So my oldest son has entered the world of (if you are easily embarrassed, skip to the next line) jock straps and cups... How did that happen?? The last two weeks I have seen him yelled at, tortured and pushed to almost the breaking point for this sport. Don't get me wrong I LOVE football with a very un-lady like passion, it's just hard watching your son live it. I always imagined being the mom on the sidelines, biting my nails, watching my kids get roughed up... reality is a bit eye opening. He is not my little boy out there, he very much resembles a man. They are not talking to him as a child or gently teaching him as a boy, nor do they hold juvenile expectations of him. Yet, he is still my baby boy.
Tonight I was taken back to a portion of the movie "Passion of the Christ". One of the toughest moments when I saw that movie, even to this day after seeing it a number of times, was the part when Jesus stumbles bearing the weight of the cross as His mother looks on. In that instant Mary flashes back to him as a child, falling skinning His knee. Josh was at the end of practice, only a few minutes left. The coaches use the last 10 minutes to push the kids as far as they can physically go. Some are literally losing balance about to faint, some can't get their breath, others can't help but vomit, it's 100 degrees, they have pads and helmits on and he is feeling like giving up. They are doing sprints and up/downs (basically they have to run full speed then drop to their chest when the whistle blows...jump back up to run full on until the whistle blows to drop again, etc...) he has tears, like many others, streaming down his blood red face. He looks at me and I just give him a lame thumbs up, nod, and mouth "you can do it, you are doing great". Then it happened... he dropped down at the whistle, didn't pop back up, pulled off his helmit, slowly gets up crying very hard, motioning for one of the coaches. The coach quickly runs to see if he is ok, Josh nods "no" and they quickly pull up his shirt. He had landed on a large rock, it knocked the wind out of him and gashed his stomach pretty good. EVERYTHING in me wanted to run to him, but I couldn't or I shouldn't. He looked over at me, and I just waited to see if he was ok. One tiny gesture to me and I would have ran to him in record time! He was ok, he put his helmit back on and finished the drill strong. Never in my life have I ever felt so proud of him! In a very miniscule way, I compare my motherly pride to how Mary felt that day when her son got back up and finished strong... for us.
Wow!
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