Far Post

This is my 100th and final blog post on Kick Soccer Mom (at least for now). Thank you to those kind and faithful souls who read, reposted, commented on and liked my blog these last two years – I truly appreciate and value the time you took out of your busy lives to read my silly stories. Who knew that something I started on a whim one day after reading a newspaper article about how there are no funny women out there would become 100 blogs long? Here’s some stuff I learned along the way:

Not all blogs get famous and turned into books. Julie and Julia was the model for me – the story of the woman named Julie who blogged about cooking all of Julia Child’s recipes and then got her blog profiled in the New York Times, got a book deal, and had her bestselling book made into a movie starring Meryl Streep. I figured I’d probably follow the same path....I mean, sure, Meryl is a little old to be playing soccer, but so am I-- and I know she likes to tackle challenging, different acting roles. Alas, it was not meant to be. But it doesn’t mean I can’t turn my blog into a book. Forcing myself to write something every week for almost two years means I’ve got loads of material written already...and then when my book gets famous and Meryl comes crying to me, wishing she had found me earlier-- I can give the movie role to some younger actress. Suck it Meryl, with your phony baloney foreign accents. I don’t need you after all.

The internets like pictures, not words. According to my stats, my blog has been looked at 16,640 times since I created it, and if I had to break that down, I’d say that roughly 40 of those times someone was reading it, 600 times someone was looking at a pictures of Jesus playing soccer that I illegally used last year, and 16,000 times was me looking at my blog to see if anyone else had looked at it.

Playing drop-in soccer with men is more fun than playing soccer in a women’s league. Of course I may be biased on this point, because both times after university that I played in women’s leagues, I almost immediately tore my ACLs. But regardless of that, the most joy I’ve felt playing soccer was when playing drop-in games with mostly men. I suppose it is because I would much rather play with people who are better and faster than me-- their passing is so good that it makes me look like a much better player. I’ve found most of them to be unfailingly generous teammates, and they tolerate me by treating me like that untrained pet that it’s hard to stay angry at. We have a lot of laughs. It feels like high school gym class – or maybe cutting class-- we’re all shirking our responsibilities with our jobs and kids and running around getting a little fresh air, often in the middle of the day on a weekday. Indeed, it is so much like gym, that if we ever chastise each other for being late, the response is usually “It’s okay--I brought a note from my mom.”

Physiotherapists have a lot of power. Turns out telling your physiotherapist about your blog after writing about how mean and demanding your physiotherapist is can be very, very punishing indeed. Even other patients were like “Wow, you have to do 3 sets of 50 squats? Whoa. Why?”

Time can go by really fast. When I started my blog I used to worry my dad would see it and be angry at some of the personal stuff I was making public, but now his dementia is so profound he can’t read the word ‘Vancouver’ on a Canucks poster and doesn’t know who my sister is. We were never close, and he never told me that he loved me or was proud of me, but he is still my dad- - the only dad who repeatedly showed up with a truck to help me and my friends move all those times while we were in university, and who took me to Holland after I endlessly pestered him about it when I was ten years old, the way some dads will break down and take their kids for ice cream. (Why Holland? Who knows? I think clogs were popular and windmills seemed cool at the time.) Instead of writing silly soccer blogs, I need to sit with him when I can and listen to him tell the story, once again, of how he hit two home runs in one baseball game. Each time this story is more fantastical than the last time he told it and it is hard to hear. Is this me, in 35 years, telling tall tales of soccer goals I scored? I hope my daughters will sit with me and listen patiently.

My husband is a very tolerant person. I know it’s not normal, this constant running off to play soccer at my age when and I could be advancing my career and earning more money, or I dunno, at least cleaning out our closets or something. But sometimes when we have tons to do and the kids are being psycho and the house is a mess, but the sun is shining, I will slip guiltily downstairs in my soccer gear, and look worriedly at Steve, and he always, always just smiles at me and says, “It’s okay. Go play. Have fun.” I know, ladies, that I’m playing with an unfair advantage. He is my biggest score.

