the moments in between

 BC and I left town on Thursday a day ahead of Beach who was flying into Spokane 

with her mates on Friday morning. Video postcards to Beach from her parents:

We stopped in Dillon and in Jackson Hot Springs, MT 

 The hot springs had been our main draw but we also wanted to see the Jackson Mercantile.  It was for sale and was on the tip-top of our list of "well there is an idea"...  but it already has new owners and sadly they aren't us.

 So Plan B, we found a historic home for sale in Hamilton, MT
that used to be a mortuary...

Video Postcard to Beach from her parents:

 Hamilton has a lot going for it! Not just the possibility of Death's Door B&B, come stay with us and sleep like the dead!  It also has BC's best friend, Land. Who bought us dinner (because BC forgot this wallet back at Land's house) and put us up for the night free of charge.

 It also has free range rabbits!!!!

The next day we met up with Beach and her mates in Spokane, fed them, checked into the hotel, and shipped them off to a gym... to take selfies. And to work out.

Then a couple hundred *U-Turns* later to the convention center to get gear. *Not a fan of Spokane and it has nothing to do with my near death experience walking alone through a homeless meth party under a dark freeway overpass. 

Finally a little downtime.

A little dinner and dessert.

Some play time.

 How about when your friend is not near enough by for the photo you want
so your dad stands in for her:

A good night of sleep, a little bit of waiting around, and then Meet Time! 

Way to go Beach!!! So proud of you <3 

After the meet when BC couldn't find where he parked the car in downtown Spokane we went to a bar for dinner until he could remember.

Some great Post-Meet hair.

The next day we drove straight home.
No, of course, we didn't.

There was Wallace, Idaho (I think Idaho?) but I was the only one who wanted to live there.

Back to Hamilton to show Beach the house and do some honey collecting.
Then stopped somewhere for a cookie the size of her face.

Tried out a new hot spring.
Lost Trail Hot Springs, MT

 That was Washington, Idaho, Montana, Idaho, and Utah

And finish <3 (sometime around 1AM)

Level 9 2019 Westerns Championships

 Beach Ries Level 9 SR 4 Region One

 Beam Flight 2

 Beam 8.6 with a fall

Floor 9.4 5th (T)

Vault 9.525 3rd 

Bars 8.65 with a fall

 All Around 36.175 14th (T)

 Vault 3rd 9.525

 Floor 9.4 5th (T) Place

Region One SR 4 Team 1st Place 151.375

the wall of dreams

I don't know. I watch her walk through the motions. I listen to her tell her younger nervous teammate how fun it is to compete at Westerns. How "easy" it goes. Under the words of a leader is fear. Fear for herself.

I see her in pain. I see her afraid she is failing. I see her trying not to let us all down. I see the sadness she is fighting. She is so scared she will not be able to compete floor.

At the last practice, she wandered around a strange gym. She hopped on a beam. She crisscrossed the floor in a-dance-through. She set bars for her mates and played floor music. She stared down the vault until her coach stepped in. She made perfect double turns and paid attention to her pointed toes. She did the best pirouettes on the bars I have ever seen.

It wasn't enough to break through the wall of doubt that pain is building around her body.

I know. I have been saying this all season. I don't think she can and then she does. It's not that I believe SHE isn't capable or deserving. She is. It's that time is stretching her out too thin. Dragging on her too long.

All she is asking is for one for time. One more chance to do what she does. One more moment to make a mark of color on the wall of dreams.

The prayer of a Gym Mom: If you fall may you rise with grace. But try not to fall. May the floor be springy but not too springy. And the right shade of blue. Let the beams not be slick or wobble when you punch (and far away from the crowds, that one is for me). May the bars be smooth, the chalk blocks plenties, and the landing mats magic. Bless the vault that it is exactly how you like it and your steps easy to find. And most importantly of all, let it be fun and let it be over.

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.

now reading: The Husband's Secret