Football Games and Funerals

We had the day off today, one of the luxuries we savor as a family. It was so nice to “sleep in” this morning waking up at about 7:30 instead of 4:30, and not to the sound of an alarm but to the sounds of our kids asking if they could cuddle with us. A little extra sleep was especially nice today since my son and I were out late watching “Where the Wild Things Are.” I hadn’t read any reviews and the movie surprised me with its dark tone and deep content. Not exactly a children’s movie, my son and I talked about the main themes of the movie on our way home, I asked him what he thought, and he said it was about imagination. I agreed and said I thought it was also about unconditional love. About five minutes later, after he had plenty of time to think about what that might mean he asked, “Mom, what does unconditional mean?” I said it means, “no mater what.”

My son and I had to leave the party a little early to make the movie, and since our daughter didn’t get to go, she’s only four, my husband took her for ice cream with my parents. Earlier in the day, my husband and I were discussing how everyone in the rural area where we live goes to the football games, not just home games but often they will travel to neighboring towns to watch the team. Our whole school k-12 had an early release yesterday because the football team was playing in a neighboring town where there are no lights at the field, so they have to play at 2:00 in the afternoon on Fridays. I said when I was a kid we never went to the high school football games. He brought that up in the discussion with my parents, and they confirmed that where I grew up, that wasn’t part of what people did unless they had a son or daughter involved. It just wasn’t a community event. It is a much more populated area, a school 4x the size of where my children will go to school and not as close knit of a community.

As we were talking more about that this morning he said “Yep, you can count on people around here to travel for football games and funerals.” We went on to talk about how true that is, when someone dies around here the line will be out the door every time. And even after I was divorced from my first husband, he and his parents traveled more than three hours to go to my grandfather’s funeral. It’s just a difference in the culture here. Reflecting on this made me very thankful that we have settled our family here in a community where people travel to football games and funerals, no matter what.