Boy, my head has been buzzing this morning!

We are in the middle of indoor soccer season and just getting the High School team started up for the season. It's funny how the goals of sports teams can get so screwed up if you aren't careful. Coach's want a winning record, some parents won't be happy until the team is champion of the world, and their kid plays all the time, and then some of us want unrealistic things like:

Our kids playing in a team sport environment, wearing their school colors, working together, getting fit, winning some, losing some, and having fun.

How stoopid is that?

What were we thinking when we signed up to be the booster club folks, eh? Actually, most everybody is a lot of fun and buys in to the mission. There are always challenges.

Last night we were on our way to a soccer game and my son got a call on his cell phone:

"A girl has been shot at the basketball game" was the first report...A freshman girl...Then it was a boy and a girl....then we had names...and then we had the word that they were both shot in the leg and were ok except for, well, being shot in the leg.

Some of you will know the people involved and learn the gory details... turns out the boy had a gun and had it out in the car and it went off, somehow...We all have theories. Having a weapon in a school parking lot is a Federal offense, and this boy is in trouble. I will leave that story line for the future and turn to the one that concerns me.

Yesterday, our youngest son turned sixteen, and was supposed to get his driver's license, but we messed up and did not get his birth certificate out of the safe deposit box in time. He was sooooo mad at us, and rightly so. He has done everything right to deserve the privilege. Our bad!

The plan was for him to get his license and then be allowed to drive himself to the basketball game which was in the next town, only a mile or two from where we would be at the soccer game with his older brother. We messed up and he stayed home by himself to watch tv...on his birthday. We have to make it up, somehow, but think about this:

If everything had gone as planned, he would have gone out on his first night by himself, to that basketball game. Then we would have gotten a call saying a kid had been shot...at the game out child was supposed to be at...sure we trust him but???

There would have been one of those moments when a parent's heart stops for just a cosmic instant... Please, not _____!

We can not explain these moments to our children. They don't understand. We didn't. Not until we had our own children did we come to grips with the moments of agony that we must have sent our moms and dads reeling through. Sorry, Mom. I understand now. Even though you've been gone for more than ten years now, I apologize to you in my heart, for those moments I paralyzed yours.

Yesterday one of your grandchildren turned 16. You and he were born on the same date, and I remember calling you on the phone in the delivery room, 16 years ago, to wish you happy birthday and tell you that you had a new grandchild, being unable to speak...and after an awkward moment of silence, holding the phone down to the red face of my newborn son and handing over the duty...letting him squall the most primeval of all birthday songs, the announcement to the world that the next generation of Scarboroughs is here to cause moments of great joy and moments of wrenching agony in their parents hearts.

Happy Birthday, Mom. Things are fine and going right along as things will. Miss you...

Peace.... and love,

Steve



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Yesterday's entry brought several replies, both in the mail and posted on the blog. If you have thoughts you want to share, why don't you go to the blog site and comment? This group has thoughts worthy of sharing.


Pat writes:
Evolution is a fact. How evolution happens is the theory.
I want the bumper sticker! Preferably with a 'reality' fish eating the so-called 'truth' fish eating the 'Darwin' fish!