After ours

   The last high school basketball game that I played ended the way that most of them did for me.  Spent, and losing.  I got fouled with two minutes left.  As I went to the line for my free throws, Coach Collins pulled someone off the bench to sub in for me when I was done.  Perhaps he was giving me a chance to be applauded by the home crowd in my last game.  Perhaps he was just knew that I had emptied the tank and was ready, finally, to sit down.  Either way, I knew these two foul shots would be my last.  I made them both.  This happened over thirty years ago.  But I remember how it felt to sit down at the end of the bench -- tired, sore, sweating freely, my face buried in a white towel.  

   I always said that I would not care, and then, when the time came, that in fact I did not care, if my kids were athletes, as long as they did something -- music, dance, art, whatever.  And that was true.  But I have also said that I was happy my girls were athletes.  And that is also true.  

   Rachel's last high school volleyball game was this past week.  She doesn't plan on playing club volleyball this season, so this was the end of the road -- the last real game, in a real league, with uniforms and coaches and officials, the score of which will end up in a newspaper.  Her team was up two games in a best-of-five match with Weston.  Her turn to serve arrived when the score was 16-15.  You play to 25 and up by two.  I wasn't taking pictures this day, just enjoying her last match.  But this was the last time she ever would serve -- the signature part of her game.  So I took a couple shots of her in the ready position -- focused, calm, looking like she is ready to shoot an arrow through the heart of something.  She makes three serves in a row, with an ace.  The other coach calls time-out to stop the momentum.  Rachel comes back with more, and another ace.  Another time-out.  And now we're thinking, could she really serve this thing out?  It means not just making nine serves in a row, but of course having your team win all those points to keep serving.  Why yes, she can, and they can, and so this is how her volleyball career ends -- running the table.  

   These are, I know, small moments on small stages.  But ours.