Strong

I wrote this in September 2009 when my oldest child - Shaner - broke his leg during football two-a-days right before the season started.



I was strong as I sped to the football field. I was strong as I watched my husband carry our 6'1 230 lb linebacker son to the car. Strong as I drove him to the ER, listening to his screams and cries - this young man who doesn't believe in pain, who certainly never stopped for it. The young man who broke his nose the previous week while playing hockey and went to his doctor's office to get a release so that he could play football. My child - who won't even take a Tylenol. Strong through the exam and the x-rays and finally, as they moved him to his room. The room that he'd spend close to a week in while his friends started their junior year and prepared for the football season. Strong as I sat with him - night and day - trying to ease the pain as best I could, knowing it was useless. As they wheeled my baby, my first-born into surgery and through the four hours...shaking the doctor's hand, seeing the x-rays of his rebuilt leg. Strong getting him home and getting him settled; praying to find some magical position that would make him comfortable.

Strong until I stood in the middle of Dicks Sporting Goods looking for the only thing he wanted for school - new Nike socks. As I stood there, surrounded by football cleats, as I'd done so many times before with him, I stopped being strong. I cried. I sat on a bench and wept. It was so unfair; he should be standing there, excitedly picking out his new cleats, eagerly anticipating his first year of first-string on the varsity squad, explaining to me why he needed that $100 UnderArmour. Instead, he was home, in bed, in pain. I cried for the pain he was feeling, for everything he would miss out on this year, for the guilt I felt - when he came home on his break between two-a-days, he had said he didn't feel good...that he didn't feel like going back to his second practice. I wish I'd made him stay. I cried


Then, I came home, and again, I was strong.