Kleenex For The Rest of Us

Was it a Kleenex commercial that followed a few parents of Olympiads through their dark mornings, helping to pack bags with sports equipment and snacks, through the afternoons-turned-evening-turned-nights sitting on cold benches in the rain, in the snow, in the wasp-filled sunshine watching their very talented, very strong, very capable athletes do their thing? And it was all worth it in the end because the kids made it to the Olympics, and so cue music and sing along, “Kleenex says, ‘Bless you!'” Was that Kleenex? Or was it McDonalds? Jiffy Lube?

Whoever it was, can they make a commercial for the parents whose kids won’t make it to the Olympics? Because we’re getting up early and helping to pack bags with equipment. We sit in the freezing cold, we stand in the rain (last week it looked like I peed my pants it was raining so hard), we sit in rickety chairs in a hot cafeteria turned auditorium and listen – smiling – holding up our phones to video as our kid sings “The Eerie Canal Song,” or  blasts out “Hot Cross Buns” on the trombone.

“I don’t have time for this,” one parent says, and slams herself down on the folding chair that she will later need to fold, and then stand in an unorganized line to stack the chair before she leaves, but not to go home. Oh, no. We are off to soccer and basketball and baseball and swimming practice after this. There’s still a good three hours of daylight left and there are miles to go before we sleep.

The rest of us laugh when she says it, and we “Hmmm, hmmmm,” in agreement, and then our kids come out on stage and we clap and beam and hold up our phones and ask each other, “Can you see her? Do you want to switch seats so you can see her better?”

We don’t have time for this and none of us is going to have a kid in the Olympics (except for you – your kid is totally going to the Olympics), but I think we deserve Kleenex or McDonalds or whatever Jiffy Lube sells because we are doing a lot of the same things the Olympic parents are doing. Not because we hope, “What if?” but because we remember what it felt like the first day we heard four part harmony after practicing our parts for what felt like 80 days in March, and even though our bangs weren’t doing what we wanted them to do, even though one of our jeans wasn’t tight-rolled, even though we’d accepted that we’d never be able to do “mental math,” the band windows were open and the air from the melted Lake Michigan ice, the factories of Gary, Indiana, and Turano Bread Company sailed in and it was refreshing and disgusting and mouth-watering and it all danced around us, and the band director whispered, “I, 2, 3, 4,” and flicked her wand, and we played, and good Heavens, THAT’S what it’s supposed to sound like? How did she get us to do THAT?

We remember the thunk of a soccer ball on the inside of our foot, and we remember the stretch and pull of our muscles as we practiced leaping, or spotting something in front of us as we turned again and again and again. We remember the work and repetition involved in practicing a dance routine, a sports play, and we remember the fear and the joy in trying and trying and trying again.

We need the Kleenex because we are reminded of this truth: fear and joy will never go away as long as we are trying. No matter how old we get, how good we get, as long as we are trying, we will feel fear and we will feel joy. The only way to stop it is to stop trying.

Last week, a kid wrote his name for the first time in the library. Class was over. Everyone was lining up. I was cleaning up and getting ready for the next group, but he stayed where he was, at the table, Number 2 pencil in hand, slowly scrawling letters with the effort and concentration of a heart surgeon.

When he finished, he threw the pencil down like someone tearing threw a finish line, or scoring the game winning shot, and he ran to me with the paper in both hands, shoved it in my face, and said, “Mrs. Feyen, look! I remembered me!”

McDonalds fries and Cokes for the rest of us. Jiffy Lube oil changes (is that what it does?) for the rest of us. Kleenex for the rest of us. We are taking our kids places. We are all trying. We are all remembering ourselves.