It’s hard to write about those that we have loved and lost. But sometimes its the best thing we can do because words written amidst of tears can be like the tears of a Phoenix, healing us as we rise from the ashes. And it is from ash and dust that we all begin and to dust we all return.
I often wonder if there is truth in the lyrics claiming “only the good die young.” It feels like that to me. It’s always the good ones, the people you want to hold onto forever who are suddenly gone.
So it was with my coach this past weekend. For those of you who have ever played a sport and especially to those of you who have ever been an underdog, you have that coach. The one who always believed in you, who never gave up on you even when you wanted to give up on yourself. It’s almost as if they’ve walked out of the Remember the Titans script and are making it come true in your very own crazy life.
My coach was named Ginny Hill. At least that was her name when I met her as a 4 foot sixth grader, trying out for the middle school soccer team. To be clear although the tryouts were really more of a formality than an actual culling process since we all made it in some sense of the word, I was facing them with coke bottle thick glasses, zero sports experience and little of hope of doing more than “riding the pine pony” or “keeping the starters spots warm” as you will… so when the very first game she started me in goal no less, I was speechless. Coach told me later, when I made Varsity as a freshman that she chose me for my heart, my “lion bird heart,” a nickname my college roommate later resurrected. She changed my life that day she put me in goal and she continued to do so for the next 3 years of middle school. It is part of the reason I love to teach middle school. My own experience was so poignant. I grew a quarter of an inch but leaps and bounds in confidence and friendships. Coach had a pretty big 3 years too. The team fought side by side with her against her first bout with cancer. I remember how seriously we took each poster we made her and each round of chemo she conquered. She was a hero to all of us and amidst this crazy battle, she got engaged and married!
She could never convince me that anyone would ever be good enough for her. She was a saint. But as I got to know Paul over the next 20 years, he won me over. He became a mentor to me as well, with his humble servant’s heart and constant faith in the face of hardship. Every day found them with a smile on their faces, even at times amidst tears. I saw them less and less after moving across the country and then back but she always made time for me.
I won’t be there tomorrow to celebrate her life in CT but I will be thinking of her and telling all my kids about how God used her in my life.
