Last weekend I was a balla, and this is the story:
After Eli’s funeral about 2 months ago, my ginormous family and I were hanging out at my aunt’s house. There was hub and bub and talk and more talk and people were devising a plan. I heard the words, “Raise your hand if you’re in…” and was told to raise my hand. Little did I know what I had signed up for.
This last weekend was what I had obliged to on that bleak day: The Fergus Falls Annual Basketball Tournament.
Let me just explain that I haven’t played basketball since 5th grade, but I figured it would be the most hilarious weekend of my life. You know, a good family & fun time.
However, I underestimated how competitive it would be. When I arrived at the gym, my cousins were already doing warm ups. I had a growing unease in my stomach as I grabbed a basketball and pretended to know exactly what I was doing. As we practiced the other half of the gym began to fill up with 17 and 18 year old Koreans. They were not to be underestimated. These Koreans (that was the name of their team) had the craziest trick shots I have ever seen. They would suspend in the air for what seemed a minute, and then guide the ball into the net with ease. There was one player who apparently would fake a fall so that our players would trip over him. My cousin swears by it when she explains why she pushed him to the ground and yelled, “Knock it off!” She is so sweet mannered; when it happened, I immediately bursted out laughing and could not take any of the game seriously.
The last two teams we played were junior high age. We went into over time for the second game but lost to an 8th grade three pointer. We were so exhausted for the last game, and we got were easily defeated
In the process of all this, I learned what a screen was and did it with ferocity. I also loved to run down the court when the opposition stole the ball to try and block their shoot. Usually they had five or more inches on me, but it still felt good to sprint.
My aunt bought me a birthday cake, and it is that gesture that truly depicts my family: always hospitable and always feeding the crowd. It was a memorable weekend, marked with a somber feeling. I felt this heavy weight in the kitchen when we would eat post game pizza, I felt it in the car when I was driving to the court, and I felt it so heavily at the lake cabin that I left, telling everyone I wanted to go down by the lake o “check it out.” I actually just met God and wept. I kept remembering Eli, which is good, but the pain is still there. All is still being healed. My cousin, the mom of Eli, showed me a children’s book about a boy named Eli. She had rediscovered it while reading to her classroom. It told the story of this boy named Eli who has a new sister. It is a story of family and innocent and pure love of a child.
This book, the fictional story of a family in the eyes of a child, is the first bud out of the ground of this death that doesn’t make much sense. The Living Word says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Eli’s story is not over, even though his chapter on this earth is. There will be life again, but until that day, we have empty arms and broken hearts. We have hope for the life that one death can bring.
