Loyalty.

I spent this past basketball season becoming a True Celtics Fan. With Sweetie, I watched nearly every televised game, up to and including Game 7 of the finals, the scrappy match against the Lakers that ended the Celts’ season just short of them having achieved the crowning glory of the title.

Sweetie is a longstanding Celtics fan, and on game nights we would put the kids to bed and tune in. From pregame to postgame and the halftime analysis in between, I watched and listened beside him, as I have for years. I don’t know why this year was different. I started really paying attention. I learned players’ nicknames, their jersey numbers, somewhat irrelevant personal details–like the fact that point guard Rajon Rondo showers several times daily. I watched KG in his pregame routine, hitting his head against the padded post, retying his shorts. I followed along with commentator Tommy Heinsohn, learning, too, about his lifelong affiliation with the team. I’m not an expert now. But due to many hours watching games and absorbing Sweetie’s insights and knowledge, I know a lot more about basketball in general and the Celtics in particular than I did at the beginning of this season. I can more than hold my own around the water cooler. And after I spent a few minutes the other day filling in Sarah on what happened during the last game, she said to me, half-laughing and fully sincere, “Dad would be proud.”

True, I suppose. I wonder what it would be like to discuss the details of a game with my dad, who died 11 years ago today. This very date: June 20. This very day: Father’s Day. It makes me profoundly sad to have lost him. Especially to know that my children will never know him. It also makes me sad that each passing year I am less distraught over his death. Life has continued for me. In his absence. And while there still are times that I miss him to the point of having to consciously hold myself together for fear that the hole I feel inside will gape open and tear me apart, on most days I think of him or speak of him and then continue on.

I’m pretty sure my dad liked the Celtics, too. And that’s the strange part. I don’t really know. There are so many things about him that I am just not certain about. I wasn’t really interested in sports growing up. But I remember him talking about Kevin McHale, Larry Bird. I have an inkling that he spoke to me of record-breaking games, game-changing players. Teams that he thought would never be surpassed. But so much of it is vague. There is so much that I don’t know. And there is no expert for me to go to and learn about all of my dad’s moments of greatness. I just have to believe that the overall feeling I have about him–my love for him, his love for me, the respect that I felt for him from all who attended his funeral–is the truth. It has to be enough. Because his time is up. Our time together is up.

For the rest of us, life goes on. There’s another season ahead. We can’t always be the champions. But we–all of us–can learn from having played a part in the game.

Here’s to you, Dad. Fellow Celtics Fan. I miss you.

Tagged as: brutally honest, change, creating memories, day-to-day, live in the moment, thoughts

Read More in Dad, history aka before kids, home, Jen Writes, relationship, three kids