The Puck Stops Here
September 20, 2005
Boy Little D is ALL HEART! We are so very proud of him. He began hockey this year and the first day was BAWLFEST 2005. Not for him, no. For Mommy. As soon as we pulled in the driveway of the rink, I started weeping quietly, tears just falling from my eyes. I was thinking about how quickly he has grown up. I was worried he would get hurt. I was scared his ego might be somehow damaged by having to basically learn how to skate and play hockey at the same time. I did not want his spirit bruised when the other kids skated by him. Some of them have a year or two on him and did fly by him, while he just managed to stay on his blades. He fell about 5000 times. He also got back up every single time. He was concentrating hard on staying up and trying to keep up with the other boys.
He never gave up the entire time.
I didn’t stop crying the entire time.
He didn’t see me crying of course, I wouldn’t do that to him. I was a complete mess, worried that we were scarring him by putting him through all this humiliation. I even tear up now, writing about it. I SO wanted to go out on the ice, scoop him up, and tell him he was doing a great job. I SO wanted to make his legs do what he wanted them too….I SO wanted to line his hockey shorts with giant wads of toilet paper. Every bone in my body felt helpless as I watched him fall again and again. I am his mother (dammit!) and I desperately wanted to protect him and make him feel better. Not once did he lose his patience. Not once did he sit on that ice and cry. Not once did he give up. He was all heart. I learned something that day from Little D.
He came out of the dressing room after the practice, grinning from ear to ear, and yelled at Big D, “That was AWESOME DAD!!!!”
And so the faucet continued flowing…..
September 20th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Very cool. I think you totally empathize with me. Eli really wants to play hockey. I miss living in the frozen North Country where sports, like Hockey, prevail.