the story behind: good luck

A few years ago when my boys were 7 & 9, they both joined basketball teams at a nearby park and rec center. Their first time with an organized basketball league, we quickly soaked up the new strategies, teammates, drills, and equipment. Team sports teach both the player and the parent so much beyond the rules of the game – you learn more about who you are in the world, how you exist with others, and have opportunities to see behavior that you’d like to emulate or avoid. This season included all of these gifts and then one more.

After weeks of build up, both boy’s teams made it to the playoffs with games scheduled nearly simultaneously across town from each other. I could not be at both games. We needed a member of the village to attend one of the finals. As we talked about who would go to which game and what members of the village to call upon, it occurred to me first, we are incredibly lucky to count on such an amazing village of friends. And second, it takes the right person to show up for your day in the sun.

Thankfully Kathryna was available and met us at the appointed time on game day for drop off. As she gathered my youngest’s gear from the car, she knelt down to be closer to his level and asked, “Please tell me exactly what you want me to do today. I know this is a big game and I want to be able to do the right things and send messages to your mom.”

He cleared his throat, looked directly in her eyes and concisely said, “It’s easy. You sit in the bleachers and watch me. When I make a basket you yell, ‘Good job!’ If I get fouled or if I fall down then you stand up and yell, ‘You can do it!’ If it’s a free throw you are not allowed yell, so then you look at me as if you are telling me ‘I know you can do it.’ “

“That’s it?” Kathryna asked. “Do I need to tell you what to do? Hold your water bottle? Talk with your coach?”

“No,” he explained. “I keep my water on the bench and my coach will tell me what to do. I just need you to be there so I can look up at you.”

This exchange awed me; such a magnificent friend to ask the question, prepared to really listen. A child who knew exactly what he needed and articulated it so clearly. That we could all be so insightful and brave. Plus, it became a freebie lesson to me on how to truly show up.

1. Be my witness.

2. Celebrate me.

3. Be the touchstone, the place I come back to.

In the ensuing years since this parking lot lesson on love, I’ve observed this 1, 2, 3 of showing up for someone’s day in the sun unfold numerous times. It turns out my 7-year-old gave a pretty solid recipe for “loving you from the sidelines.”

There are certain people who are amazing at showing up for our dark days and we count on them like no others. Then there are other people who are just perfection at sharing our days in the sun.

Though I’ll practice my role in this ritual of witnessing someone else’s shining as often as I’m invited, the sequence crystallized into clarity when I was the recipient of such loving.

I’d just finished my presentation at the International AIDS Conference in Washington DC last summer and began to slightly relax on the stage listening to the other presenters in the panel. I’d practiced that talk, tweaked each word until the sentences poured from one to the next explaining the data projected via a power point slide onto the large screen.

I’d been both thrilled and terrified of my five allotted minutes at the microphone with the names of well-known, pioneering researchers as the senior authors on many other panelists’ abstracts. My mentor had coached and encouraged me before hand. There she sat in the second row, took photos and smiled like I was the greatest thing at the conference. She was my witness; she celebrated me.

I leaned back as the discussion period began, feeling the hard was over. But, the first question was directed to me, a question I’d not anticipated and framed in a way that though I did not realize who exactly was asking the question I could deduce he was 1) smart and 2) had a point. The voices of fear and love began their simultaneous chatter in my head.

Fear said: You are not a researcher. Everyone else in this room is smarter than you. What are you doing up here pretending?

Love said: Research is just a platform for telling the story. You know the story like no one else. String the words together and spit them out.

I smiled my fake smile with the hope of exuding confidence to mask the dialogue on the inside and pulled together a decent response. But then, he had a follow-up question and, yes, he had a point. I still believed I was correct but my words did not flow. Through the sound of the amplified audio, I heard my voice catch. I stumbled. It was not perfect.

In the seconds as we transitioned to the next question, I breathed in slowly and turned to look toward my mentor, worried I’d disappointed or said something wrong. My gaze caught her beaming face and as we made eye contact, she mouthed in slightly exaggerated words using her hands for emphasis “THAT WAS PERFECT.”

She was my touchstone.

Game (back) on.

This love note was born from these experiences, a prompt to be the witness or embrace our own day of shining.

Good luck, love. As if you need it.