Soccer is everywhere. Not only is soccer the most popular sport in the universe, it may, in fact, be the universe. Several years ago, a mathematician published an article in the prestigious journal Nature, which claims that ”the universe is small and spherical, consisting of curved dodecahedrons that together create a shape akin to a soccer ball.” That’s right people, in my very last blog post I decided to casually drop in the word ‘dodecahedrons’. I’m that good. Enough said.

Sometimes They are Penalty Kicks

My dad’s once stalwart, avionics-engineer-brain is now a swiss-cheesy mess. At 78, the dementia is setting in for good; all that knowledge about flight recorders and airplane wiring diagrams is gone forever. When I visit, he often interrupts my attempt to tell him about his grandchildren to ramble on about the new task they have given him in his carehome: taking the metal tabs off the top of pop and juice cans. To hear him tell it, this is a top-notch role he’s been given. How did they previously get along without him? I try my best to nod and listen, and enquire about these amazing cans.

It’s said that dementia allows a person to retain the essence of their former personality. People who have a kind and sweet disposition when they are young are still sweet, although addled by the disease in other ways. Of course, controlling and difficult people retain that too, and that’s unfortunately what my mom sees when she visits: Dad yells at her to take him home and regularly threatens to divorce her in front of any and all who will listen. (One of the nurses actually followed her outside the other day to ask if she was okay.) The gist: my dad was a very cold and demanding man when I was young, and he is now. He does not give compliments, ever, to anyone. But for some inexplicable reason when he talks to me about soccer, now, he’s different. He’s not sweet, just ...respectful. And very, very misguided. It’s like he is making up the things that he wished had really happened. It often goes something like this:

“I used to come over to Victoria pretty much every weekend to watch you play when you were in University over there....”

“Uh, Dad, I don’t think so, but yeah, you came sometimes.” (He might have come twice in my entire collegiate soccer career. I don’t mind—he lived on the mainland and I was on the Island—but let’s face it, if we’d lived in the same town, I doubt he would have been much more interested.)

“Yeah, I remember I came to the second game you ever played over there (no, he did not) and you had to take a corner kick, and you scored from the corner kick, with your right foot. And your coach was so shocked and happy at what a big kick you had. And then later in the game, you took another corner kick from the other side, with your left foot, and you scored with that one too. You got two goals. Your coach couldn’t believe it. ”

Hmm...he might not be the only one. I don’t believe it either. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I can remember an embarrassing amount of detail about most of the goals I’ve ever scored (usually embellished with loud fan cheering and liberal doses of the chanting of my name) so I’m sure I’d remember scoring twice in one game, from corner kicks, using both feet.

“Uh, yeah, dad? I do not remember that.”

“Yeah, the goalie, he was really pissed off.” (Hmm, why was the goalie a ‘he’ in women’s varsity soccer?) “You just put it right over his head.”

“Wow, cool.”

“And when you took the goal kick, it just went right by him.”

“Wait – what? It was a goal kick? Not a corner kick?”

“Yes, they were goal kicks.”

“I scored twice in one game from goal kicks? Once with my left foot?” (This is impossible.)

“Yeah.”

We have variations on this theme. Sometimes they are penalty kicks. Sometimes the goalie is a girl. And this muddy, circular conversation is the closest thing to praise I have ever received from my dad, a man whose fallback communication with me, as a kid and a teenager, was to tell me I was lazy and stupid. He still seems to be aware that UVIC was many years ago, and that now I just play for fun, both indoor and outdoor, with both men and women. He also tells me elaborate details about watching the Whitecaps play the Canucks on TV. Of course, we don’t have to talk about soccer—there is always the riveting pop can tops to discuss—but he is often the one to bring it up.

The other day one of the carehome workers happened by, and my dad tried to introduce me to him, saying, “This is my daughter, Cathy. She still plays soccer. With men.” And the person looked at me and smiled, his face relentlessly cheerful, and said the things my father never could say: “Wow, that’s great. Good for you. Your dad must be proud.”

I’ll take it.

