The Day I Cried Over Football

And my perfect formula for navigating grief (yeah, right)

September Saturdays and fall colors were the signposts to a season when leprechauns were known to fight, and Saturday afternoons were booked solid for months. We spoke in shades of blue, green, and gold. Here’s to you.

“Hey Dad, I wish you were here for the game. We all do.”

This was a text I wrote out to my dad. Whether or not his number was given away (I’m sure it was, so I deleted the text and did not press “send”), I kept him in my phone all these years. How could I delete him? Death was permanent enough; no need to contribute to his absence. As his number is forever etched in my mobile device, his presence is forever engraved in my soul.

The Setting

I wrote the text message on Monday, January 20th, the college football national championship game day. His excitement, though imagined in my mind, was palpable. He would’ve hyped up everyone in his path (which wouldn’t be hard since most of his community was ND fans).

I don’t know how many of you follow college football, but I was born into a football fanatic family. My dad (and others in his family) attended Notre Dame, and their family were lifelong fans in the first place. Looking back now, I wish I could ask him more about his experience, as I imagine it must have been quite a dream for him to attend Notre Dame.

Dad liked all sports, but college football was superior to all, at least in my memory. In the fall, Saturdays in the Magers household were fueled by charcuterie, homemade pizza, Vernors, popcorn, and a hopefully good television signal.

ND was mediocre or average for most of my childhood and teenage years. In 2013, there was some hope. But now, we’re regular contenders for the playoffs and championship, and there’s a lot of excitement. The last time Notre Dame won the championship was 1988 (in which my cousin played RB!). So this year was incredibly exciting.

Leading up to the game, I text messaged back and forth with my brother, and we talked about how our dad would’ve loved this. As we talked, my brother said that watching ND is one way he still feels connected to him. And I deeply shared his feelings. We commiserated about how we wish our kids could know him. Instilling a love for Notre Dame (or football in general) in the kids is one way to help them understand and know their Grandpa Magers more.

Even as I write this, I have to take a moment to let the dam burst open, dry my eyes, and refocus.

So my kids knew that this game was special, and to my delight, these precious tiny humans started making decorations for the game a couple of hours before kick-off. They put their heart into it, and it meant the world. My sister-in-law shared a picture of how they decorated—with a photo of my dad holding my brother as a baby turned around to face their television.

We prepped for the ND/Ohio State game with charcuterie snacks and a delicious cake from a friend (if you need a cake lady in the Windsor-Essex area, let me know). Decorations were set, and the game started. And the desperate ache of longing to watch the game with Dad seeped out of my soul and flooded my vision. I blinked down the tears because crying over a football game felt silly.

Pay Attention to Your Grief

But my tears weren’t about football, were they? I’ll know that if I pay attention. Loss calls us to look, but it doesn’t force us. We can avert our gaze and attend to the next task or commitment. But no matter how far in the opposite direction we look, the loss still exists, and its color doesn’t fade any lighter the more we look away. Arguably, grief surrounding the loss grows greater, darker, and angrier the less we pay attention.

Just as my child’s voice gets louder the more I try to focus on something else (just to finish up that last paragraph before getting them a snack!), our grief shouts louder the more we ignore it. Indeed, grief doesn’t just knock politely; it slams itself against the door with all its might.

Loss necessitates grief and mourning; and once it finally kicks down the door to our soul, it falls before us like an exhausted child after a meltdown, begging to be cared for and held.

So. Pay attention. Attend to that pain, all at once or in doses—whatever you can handle. But please, notice it, accept it, and care for it. Whatever loss you’re facing deserves to be honored by admitting the pain and the ache. Grief will be gentler with you the less you ignore it. Note: I did not say grief would be “gentle,” just “gentler” than if you ignore it. Let’s face it, the pain of grief is brutal.

Grief isn’t something to “get over” or “move on” from. If you’ve experienced loss of any kind (whether tangible, disenfranchised, abstract, or another category), don’t be fooled by the world’s message. Your grief will always exist, and that is okay.

In my opinion, the Psalms are some of the most beautiful depictions of what it means to notice our pain and grief.¹ Notice here how the writer honestly divulges what his pain feels like; amid the pain, he knows to bring it back to God, his ultimate comfort. But yet, he is so honest about what the pain feels like—weakness, groaning, crying, seeking.

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. I sought the Lord in my day of trouble. My hands were continually lifted up all night long; I refused to be comforted. I think of God; I groan; I meditate; my spirit becomes weak…I meditate in my heart and my spirit ponders. Psalm 77:1-3, 6b-c.

Grow Around Your Grief

Okay, so we’ve noticed our grief; now what? Well, do you feel pressured to move on instead of moving forward? Don’t buy it. We do have to move forward, but it’s okay if we cry every day for the rest of our lives. When something or someone we love is ripped away from us, we are changed. We don’t come back the same, and often we may feel we won’t come back at all. But we can, and we will. And when we do, we will create new and meaningful experiences.

Attend, and then grow. Experience new experiences around your grief.

