Forever Present

“Way to go Tyler Honey” – Cindy Halstead

As my family sat in a car outside a local Italian restaurant, my mom experienced a surge of confidence (as she often did) but this time she felt compelled to share the life changing news…”I have cancer”.  As a young child, going through a growth spurt, I had no concept as to what this meant.  I was hungry…I wanted to see my friends…and most importantly I wanted OUT of any situation that made my family appear mortal.  I sat there surprised, I sat there confused, and I sat there angry…Angry at the fact that I could not provide peace to my parents when I did not even understand what was going on.

This singular moment would forever change my life.  I would never truly understand what this would mean…

We are rapidly approaching ten (10) years since I (we) lost my best friend, the person who would teach me about love and life and happiness, and the most incredible role-model I would ever know.  It is really hard for me now because in many ways I took my mother for granted.  For 19 years of my life she was ALWAYS there.  And I honestly mean always, regardless of her medical needs, her personal choices, or simply her level of exhaustion she was ALWAYS there.  I cannot remember a time she missed as much as a practice session for any of my many sporting events.  And this is from a woman who tried every possible treatment option of the time (Virginia, Texas, California) it did not matter nothing was going to keep her from continuing her fight to live and somehow nothing ever seemed to keep her from not being there!

I opened this post with a quote.  And while some of you may be thinking it was a bit arrogant or egotistical further to the point of being present I wanted to share a quick story…

For better or worse, I play many sports often the more aggressive the better (baseball, football, track and field) it didn’t matter.  As a Southern Californian high school student I cared about few things… I wanted to dominate on the field and impress the girls in the stands while doing so.  As a freshman you begin football practice well before school starts and where I grew up there was a minimum of three (3) different middle schools all feeding into the local high school.  For me this meant I had an opportunity to make an impression with a whole crew of new people.  As you begin classes, you have not much more than a few weeks to convince friends (new and old) to come watch your great athletic feats.  So naturally, I spent the bulk of that time making sure I was relevant talking to as many people as possible, introducing myself to the cheerleaders and wearing my jersey all day on gameday so that “Tyler” was more than just the nice guy from Biology starting that afternoon he was also #34.

Going into the game I was a mixed bag of nerves and excitement…On one hand I had played football my entire life on the other this was the first time I would not benefit from a mandatory maximum weight limit.  So yeah these kids were big and well I was NOT (my parents had to give the coach permission to let me play linebacker since I was severely physically outmatched).  During warm-ups I am in awe… the stands are “full” (or what I remember as full – probably just a third), the buses are there, my peers had slowly paraded into the stadium, and I am playing in the bright blue and gold colors I had long admired.  To me life is perfect!

The game begins and I make a tackle at the line of scrimmage, nothing all that outstanding but a tackle for loss, and the crowd erupts.  This is it…this is big time.  In my excitement I take my time going back to the huddle and bask in the celebration.  Naturally the cheers slowly die down…except for one…I pretty sure the entire place had stopped the place was quiet, library quiet and then I hear it… coming from the 50 yard line, top step of the lower section I look up and see a cardboard sign then I hear it at the top of her lungs… “WAY TO GO TYLER HONEY!!!”.

As you can probably guess, I was mortified.  In my mind, I had just made a “man” play and in front of all of my new friends my mom was in the stands calling me “HONEY”.

As the game goes on the cheers don’t stop…each time the rest of the audience burst into laughter.  And these cheers would not stop for the rest of my high school career… and the rest of my life.

I hear this voice echo to this day…obviously for different reasons…but when good things happen, I often look up and to my right (as I did that first game Freshman year) and smile.

Mom…I know you are with me and I pray I keep making you proud day in and day out.

But for now I am taking a break (more to come later)!!