A husband's birthday

My kids have grown up being gym rats. 

And that not by particular choice.  Their dad coached everything, and he loved it - but he also put all those underpaid hours in because it helped make the house payment.

One season we added up his hours and divided that by what his pay was - it came to little more than $1 an hour by the time you strung all the practices together, all the prep time, all the necessary first aid and new rules meetings - all of it takes a lot of time.  

And if you count all the meals he paid for when stopping at McDonald's on the way home, some seasons were a net loss.  

We would go to his games and be the first ones there, because he's kind of anal about setup and all.  He's not going to lose a game because the scorekeeper or buzzer doesn't work well.  We would get there early enough to have time to make sure all of his runners had both shoes.  And proper uniforms.  We were usually driving one car at the time as Scott was going to school for his degree in teaching, so our kids would either have to tag along to be able to get to their own practices and events, or stay home in a big suddenly, spooky house. 

We would also be the last ones to leave, because if you have not spent a lot of time hanging out with jocks, the first thing you must note is that they need to, have to - rehash. 

Rehash the game.  Rehash the pivotal play.  Rehash the "what could have beens", and the "what should have beens".  Rehash "if only this player realized his potential".  Rehash problems and  how the other players and coaches were going to handle the problem properly.  Rehash the refs.  Rehash the parental anger outbursts thinking their kid was being treated unfairly.  Rehash all the problems in this one game to strategize the best way to approach the next practice. 

After a sporting event - and this goes across the board for any sport - Jocks are nothing more than underpaid-super-analysts in a jersey, rather than a $600 suit.   I say that with the utmost respect - they are pretty savvy, smart folks. 

I have yet to sit in a business meeting where millions of dollars were discussed more carefully and with more opinion and more in-depth outcomes than post-game analysis. 

And all that rehashing takes a lot of time.  After a game, I would sit at the top of the bleachers just watching the gym empty.  I would wait for him to come out of the locker room.  I would wait for him to talk to everyone in the whole wide world needing a word with him at that most important moment.  I would wait while he made sure his players had not forgotten anything that could end up in a never-find-again-lost-and-found.  He had to make sure everyone had a ride - he was sensitive on that having begged a lot of rides in his own youth. 

I would wait while he spent time patching together shattered egos.  He's done a lot of that.  To him no sport is so important that a player be "ruined" by the game, or the fans, or the other players and coaches.  He tells them one shot does not lose the whole game.  He tells them there is no shame in tripping in 5 inches of mud and losing valuable tenths of a second - they were in the race. 

It is so important to him as a coach that kids have a good sports "outcome" no matter what the score, what the pain, what the problems - you are a part of a team and you will leave as a team.  He wanted them to leave on the most positive footing possible when they felt all beat up and wounded. 

Other than the janitor that turned out the lights, we were always the last ones to leave.  

At one of those games years ago, someone came up and sat down beside me and said "you've got the worst gig ever".   And it is lonely being the spouse of a coach.  If you win, everyone is happy.  If you lose, it's the fault of only one person. 

But I smile now thinking on that, because they had no idea.  They had no idea what makes me love a man like that.  They have no idea what kind of deep set integrity, deeper set loyalty, and deepest love is set up inside that man. 

They have no idea how he has loved me all through these many years.  They have no idea how many times I was "checked" at the door, because of his love, his loyalty to me and our family.  They have no idea the depth of his integrity that he "was going to make this work, no matter what he had to do".

To date, that has buoyed us over a lot of life-storms.   I, on the other hand, see the reality, the end of the road on any given problem pretty clearly being an in-depth analyst in my own right, and know logically that we are just 3 steps from ruin -- and he says it won't happen.  He says he will do everything in his power to make sure it doesn't happen.  And if he can't stop it, it's not worth our time 'sweets', really, honestly honey.  Then he hugs me and says it will be all right. 

And we've had some big hits, and we've had some really hard times, but he is always right - we have made it to this day, this time, and we are alright. 

Except now.  My husband has met his biggest foe.  He has made it through life with the simple idea of being positive and motivating anyone, anything at any time to what can really happen.  To him the rest is just "loss" - and you have to put things in perspective - you don't always win, but you win what you can and make the bad become better. 


He can just do that by simple faith, and a sheer will that everyone can step up to the plate and play better than they thought.  

Until last week.  Last week he realized that he has met a foe that is impenetrable to "thinking through this positively" in the ways that has worked for him for decades.  It won't budge where you work hard to make it budge.  It won't succeed when you spend hours laying down the proper framework of success.  It won't work under any motivational promotion of spirit - even when doing all the right things to make it work.  It won't listen to any well laid game plan. 

It will not cooperate with any method, any work ethic, any reason.

So he is struggling to find new footing and forge a new path on all of this -- he realized when I was rejected for my second chemo treatment that he "couldn't just count it a loss" and "work hard to not make the same mistakes twice" and then move on to the next game.   Cancer doesn't play in any perimeter of any given game.  And he realized that and hit a bottom so hard and so deep that he wasn't sure what game plan book to pull out.

He was playing in a game that he was afraid of not knowing, afraid of missing some of the rules, afraid of losing.   

I wake up some nights and he is on his knees beside me praying over me - his hands on me, pleading with the One who can restore all things, to restore me.  He reads long portions of scripture out loud to me because he knows that there is healing in God's word and he knows it comforts me at bad times. 

I find unashamed tears in his eyes at times, because he cannot sort this out and make it work for me.  He can read everything, do everything, feed me everything to make my blood count come up, and it just won't. 

This is like no sporting arena he has ever entered.  This is like no gym he can negotiate with calculated plays. 

I see him pleading with God - motioning at the score table for a substitute to go in -- he keeps saying "put me in there, put me in there - I will play this game - take her out"..... 

But it doesn't work that way. 

And today, his birthday, he keeps doing what he knows to work - he tells me I am tough.  He tells me I am beautiful without hair.  He tells me he doesn't notice the bloating from the steroids.  He tells me that I am going to be fine. 

He hovers over me on the bad days and keeps me moving. 

It's his birthday, and he keeps pouring himself out for me.  

He tells me he doesn't care that I didn't get him a gift.  He doesn't care that we cannot go out to celebrate.  He doesn't care that we didn't have a party. 

He tells me he already has his gift, and that it is on the couch there beside him. 

He might be struggling with this convoluted, crazy game, but he's winning.