When asked if she would be ok if her team lost the championship game, my daughter’s response was “Mommy, we got to the finals and I’m getting a trophy no matter what!” Her happiness and enthusiasm was like a light on fire and I soaked in it.

The girls were excited, ready to play, their faces full of anticipation. They just wanted to play. Just play. They had a worthy opponent, they had lost to them twice this season, a fact that none of them likely even recalled or cared about. Just play. They were in the championship game and that was all that really mattered. There would be a trophy and ice cream and that was enough.

Filled with the light of their enthusiasm, I was eager too. Eager to watch these girls that had worked hard to form a team. Girls from different schools, different playing experience, different ages. They didn’t care about any of this, probably they didn’t even notice. They wanted to just play.  They had become something together and that was enough. I was eager to hear them shout their silly cheers.   Eager to see how much their hard work had paid off.   This wasn’t a team that you thought from the beginning was going places. This was a team that had worked hard to learn the game that got a little better each time that figured out how to make plays and hit the ball and to slide. Ahhh… the glorious slide. Win or lose didn’t matter to me because I loved to watch them just play. Just play. And that was enough.

My little bubble of enthusiasm was quickly pierced as I saw this game take on a persona that was completely unfitting. I witnessed behavior that indicated that I had clearly missed something. I searched around looking for college scouts. Nope, not here. I checked to see if perhaps the Olympic rings were hanging somewhere. Also missing. I searched each child’s face. Yep, they were still all single digit ages, wide eyed, full cheeked and grinning their baby teethed smiles. I scanned the field – all the coaches in their places…..yes, that’s right this is an instructional league.  And yet the scene that unfolded in front of me indicated something different. Parents screaming, coaches arguing, ref calls (by the way, the ref was about 15 years old….) being questioned. Where am I?

I tried to concentrate on the game, to keep the voices of these parents out of my space, to not let them take up my air.  I watched each girl to see if they were picking up what was going on around them. I willed them to stay inside their little selves and just play. They seemed oblivious. I was envious. Just play. They tried hard. They did their best. They made good plays and bad plays. They struck out and got great hits. They did it all. And they were happy. It was enough.

One team won and one lost. You see, that is how this works. Your kids going to lose and you should get used to that right now. And instead of losing your damn minds about fairness and rules and other nameless nonexistent injustices, you should have concentrated on the happiness that was unleashed in all of them. You should have harnessed it and rode the high right there with them. Instead you got so wound up in your own anger and self-righteousness that you missed the beauty and power of these little girls. You missed it. My only hope is that you left your garbage at that field and went home and celebrated your child. That you didn’t spend your time raking the other team over the coals, speaking of the incompetence of the ref, and degrading the “cheating coaches”.   I hope you put your indignant self to rest, and returned to your role of parent and number one fan and reveled in your child’s accomplishment. I hope you let her relive every moment of her game. Allowing her to parade around  with her trophy. If you didn’t, you should be ashamed of yourself. This wasn’t about you. Not for one damn minute. This was about your little girl and nothing more. A little girl that still doesn’t understand the rules, a little girl that is cultivating her love of a game, a little girl that just wants a trophy and a snack at the end of the game. A little girl who is perfectly happy to just play. That was enough for her. It should have been enough for you too.