I heard a story today about another family who has been touched by cancer. The story was told to a small group and touched all of us who were there. The person who was telling us and the circumstances of where we were and what we were doing isn't important. What is important is the man who told us is very successful and hard nosed when it comes to business, but he never let's business get in the way of his family. His family always is number one. We were in the middle of talking about something business related, when he decided to tell us what he and his family was going through.
It turns out his wife, who is around 40, was diagnosed with Colon Cancer a few weeks ago. They recently received some bad news that it had spread to her liver and is aggressive. When he said the "C" word, we all fell into immediate silence. This man, who I look up to, told the story of how they plan on attacking this disease and who believed, deep down, that his wife would beat this and had no doubt in his mind she would. What does this have to do with sports? Well here is the connection...
After telling the story about what his wife is going through, he told us about a hockey game his son was playing in. His son, who I believe is around 15 (he also has a daughter who I think is 12), is a pretty decent hockey player. Their team was playing an opponent that they always got crushed by every time they played. This was in a big tournament and this was a semi-final game. His son assisted on both goals their team scored and they ended up in a 2-2 tie at the end of regulation. The man, standing behind the glass near the net along with other fathers, watched as overtime began. After some back and forth possessions, his son found himself on a 2 on 1 break that started at the blue line. The kid with the puck skated up the ice and had his son was on the left. As the play developed towards the net, the one defensive player that was back, skated in on the kid with the puck. The man's son found himself one-on-one with the goaltender. He received a pass that he put in the back of the net, winning a dramatic game in overtime over a team that was seemingly unbeatable. The fathers, including this man, jumped up and down and hugged and cried as they celebrated this monumental goal for this young group of kids. After the game he walked down the hallway to the locker room to find his kid. He finally found him and the kid said to his father, "I did it for mom". When the man told us that, he broke down, and the rest of us broke down in the middle of this restaurant at those words..."I did it for mom". The son ended up presenting the puck from the game-winning goal to his mother when they got back home.
Everyone has their distractions and does different things when facing times of grief. For this father, watching his son play hockey was that distraction. A man who is desperately doing everything he can to help his wife fight the fight of her life turned to sports for a sense of normalcy. Sports is one of those things that can be a great distraction for those who love it. Sports is Brett Favre going out on a Monday Night the day after his father died and having one of the best games of his storied career. Sports is Olympic Figure Skater Joannie Rochette of Canada who had a brilliant performance that lead her to a Bronze Medal in the 2010 Winter Olympics after finding our her mother died just hours earlier, of a heart attack, shortly after arriving to watch her in Vancouver. Sports is Brandon Inge hitting a homerun for a young boy with cancer after the boy requested he hit one. Inge, overcome with emotion on the field for the first time in his career, said he sat on the bench after he got back to the dugout and cried knowing he fulfilled a suffering child's wish. Sports is so many things to us and it is so much a part of our lives. It can make us delirious with excitement and it can make us weep in despair and disappointment. It can also give us moments like the one on an ice rink where teenagers were playing a simple game of hockey, that in the scheme of life doesn't matter. On that day, however, it did matter and gave joy and hope to a family who is going through a difficult time. It's those little distractions and little moments of joy that can inspire us and give us strength to get through those most difficult times. I hope and pray this family has many, many more of those moments to come in the future...
