I was able to go to my son’s new house to watch football on his giant TV this past Saturday. Our family tradition of watching and attending Alabama games together continues for another season. And that’s all you can ask for or plan for- one season at a time.
After giving out the food I had brought, we sat back to watch the game. It was an interesting first half, but after a halftime of discussions and bathroom breaks, we headed in to a second half that didn’t keep my attention. As often happens, my mind began to wander.
As I watched my grown son, discussing the game with his dad and one of his close friends, I remembered back to the day he was born. It was a long 36 hours of labor and when they finally said “it’s a boy” I swear I heard a voice say, “Teach him to leave.”
I knew in that instant that my job was to teach him to be independent, to be able to fly from the nest equipped to take care of himself. I knew I had to teach him to be kind and respectful, to teach him to love learning and the Lord. I knew I had to teach him to care for himself and for others, to want to experience the world and be confident enough to do so. In that moment I felt the great gift and great responsibility that had been given to me.
They wheeled me to my room and although I was exhausted and overwhelmed, I was excited and told everyone we passed in the hall that I wanted 4 more boys- enough to have a basketball team. It was not to be, Jon is an only child, but I tried to keep that sense of excitement and awe throughout his life, even after the post delivery drugs wore off.
I remembered the time that as a nearly one year old he stuck his head in the bathtub and came up with puffed out cheeks full of dirty bath water. As I fussed at him about the nasty water in his mouth, he blew out nothing but air- it had all been a joke. I knew I was in for a fun ride.
Jon finally learned to walk, a few days before his first birthday. His father had told him that his one year warranty was about to run out and if he didn’t walk we could take him back. I wasn’t sure how that was going to go if Jon didn’t walk by his birthday, but fortunately he did.
Before long he was running around the circle that our kitchen, dining area and living room made. His delight at being able to make that trek was obvious until one day he slightly miscalculated and ran smack into the door facing causing the biggest goose egg on his forehead that I had ever seen.
I remembered when we took him to Orlando at the age of 3 and quickly learned that 3 is too young to go to theme parks. Luckily we are cautious enough people to have only planned a day in Universal to see how it went. It didn’t go well. It was the worst trip Tim and I had ever experienced. With Jon, there were no terrible twos or terrible teen years, he has been a gem for all 32 years of his life so far, except for when he was 3 1/2. That was a rough ride.
After Jon’s first day of kindergarten, he was ecstatic! He loved school, he loved reading and naptime, playtime and lunch. I was so happy to hear that and told him that tomorrow would be even better. He stopped in his tracks and said, “You mean I have to go back tomorrow?” Thus began his love/hate relationship with school.
I remembered when I found him at 6 years old, face down in a mud puddle on the playground of his school. When I questioned him, he told me who had done this. It was the smallest kid in his class. When I questioned my son about how that little guy had done this to him, the biggest kid in the class, he said that he let him do it because Jon was afraid if he fought back he might hurt the little guy. It was at that moment I saw the compassion and caring in Jon’s heart and knew we were headed in the right direction, just as soon as I got all of the mud off of him.
I remembered Jon begging to play football and to have piano lessons. I wanted him to want these things, not to force him into anything. When he kept asking for piano lessons, we decided to find him a teacher and a piano. When he kept pushing about football, we waited until our town started a youth league rather than pushing him into the program of a neighboring town. With friends that are football coaches, we had been warned of injury and burn out if you start them too young.
Jon took to the piano and then the guitar quickly and loved both. Football was a different story.
After the first football practice, my now sixth grader came running to me saying that this was too hard and that he never wanted to do that ever again. I reminded him of our rule, when you start an activity you have to see it to its conclusion, whether that be a sport’s season or class session. He begrudgingly continued with the football practices.
After the first game, when Jon came running off of the field, the joy and excitement covered his face right there with the sweat and dirt. He ran to me and said, “I want to do this for the rest of my life!!” And through twists and turns that we could never have foreseen, in one fashion or another, Jon has stuck to that statement.