Happy

You know what I did today? I did not volunteer to walk with the grade three class over to the library. I did not visit my dementia dad in his carehome. I did not unload the dishwasher. I did not make any penguins or people out of fondant icing. I did not sew caterpillar and cardsmen costumes for the school play. I did not volunteer to go into work to help move stuff between classrooms. I did not read the paper and try to make thoughtful comparisons about soccer news that I was hoping you would find interesting or entertaining.

Instead I put on my cleats (that not unlike my knees, are held together with pins),

and I played soccer.

And I am happy.

(And sweaty.)

But seriously, why didn’t I unload the dishwasher? That takes like two seconds. Now my kitchen is a mess. Sigh.

Dementia Dad

"Did you play soccer today?” my dad asks. I think this is the fourth time this week he has asked me this. I often drop in to Extended Care to see him after my physiotherapy sessions, since they are held across the street. He is sitting in his wheelchair, looking out the window. I sit on his bed, careful to avoid the button on a cord that calls for the nurse.

“No, Dad. I had knee surgery in October.” We have this same conversation almost every time. I lift up my yoga pants legs to show Dad the scars on my knees. “This is the scar from 1998,” I say, “and this is the new one. I still have to wait at least six more weeks before I can play.”

He stares thoughtfully at my knees like this is new information. “That’s a long time to wait, isn’t it?” he asks.

Yes, oh yes.

We are quiet for a while. We’ve never had much to say, he and I. He was always the science guy, the technical guy – an avionics engineer who couldn’t connect with people very well- even his own kids. Of course, we all had our specialty niches: Meg was the smart one, James was the mullet-wearing one that he fought about haircuts with, and I was the sporty one. After I moved out to go to UVIC, the only time my parents and I ever spoke was on Sundays because that was the day of my soccer game. And just like all those years ago, once we are done with the topic of soccer, the conversation gets pretty thin.

“So, what did you have for breakfast today?” I ask. This is usually a safe subject.

“I had no stuff for my toast,” he says. He makes a triangle shape with his hands.

“Jam, you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Jam.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the toast was shaped like a triangle,” he says, showing me the shape again.

What does this have to do with jam? “Cut on the diagonal?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “Everyone else had stuff on their toast. But not me.”

He starts to make the triangle shape with his hands again, but I don’t say anything. I’m eager to get past the great toast-and-jam debacle of 2011.

“Just toast for breakfast, Dad?” I say, finally.

“No,” he says, starting to make a different shape with his hands. “There were, uh, eggs,” he looks at his hands. “They were....egg shaped,” he explains without a trace of irony.

“Okay.” I say.

“And soup,” he adds, making his hands into a circle. I guess for the shape of the bowl.

“Soup for breakfast?! Nah, I think you mean for dinner last night.”

“Well, okay, yes,” he says. “It was last night but it was for breakfast this morning. It was that small stuff with air in it. It was shaped like this.” He slowly points to the small circular holes on the medical name bracelet he wears, the ones that allow you to make the bracelet different sizes. When did his wrists get so impossibly thin?

“Rice Krispies?” I guess.

“Maybe,” he says, staring out the window.

We don’t talk for a while. I decide no conversation is better than the riveting shape-filled breakfast exchange we just had. Then he looks at me and says “I want to go home. It’s so boring here.”

My stomach lurches. “Dad, you can’t go home right now. Mom can’t take care of you there. You can’t stand up or walk, remember? “

“Yes, I can. I can fucking walk.”

“Dad, before you came in here, Mom had to call me early one morning to help her try to lift you off the floor, where you had slid down. We had to get the fire department to help us. That’s why they brought you here, in the ambulance. Do you remember being in the ambulance?”

He looks at me angrily. “I came here in an ambulance?”

“Yes. A few months ago.”

We are quiet for a long while this time. We talk a little about the gardening they are doing outside here at the hospital. Across from the garden, in the distance, I can see the field where Sophie played soccer a few weeks ago. “I have to go, Dad,” I say eventually. “I’ll come and see you in a few days.”

“Okay. Thanks for coming. Have a good trip.”

I am not going on a trip. “Thanks Dad.”

“And have a good game.”

“Thanks, Dad. I will.”