October 20, 2007
Saturday

In about forty minutes Ron and I will be leaving for the two-hour drive to East Stroudsburg University, another school in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. East Stroudsburg is nestled (that’s the word tourism always uses) in the foothills of the Poconos, and today is probably the best day we’ve had in this muggy, summer-like fall for this trip. The air is autumn-like this morning, and as we near our destination we’ll begin to see the best fall foliage colors Pennsylvania can offer, a week or so before they come to Dauphin County. I’ll be able to bring to mind all my favorite fall poems, such as Mary Oliver’s “In Blackwater Woods”:

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light . . .

My favorite fall poems are about loss and change, and that will certainly be on my mind as we drive. For when we get to East Stroudsburg, we’ll be attending the last Millersville University Lady Marauder field hockey game of the 2007 season, the last time Senior Forward #11 Lynn DeAngelis will take the field in the service of this or any other school team.

It’s been nine years since the spring day Lynn said, “I’m going out for field hockey.” She was in seventh grade, and though she was a strong and active youngster, she had shown neither interest nor promise in athletics. When she played basketball in first grade she’d been too polite to move against an opponent, stepping out of the way so the other little girl could catch the ball.

I’d taught for a long time in a school where field hockey is nearly a religion, where the charismatic coach attracts legions of young women willing and able to work hard and excel. I didn’t know much about the sport, but I did know that the Lower Dauphin field hockey players who had passed through my classroom were among the finest people I ever knew, girls who carried the leadership, sportsmanship, and teamwork skills they learned on the field into all the other areas of their lives. They were young women of integrity, high achievers all around, role models for us all. 

At Lower Dauphin it seems that most of the girls are born with a hockey stick in their hands, or are given one for their first Christmas. The program at Lynn’s high school was less intense and less successful, but I nevertheless insisted that Lynn enroll for a summer session in the field hockey camp my teaching colleague ran.  She would be competing with girls who had been playing for two years already, and I wanted her to know what she was getting into. I didn’t think she’d stick with it.

I underestimated her. One year of middle school, four years of high school, and four years of collegiate hockey later, we’re attending the last game in an endeavor that has brought Lynn as an individual and us as a family every positive outcome that sports participation is supposed to offer. Lynn has developed all those interpersonal skills so useful in life. She has learned to maintain her commitment to her team while also achieving in the classroom. In college, this has meant doing the extended lab work and the many hours of preparation that her biology major requires while also attending practice and away games that can have her on a bus for five hours one way. College professors and the demands they make are less accommodating of sports schedules than are high school teachers, and Lynn has sometimes had to make extraordinary efforts to meet her academic obligations.

She has made friends and so have Ron and I. Because we have flexible daytime schedules and live only an hour from the home games (and not more than two hours from many of the away games), we’ve been to quite a few of Lynn’s collegiate contests. It wasn’t quite the same as her high school days because we didn’t see the parents, nor the players for that matter, in any other activity. In fact, when I saw some pictures of Lynn’s first Field Hockey Formal (a sort of late autumn prom at a hotel that the girls put on for themselves), I didn’t recognize some of her friends without their hair caught up in sweatbands and their mouthguards in.

Here is Lynn as she looked last Saturday at Family Day. After the game there was a brief ceremony in which the senior players were honored by their teammates. There were balloons and gifts and a tribute for each spoken by an underclassman who felt especially close to a particular senior. The words said of Lynn were echoed by several parents who approached us with their good wishes for her, and for us. They were grateful for the way Lynn had befriended their daughters, some of whom had arrived at college shy and uncertain. She’d counseled them, looked out for them, encouraged them. Lynn helped make the experience a joy for everyone, even though in her four years the team never saw a winning season.

We even heard by e-mail from a man whose daughter withdrew from Millersville after her first year when she changed the focus of her career plans. He knew the last game was coming up, and wrote to say that “[Lynn] was always there to help [Rachel]. She always had a smile on her face and was a pleasure to watch on the field.”

What’s a proud mother to do but shed some tears herself? (I cut that part of the picture off.)

Later

We’re back. The game started a half hour late because the charter bus didn’t show for our girls and they had to scramble to find school vans to bring them up. A water main break at East Stroudsburg meant that the spread at the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet in the campus dining hall was less sumptuous than we had come to expect from our previous experiences there. The only beverage was bottled water (no coffee!!) because the orange juice and the milk ran out fast. The grass field was as soft as a cow pasture after last night’s rain (our girls are used to artificial turf). We lost 4-1 (not because of the soggy field) but the seniors started the game and ended the game together, more playing time than we had dared hope for.

There were more tears, and hugs among the parents both for the girls and for ourselves. I didn’t cry until about half an hour later when we stopped at a convenience store for coffee and a snack. Ron pulled down the glove compartment door to use as a tray, and out fell our signs. Since we’ve been going to Lynn’s college games, we’ve had to park in some faculty-designated areas on weekdays. They’re emptying by the time we arrive at 3:30 or so, but they are nevertheless posted. Our windshield signs have Lynn’s picture (the one seen below capturing, from high school, her joy at scoring a goal) and the caption “Field Hockey Parents Attending Game” with my cell phone number included. We’ve never been ticketed. “Well, we won’t need these anymore,” Ron said, and crumpled them into a trash bag.

I did not expect to feel this melancholy. But I should have remembered my Mary Oliver better:

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: . .  .

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.