As I watched him analyzing the game on TV with his dad and his friend, I remembered the pregame meal we always met Jon and his teammates for at the local sandwich shop. I remembered cheering for him as he stood in his uniform on the sidelines for a couple of years, cheering on his team and patting them on the shoulder as they ran of the field. I remembered when he became a starter.
I remembered walking up to a jamboree late. I never missed a game and was never late. This particular day I was helping with another of his activities, a show choir event that Jon had to miss to play in this spring game. I left the event and hurried to the game. As I walked through the parking lot trying to get to the stadium I could hear the announcer over the speakers say, “The injured player is #70, Jon Lunceford.” I remember running to the ticket booth, paying for a ticket and getting in as fast as humanly possible. Jon was fine and by the time I got to where I could see him, he was heading back onto the field.
I remembered one day when we were at home and I was dusting in the living room, right beside the closed door to Jon’s room. As I silently worked, I heard a voice singing. It was a voice that could break your heart and it was singing one of my favorites, If I Can’t Love Her from Beauty and the Beast. I sat on the floor next to the door and heard my son sing with such feeling and such talent, talent I knew he had but didn’t like to share.
Later, when the spring show choir show rolled around, all of the seniors had to sing at least one line solo. They were doing a Wizard of Oz/Wiz/Wicked mashup show and my son jokingly asked to be the yellow brick road so he could bypass the singing. He was the Cowardly Lion.
He was funny in the role and then he sang. The looks I saw from the people who had no idea he could do that warmed a mother’s heart. The comments from everyone made my son blush as they wished they had known all year what he was capable of.
I remembered the day he left for college, so excited and ready. I remembered two weeks later when he came home despondent and disillusioned. I remembered his confusion about what to do, what to be, where to be. I remembered the transfers, the new opportunities to play football at the college level, the changes and eventually the day he came home to tell me he had had an epiphany as he ran across the campus of his new school.
I remembered his surgery involving 8 long pins stuck in his toes to fix the damage a decade of football had done to his feet. How he was beginning an internship at the radio station the next week and how he persevered on crutches, with me driving him to fulfill his duties of picking up lunch for the show hosts. I remembered how we bonded and laughed together as we made those pick ups and deliveries.
I remembered his trips to Germany and then to China as he pursued his love of video games. I remembered the call when he was unsure where in China they had taken him and then we were cut off. How for 24 hours we panicked.
I remembered helping him move into his new apartment after graduation. I remembered playing tennis with him at his second apartment after he lost his first real job. He had a hard time understanding how a company could act like these people had acted, how you could end up unemployed through no fault of your own. I remembered trying to give him hope and excitement about what was to come. He walked with me and talked with me and laughed at my tennis playing, but I don’t know if he ever really believed that things would work out like I told him they would.
But they did.
I am looking at him now, about to get married, doing what his “epiphany” had led him to do. I think back only a week ago to when he spoke to the young people at our church, telling them that he was sitting right where they were not all of that long ago. That the path he had taken was winding and unexpected. That you have to follow your heart, listen to God.
And now, I wonder about what the future holds, for all of us. How life is about to change-again. How the journey so far has been so amazing. How at times I have been so positive by day and so terrified at night. How I have tried to do the best I knew how although I fell short so often. How this amazing kid turned out alright in spite of me. How I could not ask for more out of life than to have raised what I used to tell people I was charged to raise- a good human.
And hopefully, although that voice told me to teach him to leave, he will always want to come back. To watch football, to play bad tennis, to fix a meal together. I know between work and his new family and his friends and his own life, our times together will be fewer and fewer.
No matter what happens, where the road winds next, I have these snippets of memories and so many more. You can only go through life one season at a time. A new football season has begun as has a new season of life for us all. Who knows what this season will hold. I have the excitement of the unknown ahead and the memories of the past to hold on to. And I can not really ask for anything more.
