what is almost true

You are so close I want to whisper in her ear. So close to being able to rest. So close to the end. But I don't. I let her sleep, fevered and sick. Beach missed practice on Tuesday and was sent home early last night.

Being sick in meet season is like being a bug stuck in a spider's web; the more they struggle to get free the worse it becomes. Being sick and injured? It is brutal.  

This is the second year in a row Beach's meet season has been extended: December to May. We are less than 2 weeks away now to the end. The majority of the team have been released into post meet training. All but the girls going on to compete on the national stages. Those 4 young ladies carrying the weight of it all and it is starting to show.

We weren't sure Beach would make it through to State, then to Regionals, now I am too tired to doubt about Westerns. I try to imagine her once again out there but I can't. I see an empty arena. It stands in darkness. In silence. This is the moment before... that's what Beach once told me goes through her head as she lines up her series on beam in a competition. This is the moment before...feet, flick, shoulders, hips, lay, lunge, finish.     

I am tired of her being on display. Tired of her being "open" for thoughtless comments and pointless jabs from moms who should know better. "Is it because of her back she can't make a handstand?"  
       

One more plane ticket on the credit card for a kid whose back can't take a car ride.

One more family willing to take Beach in so she can practice just one more time.

One more morning of slipping out into the darkness 

to drive playing a 12-hour game of catch with an airplane.

A housesitter. A betrayed dog.

Two more nights in a hotel.

And one last drive home when Meet Season will finally be in the rearview mirror.

I will spend Mothers Day timing bathroom breaks with mileage between Spokane and Salt Lake. I will try not to throw out my back again- like I did after Regionals. I will eat whatever is left in the cooler and try not to speed.

Mothers Day, a day meant to be spent in the desert eating peanut butter sandwiches dried by the wind. Pockets full of rocks and shoes filled with sand. We even planned it; a camping trip over Western's weekend- Mothers Day weekend. We talked about what Beach, with compression fractures in her back, would do if she made it as an alternate...we never discussed her taking first.

Don't get me wrong, Beach making Westerns is huge- or maybe even that is the whole point. Beneath the exhaustion and stress, is the knowledge of what she has done (again).

The first thing they tell the qualifiers after corraling them in a room and closing the doors is, you are the best of the best. I can't explain what it is like as a parent to hear that. It is almost offensive in its certitude. It is also intoxicating and mindblowing. It is also almost true.

The first meet Beach competed against other teams way back in Level 3 she had the meet high All Around. I remember telling her, you were the best one out there today! (Yes, I said that.) She had stopped dead in her tracks her medals slamming together. "How do you know that?" she asked accusingly.

Staring into her little spockish eyes behind her thick glasses with her plastered down hair breaking free. Because your numbers were the highest because strangers said so because someone else fell or forgot a pose or never had the chance to be here...That was when I first realized how little scores and numbers actually say about anything.

Beach knows what is before her. She has done this before. Meet Season will seemingly stretch on forever. Team will step aside.

First Abby will go, then Beach. Then on Sunday as we are driving I-15 south through Idaho and Abby and her mom are flying home, Allison will go. It will be one more long week before Sarah will salute her final salutes at Nationals.

I wanted to say it too to Allison as she broke into tears at the end of vault last night, you are so close to being done. Because it is what I need to hear. Instead, I told her the truth "You already have everything you need to succeed within you. You are trained and capable and you are ready. That is true here in the gym and it is true at school."

It is true. Like racehorses, they are ready to compete. It is the waiting in the gate that is getting to them. What is also true is what was said in the little room. "Your parents and your siblings sacrificed a lot for you to be here. Getting here is not easy for anyone..."

You are the best of the best and we are one.