More Than Just Another Post

By: Sean | July 12th, 2009

In my last post, I promised you an epic report from the Portland Timbers Father’s Day Fantasy Camp. Even if you aren’t a Portland supporter, I would hope you could understand the enthusiasm and excitement that might go along with playing with your favorite squad on their home pitch, regardless of where you might live. With all apologies, that needs to wait just a little longer. I need to go back and briefly revisit a previous post.

Back on June 20th, I wrote a post called “Happy Father’s Day“. You can click on the link if you missed it the first time or just scroll down about a turn on your mouse wheel, as it wasn’t that long ago. When I was scratching my bald head trying to figure out what to blog, I was suddenly overcome with the notion of writing about my dad and how awesome he was when I was growing up playing soccer. Usually when I try to do a post, I agonize about getting the words just right, redo stuff two or three times until it sounds less dumb in my head, and generally cut and paste with a vengeance. “Oh! That paragraph sounds way better at the end!” However, when I was doing the Father’s Day post, it wasn’t like that. Everything just seemed to flow out naturally and with uncharacteristic ease. I think I may have even spelled most everything correctly the first time, which is also contrary to practice. I figured Dad would get a kick out of seeing his name “on the computer”, too, and that would be a cool way to honor him until I saw him the next weekend and could give him a proper Father’s Day present he could unwrap. In that respect, it was more than just another post, it was my gift to him. My mom printed it off and read it to him. They both were really moved by it and Dad told me he that he really loved it.

It was more than just another post. It turned out to be his eulogy. Pop unexpectedly and quite suddenly passed away just five days later. We never saw it coming and we were not ready for it at all. In the days that followed, as we got ready for the funeral and I wondered what I was going to say about Dad, I clicked back on this site and remembered the Father’s Day post. That’s why the words came out so easy. That’s what I was supposed to say. So I did. Pop was so much more than just a soccer dad, of course, but I got the chance to let him know exactly how I felt, at least in some small part. He got to be “famous on the internet” for just a little bit and I got to say goodbye to my hero, even if I didn’t know it at the time.

I’ll get back to lighter soccer fare next week when my head is screwed on a little better…I just felt like this needed to be said.