Tonight I saw a chapter in my daughter's life close.. no more shivery late fall evenings... no more sweaty socks and dirty sneakers.... no more sore throats and laryngitis ... no more run thru signs and throwing footballs with each scoring touchdown. Tonight was the last football game of the season, and the last football game for the senior cheerleaders and players. There was NO way I could miss this game. There were bursts of tears throughout the night, but I had so much fun watching the girls cutting up with each other and laughing and trying to push past the sadness that was lurking just on the horizon of every joke. They've been a team... a sisterhood.. a family ... some of them for longer than just this year. Of course it is bitter sweet ... no one could blame them for their tears. No one would deny them their tears. And even we, the parents, cried. Watching our babies grow up so fast.... could this really be THE last game? Just seemed so weird.
On Senior Night, the parents walk alongside their senior as they are announced to the fans in the stands. It's a pretty big deal from what I was told before hand by other mothers who have attended such events for their kids. As we were all standing in line, there was one girl who's mother had not shown yet. Turns out there was a miscommunication regarding the details... and she was terribly upset. So upset that she wasn't going to walk. Many of the mothers, including myself, offered to walk with her in the place of her mother... this was the SENIORS night.. this was not an event that needed to be spent sitting on the sideline. She NEEDED to experience that walk. So all the girls rallied together and walked together... arms linked.. side by side.. and we, the mothers and fathers, walked behind them... mothers arms linked and walking side by side as well. We laughed about how this was truly a first for the school and that the announcer in the booth would probably not know what to think.. but we did it. and it was FABULOUS.... They looked so wonderful walking together...5 teammates.... 5 friends... 5 sisters.... all walking together as one unit... as the family they had become. I wish I could have seen what it looked like from the stands... watching them walk.. and accepting their roses together. Even the photographer who later took our picture as we stood in line chuckled to himself at the "lineup".. It was great...Soon all tears were forgotten and it was game time. But slowly as the clock on the score board tapered down, the reality of the closing of this chapter was becoming more apparent.. and new tears started to fall. A part of each of them will forever be a part of that field.. that stadium.... the track....the crowd... they will forever be AHS Tigers.
I *tried* to keep it together.. but it wasn't easy. I think I just kept taking pictures as a way of making the night never end. But when I stopped snapping away, that is when it hit me. They've grown up. Not just the senior cheerleaders.. but my two children.... my two oldest are seniors in high school and will be venturing out on their own before I know it. Wow... just wow. Even now I am overcome with emotion about it. I wonder if MY parents felt this way as I was going thru my senior year. I'm certain they did.. I just never realized the impact of it all.
I am soooo sooooo sooooooooooooooo proud of my children. Each of them so very different in their own ways... but yet amazing young adults in their own right.
I was so proud watching her out there... cheering... clapping... laughing... and even crying. When did she get to be such an amazing person? A friend to anyone she meets? When did she become this amazingly strong, independent, confident young woman... she just amazes me... absolutely amazes me.
Please world .. be kind to them. They are my heart...
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