The Ball

The soccer fields, the players, the coach, the team and the fans are missing something.

Out in the back yard sits a familiar round shape, a well-known ball. It now sits alone about forty feet from where my brothers and I kicked that ball to score thousands of goals, in thousands of games and played thousands of games. We taught one another how to be better soccer players, better sportsmen and developed our passion for the game. But today the ball just sits lonely, waiting for the three of us to give it another swift kick.

Bright Red, white and black bright colors shinning in the sun. As the day passes each color seems to shine brighter as the balls shadow slowly moves around from right to left until fading, once more into the darkness of night.

I haven’t dared go out and kick that ball. We don’t talk about that ball. As we see that ball somehow making its way, traveling away from our house, being pelted by the rain and pushed by the wind it moves further away.

It is cold outside. The leaves on the trees have turned colors. It looks as if the ball has moved towards the trees. I am still not brave enough to go kick that ball. As it sits today, closer to the bright red, green, gold and yellow covered trees, I can see the ball has changed. It is not the bright red it once was.

Snow has covered the once brilliant colored, lively, bouncy soccer ball. It lays at the edge of the trees, one hundred yards away. It had traveled the distance of a large soccer field it traveled, it rolled as if it was shrugging its shoulders, wondering why we left it. Hanging its head low, deflating its big round self into a smaller size as it made its lonely way, across the empty soccer field, rolling slowly away, slowly to hide.

My first steps were taken just to go kick a soccer ball. So it seemed natural for me to follow both my brother’s footsteps and play year-around soccer. Cody and Brody would pass a ball with me before I could even stand. Then as I learned to walk, and run they taught me everything they knew.

Shouting, cheering, we heard the loud roar from the crowd. Brody knocked the ball forward, dribbling up the side of the field, looking up for his next move. He sees Cody open and makes the pass. Cody is tall, fast and gifted with strength and power. Runs over anyone in his way keeping the ball at his feet, for no fouls are called. Cody sees me open, passes it right to my feet. I touch it at the perfect angle, tapping it past the goalkeeper, and scoring the winning goal! Brody and Cody race towards me with hands in the air cheering and yelling my name. Nothing could be sweeter that the three of us playing soccer in our back yard!

Cody and Brody are much older than me. They are on traveling soccer teams and on the high school varsity team. Cody, the oldest, is tall like the trees. I heard one of his teammates say that he never liked running into Cody because it was like hitting a brick wall. Brody is much shorter, but has skills that make everyone go ahhhh. Don’t tell him I told you this but I believed he had magic in his cleats. I still don’t understand how he moved the ball around so smoothly while bolting across the field.

It only took a moment for all things to change.

Lively, full of air the ball bounced with excitement as the three of us played soccer in our back yard. Bright with color, always joyful, taken outside to play and inside after games, drills, and practices. Even dried off after playing in the rain or wet from the dew of the night air, the ball was kept like a prized possession, and always shining like a dazzling trophy, that ball seemed to be alive.

No one wanted to talk about the Ball. No one admitted they looked at the ball. It was a glance, and then silence. The three of us felt as empty as that old discarded ball.

One day, like every other day, the ball came to its resting place. Our world stopped, we heard no cheers, no juggling, or balls hitting the back of the net. The Ball Dropped still, as my brother Brody was taken to the hospital.

Brody never laid eyes on his soccer ball again. He had hate, anger and fear inside of him. The ball would not understand that Brody could never play sports again because of his bad heart. I call it HCM. I learned to say it. It took some practice - Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. Some kids do die from it, we are so lucky Brody is fine. I might get it, but I know I’ll be alright. Brody has showed me how to be strong and brave.

We went down to the trees and found that old tattered ball one day. The happy memories we had, didn’t fade as much as the colors on our lost soccer ball. We picked it up together, cleaned it and now it sits … maybe watching or listening to the music we play together. Cody sings and plays keyboard, Brody rocks on piano and I have picked up both drums and guitar. Filling the house with laugher, joy and lots of music I know that raggedy old faded ball, sitting on the edge of the piano, is bouncing to the beat to the music.