Soldiering On

 

It happened in Milwaukee on October 29, 2022.  It seems all bad things with regard to volleyball and Lainey and Wright State happen in Milwaukee.  The text I sent to an alumni mom before I walked in the gym to watch the match, said "Walking it to fricken Milwaukee.  I will not miss this place."  And the mom understood and knew exactly what I was talking about, having survived 4 years of Milwaukee trips with me as our daughters played together.  

Over two weeks ago, surgery, crutches, a scooter, Senior Weekend, celebrations, regular season conference champions, last road trip ever, undefeated conference record, hosting the tournament, and riding the longest winning streak in the NCAA's this season.  All of that has happened in two weeks. Two weeks since her Achilles broke, she crumpled to the gym floor and, for the first time in her career, she couldn't get up, she couldn't tape it up and get back out there, she couldn't do rehab and miss a few games.  Two weeks since her volleyball career abruptly ended for all of us. 

Facebook is what prompted this writing....opening the app and the blinking cursor beckoning me to share what is on my mind.  What's on my mind Facebook asks...and a stream of thought comes over me.  The last week, I have spent a lot of time on my own.  I like to be alone. I enjoy the quiet.  Sometimes I listen to podcasts, sometimes I just listen to the silence.  When I am going through something hard, my people know that I need to be alone to process it and make sense of it. I need that time and I am thankful for the understanding.  I am thankful for the silence.

I miss watching my kid play the sport she loves so much. There, I said it.  I was ready for the end of her career, just not like this. I can’t really explain it in a way that makes sense or in a way that doesn’t sound “dramatic”.  You see, I know she will be just fine, she will heal and will go on and do great things with her life.  I hear you all when you tell me that, I also already knew that.  That doesn’t really make the processing of all of this any easier.  Until I gain perspective, I am held hostage by the why’s, what if’s and why her’s. 

All of my daughters are “high flyers” who have been given much and, in return, will give much back.  They are my greatest achievements and I have often shared my pride in the people they have become to the readers of this blog.  Lainey will also shine bright in whatever she chooses to do, no doubts there.  But, for now, dammit, I miss watching her play…I grieve for the sudden end of her career, I grieve for her and for me and for so many others who admired her or who just loved watching her play – the same as I did.  To see her on the sidelines, silently wiping a stray tear that escapes during the national anthem, then immediately flipping the switch to cheer and clap and help coach her team is one of the hardest things to watch as a mom….and one of my proudest.  It seems easier for her than it is for me, I am thankful for that but wonder how much she is faking?  I know she still doesn’t understand, she still tells me how unfair it is that “the girl who loved volleyball more than anyone else, is the girl who had her season cut short” – her teammates would attest to that.  Life is unfair my child, it is just unfair sometimes. 

 I fight every day for perspective.  As I nested this week, prepping for Thanksgiving, making our home beautiful, planning, cleaning, organizing.  I tuned out of the sadness and anger and let the work absorb me.  Being busy helps.  I know we will make sense of this someday – the why is always the last piece to any complicated puzzle.  As the mom, the pressure to have the answer is persistent – this time I don’t have the answer, I don’t know the ‘why’, I just have to trust that my past experiences with difficult things will be the same as this and the ‘why’ will reveal itself when it is good and ready.  In its own time…meanwhile we sit with these feelings, overwhelmed by them at times, even the busy has to end, and the silence becomes thoughts that thunder through my mind and storm down on my heart.  So many feelings of frustration, anger, bitterness, sadness, empathy, compassion….too many feelings every single day - and the busy is only temporary.  

Time will have to be our other friend.  As time passes, oh so slowly in these situations, the feelings do become muted, the edges soften.  A small perspective is gained, it is not consistent though and ebbs and flows as I process it all, but it is there, and I know with time it will grow.  

As the magical perspective takes hold more and more, I am able to see many things – the team of incredible athletes soldiering on.  The devastation they all felt with their leader going down evident from every player and parent on the team.  The night it happened - the sadness, the fear, the doubt – we all felt it.  It is a blur to me, that night, but the hugs and tears and reassurances we all gave each other are crystal clear.  We all knew though, we all knew.  

I left the gym that night for the first time ever without hugging Jenna....Lainey’s roommate, teammate and best friend. The tear soaked face of her and her parents were just too much for me.  This wonderful person and player who I admire so much, so upset and hurt and my heart couldn’t take anymore.  Her sadness palpable the next day as I found her sitting on their couch, in silence, tears streaming down her face.  Unspoken - but I know she grieved for Lainey, for me, for the team and mostly, for herself.  She found me in the laundry room a little bit later. We hugged and cried and held each other there.  Our strength when Lainey was around dissipating as we gave in to the emotions that were consuming us.  Her doubting her ability to be on the court without Lainey, me loving her for saying that but knowing full well what a bad ass she is  and that she would be just fine.  The pure emotion shared by everyone around this one event, the opportunity to make something great out of this - filed away. 

Together for 5 years. Breaking records, making history. Roommates, teammates, best friends. Jenna will finish on the court without Lainey but they will forever be side by side

The team and parents came to realize, with our blessing, that it was not only okay to play without her, but it was okay and expected they still win and they still play with joy.  These athletes have shown incredible mental toughness – they have soldiered on in the face of great adversity.  While Lainey was an important piece to their exceptional success, she was just one piece.  As volleyball is the ultimate team sport, everyone on the team has a part in the success and the failures.  Her team had to learn that and they did, they are...with each win, their confidence growing.   These young women have learned valuable life lessons from this, lessons they will draw on later in life.  I have no doubt about that.  I add that to my score card and store it away for when the thunder comes and I can’t silence my mind. 

