

And maybe that is where the sting came from.

I hate the Ravens. If you are a true Steeler fan, you are supposed to.  I understand though, that those Ravens fans feel the same about their players as I do mine.

The scene in the elevator was sad. Sad.  Sad all the way around.

But instantly, a nation went crazy.  The head of the NFL should resign, Mr. Rice was out of a job and endorsements, Mrs. Rice was the topic on every talk show and people couldn't quit talking about it.

Is it because we scream and yell and wear their numbers on our backs that make us feel personally let down or repulsed when they make poor decisions?   

Why is it that the mayor of DC can get caught with a prostitute while smoking crack in a hotel room and nobody calls for resignation and later, runs again and wins?

The former Governor of SC disappears to Argentina to see his young lover but tells the people of SC that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail and everyone goes about their business?  Later, he gives a press conference that humiliated him but he runs again and almost wins?

Why do other people and their actions get dismissed but athletes do not?

People leave season tickets in their wills.  Nobody ever leaves tickets to the  next gubernatorial debate in their wills.  Why is that?

Athletes endorse anything and everything.  Do we really believe that they use Head and Shoulders?  

Why aren't politician endorsing products?  Aren't they credible?  Why don't we believe the people we elect but believe the athletes that can jump high and fast?  Is it because we are in awe of their abilities?

Somebody saw the tape from the elevator.  That was there job.  They came into work everyday and watched the tape from elevators in the morning. Most likely, it was the first thing they did.  Somebody saw the tape.  Somebody say the incident with Mr. Rice. Somebody saw it and somebody didn't tell.  And that was their job.  I wonder why they didn't tell? 

Joe Paterno went to his grave without seeing anything, but was told about something, and all hell broke lose.

As a nation, we forgive those who represent us in government, on our tax paying dimes but athletes, it is the other way around.  Personally, I feel like we should be more harsh with our leaders and those who are elected to be our voices.

I can not give up on football.  Next weekend, the NFL will bring out the pink.  Love the Pink.  Love the support of Breast Cancer Awareness.  Love the monies that players have raised for their causes.  Love the good.  There is good.  

Love the memories that football has brought to my home.  Love my son looking at me Sunday night and saying, "this is best night of my life", immediately following a complete pass from Ben.

I love that my family gets up on Sunday and discusses the "football menu" and comes together to cheer.  I love that sometimes we are furious with calls and lazy runs and filled with disappointments.  But, just like in life, we get up and go back and do it again the next Sunday. 


It is okay that people speak out and show their discontent with players and poor decisions.  They should.  It is America.  And we all have the right.  We need to understand that it is a right because of freedom, not because we "own" the right because they play football.  And we should teach children, good lessons and bad.  That will help them learn.

But, I am not giving up on football.  Maybe it is a bit selfish, but football has given me too much.  I am not willing to let it go.  In three weeks, I am going to Morgantown with three of my best friends to celebrate friendships over 30 years, all centered around football.

For forty years I have been watching and cheering on men with shoulder pads and helmets.
I have seen hundreds of players, some stand out, some do not. Most went on to do other things, some did not.  But quite a few, went on stand for and stand up for many fabulous causes.  Autism, Childhood Cancer, Literacy, just to name a few.  Too many men, along with their wives, have done too many great things to make me get rid of my terrible towel.


Doesn't matter what you do for a living, be the best  person you can be to yourself and others at all times. 

It is Thursday night.  Game night.  

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: For the Love of Sunflowers

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: For the Love of Sunflowers: When I was a young girl, my sperm donor dad, planted the most majestic sunflowers ever. They were always on top row of his garden.  Mammot...

For the Love of Sunflowers

When I was a young girl, my sperm donor dad, planted the most majestic sunflowers ever.

They were always on top row of his garden.  Mammoth.  The peeked through the hill when you came around the corner.  We used to ride our bikes on the path and we you came up the path, there they were.  I loved them.  I loved seeing them.  My dad would always take my picture with me standing by a flower.

When the situation with the "button" was in full throttle, one day, in church, Pastor Ed spoke about seeds.  I love to garden.  Love it.  Never really acknowledged the seed.  I was more focused on the flower.

He spoke about the seed being hard and tough.  But, as tough as it was, it had to break. It had to be buried beneath sunshine and water.  The seed was planted underground and waited for sunshine and water to make it crack open the seed, literally break the seed and let the new growth sprout forward.

My daughter was with me that day in church.  She held my hand during the sermon.  I think she knew what was going to happen next.

I was as low as low could get.  I was a broken as I could be.  My family was broken.  So was my son.  Broken.

