It was the usual gathering of suspects for a Friday morning of cajoling one another to grow stronger in spirit, when something unusual happened. I cried.
Not that crying is forbidden for this aging knucklehead. It happens often. For instance, when beautiful and college-bound 18-year-old daughter recently posted a Facebook picture of her, long ago, in my lap? While a then younger father read a story to her pre-school class? Tears flowed and thoughts wandered to, “Where has time gone?”
But to be hanging with a bunch of dudes and begin to weep? Weird and unexpected. This statement opened the spigot: “A friend’s son suffered a knee injury that has threatened his promising hockey career. He’s struggling, the family is struggling and they could use our prayers.”
I thought of my mom. Now almost 80 years old, she still struggles to speak of the night our family was thrown into a similar world. Back in 1976, just a few days after signing a letter of intent to play football and baseball at the University of Missouri, and a few months before expecting to be an early-round selection in the baseball amateur draft, an accidental poke in the eye started a chain reaction of events that forever changed my dreams.
It happened on a basketball court in suburban Kansas City. Back in the mid 1970s, there was a movement away from wood floors to something akin to rubber over concrete. Against my noggin, quite easily, that rock-hard surface won the battle.
The poke led to a rapid drop in blood pressure, which led to fainting and crashing to the floor. I don’t remember, but have been told that I was lying there with blood oozing from my left ear, in seizure and awaiting an ambulance to rush me to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment. The laundry list of injuries: fractured skull, major concussion, shattering of cochlear bones of the inner ear that play a role in equilibrium and depth perception, tearing of rotator cuff muscles in the left (throwing) shoulder and loss of hearing in the left ear.
A promising athletic career over, from a freak poke in the eye. To this day, your scribe cringes when someone competing in sports gets poked in the eye. If present and needed, I rush to help the person sit down before something crazy happens.
Life. It will poke us in the eye, right? We just never know when those “What the heck is going on around here?” moments appear and we crash. Physically, emotionally, spiritually or financially from illness, injury, divorce or job loss, to name just a few.
A standout player in junior hockey, one step from the National Hockey League, had dreams. No doubt his family shared them. Now, the future uncertain. It makes an old man cry. Lost dreams. We all have them.
This week, comfort those wondering what’s next. Pray it’s dreams of new frontiers, not nightmares for those untraveled.
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