A few years ago, I completely cut football out of my life, cold turkey. It started when I came back to church and realized I didn’t want to be watching football all day on the Sabbath. I would still watch the occasional ASU football game. The only football I kept religiously in my life was Washington State and Mississippi State games. I watched pretty much every one of Mike’s games.
Beth hates football. Football was out of my life by the time we got serious, so football was never an issue. Beth often says she’s so happy I don’t watch football. She really hates it. She hates it so much that, despite knowing it’s family and I have to watch, she even didn’t like watching Mississippi State games. Each week when I’d turn on Mike’s game she’d say “not footballlllll” but then would silently resign herself to the fact that it had to be watched. Whether that entailed sitting through the game or leaving the room was always up to her discretion.
Ivy will watch whatever I watch and enjoy it. It’s something Beth doesn’t quite comprehend. Beth used to fight it, but I think she’s given up. She used to walk into the living room to Ivy and me watching basketball or Impractical Jokers and say, “Ivy doesn’t want to watch this.”
I would always say, “Ivy what do you want to watch?”
“Impractical Jokers” or “dunk it” (code for basketball) would be the immediate reply.
Beth would be flabbergasted. “She doesn’t really want to watch Impractical Jokers. She just says that because she knows you want to watch it.”
Nonetheless, Ivy will sit with me and watch basketball endlessly without complaint.
Part of the reason Ivy loves watching what I want to watch is because I make sure to get her involved in it. When we watch basketball, I try to constantly say, “Ivy did you see that!? He dunked it!” Or, for Impractical Jokers, “Ivy, Joe is so funny, he’s our favorite, huh?” Of course, Joe is our favorite.
My strategy for getting Ivy engaged in football games was obvious. I was fighting Ivy’s = bias against football that was apparently engrained in her DNA from Beth. In the beginning, Ivy seemed to have an intense predisposition against football. My master plan to get Ivy engaged was to point out Uncle Mike every time he showed up on the TV.
We’d watch Mississippi State football games and every sideline shot, interview, video, or moment that Mike showed up in I’d say enthusiastically, “Ivy who is that!?!?”
“Uncle Mike!” She always yelled with excitement.
If football is on the TV, Ivy will still say, “Uncle Mike.” Uncle Mike became to football what “dunk it” is to basketball. But we don’t watch football anymore.
I never watched Mike’s last game against Ole Miss. I kept it recorded and always planned to watch it. Now I’m saving it for a time when I’m prepared to watch and think, remember, consider life and its shortness; think about how Ivy can’t watch football anymore and yell, “Uncle Mike!” Or can she?
It’s sad that Ivy will never get to meet Mike, but he lives on. Every time a football game comes on the TV he lives through Ivy’s, “Uncle Mike.”
No Coincidences 