Two More Gifts

Every football practice was the same.  Today provided no variety.  The afternoon sun was blistering hot, the turf was resonating heat like the top of a stove, the coach’s voice was fierce and guttural as usual, and the tackling drills were as difficult as ever.  The hitting drill that we did today, however, was even more brutal.   Usually,  the ball carrier and tackler line up 10 yards apart, with only a short distance before contact.  However, today we had 30 yards to gain as much momentum as possible before we collided.  But it didn’t matter to me.  I wasn’t scared.  And as  I saw my opponent, I almost laughed to myself, knowing that he was going to get leveled and I was going to put him on his ass.  When it was my turn to do the drill, the coach blew the whistle, and I exploded off the line, thundering down the field with the ball to meet my tackler.  The wind whistled as I cut through it. The the white lines and the bold numbers on the field became blurred and the one thing my mind was focused on was meeting my opponent with as much force as I could.  With each step, I could feel the heat radiating up from the turf into my feet, forcing me to pump my legs even faster.  Moments before the point of contact, I clutched the ball with both hands and clenched it tightly against my body, lowered my shoulder, and dug my feet into the hard, compacted turf to get as much power as I could before I pushed off the ground one last time.  But I also did one more thing that no football player should ever do: I dropped my head.  

We collided and I felt all the momentum I had gained overcome my opponent and violently throw him backwards.  I had laid my tackler out, but I hardly noticed because I was stumbling off to the sideline until I finally collapsed on the ground.  Immediately, I knew something was wrong.  While lying on the ground, everything quickly faded to white.  Then black.  And then, I literally saw stars.  Hundreds of tiny white specks seemed to be in the distance, nearing me at a rapid pace.  And then as quickly as they were there, they were gone, and for the longest few seconds of my life, I saw absolutely nothing.  I almost began to cry, not because of the intense, throbbing pain inside my head, but because I was thoroughly convinced that I would never see again.  

In those few seconds, I truly believed that I had lost my sight forever, and I realized how completely hopeless I was to to prevent a gift, a gift that had been a major part of my life since the day I was born, from being taken away from me.  To my relief, however, the blackness slowly melted after a few seconds into light, which quickly formed the shapes of the field and my teammates.  Gradually, the moving shapes became sharper and more detailed images until my vision was completely restored to its previous state.  So I gathered myself, and slowly emerged to stumble off the field in a daze.  Hours later, when my headache dulled and the throbbing subsided, I began to think about what I had experienced that day.  I realized all the simple gifts that I had taken for granted my entire life, and also how I could not imagine life without them.  So when I stepped off the football field that day, I stepped off with two more gifts.  A concussion, and also a few moments to see life through a different perspective, which allowed me to realize how truly blessed I am and to become an ever-more grateful and appreciative person.