Hail, Mary

It is hot at the soccer game, and Harper’s playing goalie and I’m not sure which is stressing me out more. I should be used to this – the slow fluctuation of the transition into fall, and watching my kids defend a ball. Every year though, it is difficult. Fall will arrive on its own sweet time, no matter my impatience, and my girls will try, and try, and try again. It’s not that I don’t have time for it – the transition and the trying. (Does it matter if I don’t? Everything’s always changing, and being alive means we try.) It’s that it is hard to watch. The wasps become more aggressive because they know their days are numbered, some leaves change too quickly and turn brown and crusty before they turn brilliant, the girls rush out onto the field hopeful and uncertain at the same time, and I watch with the same perspective.

I shouldn’t think of Mary, but sitting in my foldable chair in between others moms, I do think of her. I think of her at thirteen and seeing Gabriel, I think of her feeding her son knowing what he’ll have to do someday, and I think of her treasuring moments in her heart. If she could do all that, surely I can watch my whimsical, lanky girl play soccer.

“I forgot sunscreen,” I say out loud, more for Harper than for me. A mother offers me some. I say no thanks since I’m wearing jeans – an unwise decision but this morning I want the weather to be something it’s not. I want to skip this part and so I protest by putting on pants and a black t-shirt and I’m sweating so much my clothes have become adhesive.

I watch Harper as the ball gets closer. I remember a mother telling me once that if the goalie misses, that might be the final mistake, but it wasn’t the only mistake. Harper’s teammates seem to understand this because they are fighting and staying with the ball, and Harper’s bouncing on her toes, ready, but I hope she is always watching these girls work so that Harper doesn’t have to make the final mistake. This feels like a form of friendship, this watching out for each other, and I’m thankful for it.

“Does anyone have ibuprofen?” a woman to my right asks. Her older daughter isn’t feeling well. The woman who has the sunscreen has some, and passes it over.

The ball comes to Harper, a girl who I think looks bigger and stronger prepares to kick it in. Harper raises both hands in the air, and lowers them down, slowly, like the ball is some kind of fantastical, magical entity, and she can control it. She barely touches the ball, but it is hers. She picks it up, and throws it away.

I want to laugh at this child who does everything on her own time. Who, when she was in Kindergarten and learning to write, cried because she couldn’t make the stem of the letter “P” as long as she pleased. Who, upon hearing the words, “no,” or, “don’t,” would throw a fit but do it anyway. Who feels sorry for Voldemort. Who saves soccer balls in slow motion.

“She looks like a queen,” one of my friends says, and the laugh I’ve been holding in comes out. That’s exactly what she looks like, and I laugh louder, thankful to have people to watch this game with; thankful we share in watching our changing children try.

There is a sacredness to these sideline conversations. We always laugh – at ourselves, and our kids  – but the laughing brings forth other remarks and comments. One mother asks if any one of us could drive her daughter home from school one day next week. (Yes, always yes. We will figure it out together.) We talk about the business of September, and whose kid already has been sick.

“I was so sick last February,” I say. “And Jesse was out of town.” I uncross my legs and wince in disgust at the sweat marks on my pants. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the girls to school.”

“Well,” the woman on my left who has the sunscreen and the ibuprofen says, “Now you know me.”

She is the same person who, when I told her I was running home from our girls’ soccer game last spring, and it would be my longest run yet, and I didn’t think I could do it, said without any hesitation: “Yes, you will. Here’s what you’ll do – you’ll run when you can run, and if  you need to walk, you’ll walk. Either way, you’re going home.”

I wish there was something in the Bible about Mary’s friends – an entire chapter, how about? Didn’t Jesus play soccer? I wish Mary hadn’t treasured ALL OF IT in her heart. I wish the verst went something like this: “And Mary treasured all these things in her heart until she found friends who’d meet her for a drink and she could laugh and maybe cry until her belly ached, and then go back to being the mother of the Son of God.”

Because you’d have to have some friends for that role.

 

The next Saturday, it is at least twenty degrees cooler, and another friend and I are discussing the Harry Potter books. I tell her my favorite line in the series is Molly Weasley’s in the the 7th book. She’s fighting Bellatrix, and the two of them are having such a duel that even Voldemort and Harry Potter stop in awe. “Not my daughter, you bitch!” Molly yells before she kills Bellatrix.

“I love that JK Rowling had a mother do this; that it was a mother who put a stop to Bellatrix.” I tell my friend.

“I’d like to think I could do that, too.” my friend says.

“We could,” I say, and we watch our girls.

“Bellatrix broke Hadley’s heart,” I tell her. “She was Hadley’s favorite.”

My friend tells me one of her daughters was Bellatrix for Halloween. “So was Hadley,” I say.

I see why Hadley loved Bellatrix. She was fierce. She was strong. She was 100% confident in herself. I don’t want Hadley to be evil, but I know she admires these traits, and I also don’t always know how to show her a fierce, strong, confident woman. I think she sees me more as Mrs. Weasley – a worrier, perhaps a meddler, a gal who asks her if she’s aware of how long she’s been on her phone, and did she eat all of her vegetables.

I watch Harper dribble the ball close to the goal and I hope that sometimes I can be the good parts of Bellatrix for Hadley, but I also hope Hadley sees that fierceness, strength, and confidence come in many different forms.

Harper scores her first goal.

“I KNEW it, Harper!” one her teammates yells, and I want to cry seeing the look on this girl’s face. She seems as proud of Harper as I am.

Five minutes later, Harper scores again. This time, it’s a stronger, more assured kick.

“She’s had a taste,” my friend tells me. I am laughing so hard, and rocking back in a chair that shouldn’t be rocked, but it’s all I can do to stop myself from running on the field.

My friend pats me on the back, and later, her daughter tells Harper that before the game she and another teammate said, “Today, Harper’s gonna score.”

The day is windy and crisp and as we make our way to our cars, we discuss the best routes to take since the other game – the one at the Big House – is going on. We’re not in a hurry today, and I want Harper to tell me all about how it felt to score her first two goals, so I say to Jesse, “let’s see how close to the game we can get.” He obliges, and the closer to the Big M we get, the slower the traffic, the louder the roar of the crowd, and the deeper the sea of maize and blue become. We roll down windows to hear what’s going on, and I can’t think of a better place to be in the fall than a college town.

We all know there will be twists and turns and many detours as we move along. That’s OK, I think as I stick a hand out of my window and enjoy the fall wind. I’m already home.