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| My children, Joe & Sophia |
My Hockey Mom Prayer
by Nelsa Roberto
May I find the best route to the hockey arena in rush hour traffic. May there not be any road closures, beginner drivers or other stressed out hockey parents in my path. May The Boy have remembered all his equipment. May I hold my incredulous yell of frustration back when we're running late and he tells me that he MIGHT have left his hockey gloves on the floor back home. May I find the grace not to scream at an opposing player who has just elbowed my son in the head. May I find a spot in the arena that is actually under a working heater. May I not get sick of Tim Horton's coffee, bagels, sandwiches and Timbits in the next eight months. May I try, for once, to just enjoy the game and not get stressed out and embarrass my son by screaming in the third period "Jesus, Mary and Joseph! SKATE!!!!!!!" May I have the right words to comfort and encourage him when he has a bad game and the exuberance to celebrate with him when he has a good one. May I remember that he loves this freezing, time-consuming, money-sucking sport and that he is a thing of beauty when he skates. And, most of all, may I remember that his childhood is passing all too quickly and that, one day, I will actually miss the all the time we spent in the van hustling back and forth between arenas. One day I will wish for that time back so let me hold it in my memory as long as I can because it is flying away from me, faster than my son on hockey skates.
Nelsa Roberto is a mild-mannered civil servant by day and a ferocious teen-fiction writer/hockey mom/van driver by night. Born in a remote logging community in northern Ontario, Nelsa spent much of her youth in a small, rural farming community in southern Ontario before moving to Windsor, Ontario to earn her combined Honors Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Communication Studies.
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