Vacating the Sideline

Last night was the final game of our freshman season.  We played North Salinas, arguably the best team we've seen all year.  We'd been telling the boys for weeks that they've had a great season, but this is the game it will be measured by.

     Looking at film on them revealed tough, fast backs who look for the sideline on almost every play.  A good defense.  A talented quarterback who could run through you, or throw over you, and receivers with more height, and more speed, than the boys we'd have covering them.  The boys covering them?  Coach Paul's son, Joey.  And my son, Aidan.  We prepared them all week, and cut ties.
     I knew I'd be a little late to the game.  I didn't know I'd choose to stay off the sideline, and watch it unfold from a hill overlooking the field.

I have been unemployed the entire season.  I made some choices that others in my situation might not have.  They are the right decisions for me.  I placed coaching Aidan at the top of my priorities, and all else below.  Employers don't like hearing that, and I get why, and I still don't care.  I am not, and never have been, "the Good Soldier".  I'm less concerned with those who think I'm irresponsible, or idiotic, than I am with teaching Aidan to use a football field as a window to himself.  I want that for him, more than I wanted it for his brothers.

I want this season, with him.

I want this one, more than any I've ever had (and I've been fortunate to have had a lot).

I want this one because it will be my last one as a Father, with his Son.  

When it's over, it's done, even if I never imagined it could be.  It's full of  shared moments from learning to play catch on the back lawn, to watching Aaron, and Ethan, shed boyhood skins, and take on the appearances of young men.  I am overflowing with gratitude for my three boys, and all the hours spent watching, and playing sports.

 I am also heavy with grief as one more thread that connects us, is cut.

     ________________________________________________________________________

Aidan was 5 when his mom and I divorced, and I'd been a stay-at-home Dad during that time.  I was, without a doubt, the most consistent figure in his life up until the split.  And then, without warning, I wasn't.
 His brothers weren't much older, but they were old enough to help make the transition fluidly.  They went through their stuff, and have been dug in ever since.

Aidan was in a free fall from the beginning, and you could see it in everything he did.  He turned sad.  He wore confusion on his face about everything he'd previously trusted. You never had ask how he felt because he wore it openly.  He had no idea what had happened, and I didn't have anyway to explain it, or make it better.

One day, we were sitting quietly on the couch together. He was close to me, and leaned his shoulder against me just enough to touch.  His hands were folded delicately in his lap, like he no longer knew what to do with them. His head was bent down.  Then he turned, and looked at me.

  In the softest voice I've ever heard, he said, 'I miss you".

It wasn't said matter-of-fact, like a statement.  It was more like the confession you make when you know you can no longer help yourself.   It was heart-wrenching.   And it told me two things: 

• It told me I wouldn't be allowed to help heal the wound I created. 
• And it told me Aidan knew that.  He was frightened. Terrified. 

And I had to watch him, helplessly, go through it.  The image of him- hands folded, body sloped, bent head- is burned into my heart.  It pops up on occasion, and I snap forward, as if trying to shed a nightmare.

I still question whether there's been goodness in anything I've done.

I'm certain I've caused pain.   

The image of Aidan will go with me to the grave.

I'll spend every day until then, grateful for the privilege of Fatherhood. And I'll  regret that God trusted me with it, knowing the angst within me.  
  But I won't question it.  I trust that the path that unfolds before me is the one to walk on.  I trust the people who come into my life have come for a reason.  And I trust that the pain I've received, and inflicted, is not without purpose.   

Either Aidan needed it as preparation for where his life's leading, and who it's leading toward,

Or my education on the expansive depth, and weight, of emotional pain, isn't over.
I was the recipient of it as a child.  I've caused it as an adult.
And I've helped people through their own.

I have a capacity for extreme emotions toward the bottom of the scale.  Where others construct walls to keep things out, I jump in.  I like that part of me.  A friend said I had the "ability go deep into myself, and make sense of what most people want to avoid."  Then he said 'no one wants to talk about it.'
If I'm going to go through all this living I want to know the extremes.

I'm not impressed by logic, or reason.  I'm interested in the reactions we have.  I want to know why (if my soul's not part of my body) a tear comes out when I'm sad.  Or why laughter is audible.

Everything beautiful, and tragic comes out of us.
How do you assign value to either when you create both. 

_________________________________________________________________

     I told Coach Paul the day before our game that I'd be late.  On game day I sent him a text, and told him I may stand on the hill to watch Aidan play his last freshman game.  I think he replied, 'WTF'.  If you have it under control, I'm not going to worry, I told him.  I'll come down if there's trouble, otherwise I'm gonna watch this last game, alone.

     When I'm coaching I miss half the game.  I talk to the defense when offense is on the field, and I only watch the positions I coach as a play begins.  I wanted to see Aidan play, and I wanted to watch him without interruption.  Aidan's last freshmen football game might also be the last I coach. 

 Self-reflection is an exhausting process, and there were days I carried it to the field. I've never done that before.     I transitioned between the isolated space  of rejection and fear, to the gregarious optimism of the practice field.  It was challenging.  Some days, all  I could do was stand at the edge of the grass.  

I arrived at the game midway through the first quarter, and parked at the top of the hill. 

I'd made the decision to stay separate from my son.  If  North Salinas did what I'd seen them do on film they'd be going directly at Aidan, and  I wanted to see that.  And I wanted to see him do it without my instructions, or accolades. .   

None of the other coaches understood what I was doing. I didn't really either.  But I'd made up my mind.  I watched the entire game alone, from the hillside my father had watched me. 

 I watched Aidan play, and observed every footstep he took.  I watched every block he shed, and every tackle he made.  I watched as a receiver went deep on him, and how he stayed with the receiver until the ball was thrown, and then I watched him take it away.  I watched him accept every accolade, and every high five, without me receiving them too.  I watched him claim his moment.  I watched him begin to use this game, and that team, to heal some of what his world had harmed.

The following day we went and got a milkshake, and he said he understood why I watched from a distance, although I'm not sure he did.

I reminded him that two games into the season he was going to lose his position if he didn't play better.
I reminded him how obvious his fear was, in the beginning, as he went to make a tackle, and how difficult it is to lie to yourself when you play this game.
I reminded him coach Blankenship told him he was 'disappointed' with him the first day of summer practice, and asked what he thought Coach Blankenship would say to him today.  He said, "He already did, Dad, "He said I played a GREAT game".

In the final game, I never saw a hint of fear in Aidan.  That's a big accomplishment in ten games, and 9 years. His fear will no longer own him. He knows you can enter it, and come out whole. 

So, I told the 14 year-old Aidan, what I couldn't tell the 5 year-old. 

I told him he'd be alright now that he knows he can fall back on himself.

I want my guilt to lessen, and I want the pain of him on the couch next to me

 replaced by the confident boy he is now.
I want to know he'll be alright.

Tonight, I think he told  me he is.