We left the church parking lot and bolted to my favorite Dollar General.  I bought EVERY sunflower seed packet they at the Dollar General, any variety and 100 plastic cups.  I got home, filled those cups with potting soil and put those seeds in the cups.  And waited.

The wait seemed forever.



Walker took this picture.  I became hopeful once again.

I planted sunflowers everywhere I could.

They smiled at me.  They reminded me that broken things can yield beautiful things.

You just had to have hope.
And faith.  And patience.  And a Dollar General.



About a year ago, my friend got a promotion.  A well deserved promotion.  Some very loyal coworkers sent her a bouquet of sunflowers.  They were lovely.  She loved them.  She showed them to me and asked me "do you think I can save the seeds?"  

"Yes."  But of course I took the opportunity to ask her for some seeds.  She delivered the goods.

I planted them.  They grew and they were amazing.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, the holiday weekend was greeted with a hurricane.  It blew, rained, and howled.  My sunflowers, my lovely sunflowers, from my friend's seeds, her sunflowers, got knocked over.

While I was lamenting over the sunflowers, she called me.  "I just wanted to make sure that you are ok...I know it is bad your way."  

"I am fine.  I am just pissed.  Your sunflowers got knocked over."

"My sunflowers?"

"yes, your seeds, remember?"

"You planted them?"

"Yes, I planted them, of course I planted them."  "Let me send you a picture."

"Ok, are you crazy?  You could lose your roof or have a tree fall down on your house and you are worried about sunflowers?" 

Yep.

I did.  

The next morning, I got up, and got the stalk back in the ground, secured it with a stake and sent her another picture.  I was determined to keep these sunflowers, my friend's sunflowers, alive.

Today, I said "see you later" to her.  She starts her big battle with cancer.  

It kicked my heart.  A couple of times.  I love her.  And when I look at "her" sunflowers, I just want to smile.  I have already plucked the heads and stashed the seeds.  About the time her battle is winding down, the flowers should bloom next year.

My dear friend Joyce, one of my favorite people in the world, called me last week.  We only discussed zinnias, sunflowers, gourds and pumpkins.  We are obsessed.  She too has had a three year battle with being sick.  She is blossoming.

Last year Joyce could not even drive, this year she is Mary Mary.  

Even my dear friend Shelia, a cancer warrior, planted sunflowers this year.

At the corner of a major intersection where I live, they always plant flowers in the summer.  This year, I noticed they plowed the field and resowed.  I knew, as soon as they started sprouting...they had planted the biggest field of sunflowers.

This week, they bloomed.  The field is amazing.

My dear friend Candida, who was the broken of broken, posted a picture of her young daughter in the sunflower field.  I swear there was halo in the picture.  And I was like "damn, why didn't I think to call a photographer?"  I took my fiend's lead.  Again, once was broken and now my friend has the strength of a giant redwood.

I took my kids, all three of them to the field.  A little photo op session.
It was the first time, in over three and half years, that my kids have had their picture taken together.

They stood there surrounded by sunflowers.  I didn't really want to watch.  Surprise.  I want a fabulous surprise.

As my kids posed for the photographer, I got a little misty eyed.  It was little over three years ago that all the madness started.  It was a little over three years ago that I sat in church and listened to Pastor Ed.  It was a little over three years ago that I started planting sunflowers like a crazy lady.

It was less than six months ago that I even knew where my oldest son even was.

During all those months, I just kept hearing Pastor Ed, "you have to break through the seed after the dirt and darkness and rain.  You break open the seed.  You have to be broken to sprout.  And in sprouting, you grow and you become something beautiful."



I held on to the words for over three years and a couple hundred sunflower seeds.  I just paid a photographer to photograph ALL of my children in a sunflower field.  My oldest son was there, straight, sober, handsome and on a path...not a road to success...a path.  One step at a time.  But he was there.  

Everyone who has ever endured cancer has told me it was like having two lives, one before, one after.   Just like sunflowers.  You start as a whole seed, tough.  And then, you have to be broken to start anew.  New growth, new strength.  And while you blossom, you gravitate toward positive energy and sun.  The whole time, you are giving to others, bees, birds and all those who pass by and think you are the "happy flower."  

I hope my friend holds on to Pastor Ed's words as she begins her fight.  My friend Joyce did and now she has a garden of hope and beauty.

I cannot wait to see my friend next year and her a bouquet of her happy sunflowers.  She will most likely be bald and perhaps a little tired but I know she will be smiling.  I know she will be sprouting and blossoming.

I know if my family can blossom, after all the weeds that ended up in our garden, anyone can.

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: HOPE

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: HOPE: Today when I got up, it was really just an ordinary day. I turned on the TODAY show and I was taken back 11 years ago like the rest of the...