I am a big believer in saying the important things out loud.  I give speeches at birthdays and graduations, I make toasts and I buy “shots for the bar” to celebrate anything and everything.  One of my friends mentioned this to me over the summer, she said, “I was telling a friend how open you are with your feelings and how you tell people you love them and admire them and why and you do it publicly and I think that is really cool….”  I had never thought about it but it reminded me that most people do this at funerals.  My dad’s eulogy  was so well received by everyone as I wrote of his life and my admiration for him.  But, I still wonder if my dad knew? All of our quiet nights spent in various hospitals, mostly him talking and me listening…I can’t remember if he knew how I felt.  I know we apologized for life’s ups and downs, and we forgave each other in the very next breath. I guess that is most important, but it does bother me that he may have died and didn’t know – I wish I had written the eulogy as a tribute to him before he passed.  The realization that I didn’t sits with me and that goes in the regret pile. 

NKU fans made signs for Lainey and 
her team had her on the bench as she recovered
from surgery at home

Lainey’s injury caused her to be eulogized in a sense.  I can’t even begin to count the posts, pictures, texts, cards, flowers, emails, dm’s, and face to face interactions she has had from so many people.  Young athletes who admire her, older athletes who she played with or competed against, past coaches who are sad for her, opposing coaches who loved to game plan around her, current and past teammates and parents who share our sadness and grief, new friends and old friends who know how much she loved playing volleyball and understand the devastation.  I could go on and on.  The fact that she got to hear these things, that people took the time to reach out to her and express what she means to them, what competing against her or with her meant to them, heck she even got a couple job offers out of the deal…she is lucky and blessed in this regard, this would not have happened without her injury---I file the realization away. 

The new setter on the team is a senior, Katie Meyer.  She is a year behind Lainey and has never had much opportunity to play. She knew that when she committed to Wright State. She accepted her role and so did her family.  They have been some of Lainey’s biggest cheerleaders throughout her career.  Lainey and I have often said Katie is one of the best setters in the league and would play on just about any other roster.  She did her job well at Wright State and is an important part of their past success, running the scout team, watching the games from the sidelines, helping Lainey know where openings are, etc.  But now, Katie gets her chance.  I am sure it is bittersweet for her and her family, knowing that Lainey will never play again, but so proud that she has her time to shine.  She deserves it.  She works hard and has pushed Lainey to be the best she could be over the years. She had big shoes to fill but she is doing it.  She isn’t Lainey and that is a-ok, Katie brings her own gifts and talents to the court that are different than Laineys, but stellar all the same.  The team has rallied around her and the coaching staff believes in her.  I am proud of her for stepping in as she has, because nothing is more important right now than this team continuing to win and accomplishing all of their goals.  That rests with her now and her years of training and sacrifice are paying off.  It is nice to see her family get to watch her, I remember that, I miss that – watching your kid do something they love – there is really nothing like it.  Kudos to all of them, she has earned it and so have they. I hope they find joy and satisfaction.  Her success and her taking this opportunity and running with it gets filed away.  

I have begun to look forward to things after volleyball.  In the immediate future, everyone will be home for Thanksgiving and we are looking forward to a small gathering in our PJ’s playing cards and just being together.  When your kids are spread across the country, nothing is more important than family time. In the more distant future, there are so many great things, I can’t even list them all.  But I make myself consciously aware - there is so much good and positive in my life.  I am blessed in ways others can only dream of.  I realize these things easier now that some time has passed but still I am at the point of forcing it.  The good thoughts are not natural yet - the sadness is, the bitterness is – these feelings, not at all who I am, but overcome with those emotions.  I choose to remind myself by looking at photos or snapchat memories – the life we have created filled with love and happiness.  This blip of despair will pass, I know this – that also gets filed away.  

The next couple weeks will pass.  I won’t wish them away.  I will feel every feeling.  The team will continue to do great and set records and (hopefully) be playing in a third NCAA tournament in four years!  WOW wouldn’t that be incredible.  

My gratitude at what it was may take some time.  My bitterness and questioning won’t go away over night or even over weeks.  My sorrow for my daughter will heal, as she heals.  I will persist at being conscious of the blessings, even as the thunder of the despair weighs on me.  I have learned through other difficulties that soldiering on, while feeling every bit of it, is the way for me.  It is not for everyone, but it is for me.  It is why I file the good parts away and draw on them as much as possible when the despair rears its head.  

I won’t ever see her play again.

She won’t set the all time assists record.

She may not be Setter of the Year

Player of the Year will never be

She may not even make an All League team

She won’t play in another NCAA tournament

     …these dreams are gone…

 

I will always get to be her mom.

I share her future and her past, 

I am her rock and her number one fan no matter what she is doing

     …these things will never change…

 

She has set the standard at Wright State.

She will ALWAYS be remembered for how she played and what kind of person and teammate she was

She will cheer and help coach and relish in her team’s victories

She will continue to impact not only the volleyball world but the world in general.

She will do big things because that is what she does. 

      …these things are true….

 Eventually, days will go by that we don’t think about it, tears won’t fall and life will move on. This is how it is, this much I know to be true.  Life goes on…