Multiple theories of grieving exist, but my favorite was developed by Dr. Lois Tonkin and is described as “Growing Around Your Grief.”² We cannot come back from loss unchanged. We must acquiesce to change; we have to be willing to allow ourselves to attend to life and others in new ways.

Dr. Tonkin asserts that instead of our grief “getting smaller with time,” rather, our grief stays the same size but we grow around our grief as we build new experiences. The phrase, “It will get better with time” has never proven true for me. My ache of losing Dad hurts as badly as it did almost eighteen years ago.

However, we continue to experience life. Instead of being prisoners to grief, we treat our grief as a precious part of our being, always existing, but not always as loud as it is immediately.

Then, when we experience something that takes us back to the loss, brushing shoulders with grief or falling flat on our face before it, we might feel it the same as we felt it the first moment it so cruelly arrived. Yet, that doesn’t mean we’ve backpedaled or regressed or failed. It simply means that our current experience is connected to our loss in a way our body and mind remember deeply.

You can bet my solution to that is to pay attention. What can it hurt? Will it hurt any less to ignore it? You can also bet that if you ignore your soul-searing pain, it will show up in other places.

Here I’ve inserted a helpful graphic to illustrate Dr. Tonkin’s theory. And at the end of this post, I’ve linked a video of a woman beautifully and creatively articulating what it means to grow around grief.

Image taken from The Ralph Site

How My Grief Played Out During the National Championship

Without giving you a play-by-play, it was a close game but Notre Dame lost. They fell too far behind, and though they fought hard in the second half, they just couldn’t get there. While I didn’t sit there sobbing, I cried alone a little while later. Perhaps it was partially because I was heading to bed hours after I normally do, but mostly because I longed for a closeness to my dad that I thought would come with a football game win. My soul ached, and I paid attention.

Losing the game made losing him feel fresher than it had in a while. So the next evening, with a lump still nestled in my throat, I sent a text message to him in my mind. It went something like this:

“We lost, Dad. And somehow, it felt like losing you again. Cheering on the team with my family, feeling like you were next to me, hearing you cheer when they scored, it all just felt out of reach when Notre Dame lost. But tonight, as I sang ‘Amazing Grace’ to Thomas at bedtime, and I imagined you in the best version of humanity, glorified eternal humanity, my soul rested in some joy and some peace. I miss you. I want you here. I wanted Notre Dame to win because I know you’d be so excited for it to happen in your grandparenthood—passing on the love to your littlest loved ones. But I can rest a little bit knowing that you weren’t sad last night. That doesn’t mean I’m glad you’re not here, but I know you weren’t sad. And someday I’ll share in that non-sadness with you.”

Kelly’s Non-Systematic, Non-Linear Grief Process

What I want to get across in sharing this is that we need to let ourselves experience the things that make us feel feelings, whether sadness, joy, excitement, despair, or anger. God-given emotions are meant to be noticed, accepted, and felt. And God DID give us the ability to experience emotions. We sure know Jesus experienced sadness, anger, loneliness, and happiness (Matt. 23:27-28; 26:36-46; Luke 10:21). To ignore something God gave us that attributes to the goodness of our humanity is a shame.

For me, paying attention meant facing the fact that it felt excruciating to be unable to talk to my dad about the Notre Dame game. My wound broke open, and as I bled out, honesty and vulnerability flowed freely. From that came my ability to take the action step of mentally text messaging Dad.

After paying attention, I acknowledged the new life experience that helped me grow another soft and colorful layer around my grief. Reflecting on the night, I smiled as I checked on my kids in bed and pictured the simple, earnest, and heartfelt decorations they made for me, for their grandpa. What a precious experience. Thanks be to God.

So here is my process, adapted from Dr. Tonkin, my life experience, and of course Scripture.

• Pay attention: Notice, Name, Feel, Accept

• Take an action step whether it’s a physical/tangible action or a mental, emotional, and/or spiritual step

• Reflect on new life experiences as you’ve grown around your grief (we live in color, readers)

How about you, friend?

What have you lost? Maybe it’s a job, a friend, a pet, a parent, a child, a pregnancy, an opportunity, a home, or a piece of yourself you can’t fix.

Whatever it is, I pray you pay attention to your grief and allow Christ to be your ultimate comfort, guiding you through the deepest, darkest valleys, because he has been there, too. Do something about your pain or rather, for your pain, for your loss. Then, notice your new experiences that continue to build the journey that is your life.

Click here to watch the Grow Around Your Grief Video

Peace to you and yours,

Kelly

Reel Life Recently…

Sometimes they really are sweet to each other//Kids love their selfies//I took a screenshot of this quote on Amy Gannett’s IG story, because I love it//Found this old notepad with my dad’s name on it//One of my daughter’s many “crafts”//Ordinary school days

Oh and in the name of shopping local to help a gal out, check out this cute teapot I bought recently:

Thanks for reading along. I always appreciate your thoughts and feedback. Have a lovely day.

1. Some other amazing places in Scripture to turn to are: Job 3; Psalm 88; Matt. 11:28-30

2. You can find more about Dr. Tonkin’s model of grief here or here.