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Present Day

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.

John 15:13

What a season that was, and I remember it all as if it were yesterday, sweat dripping down my face, heavy breathing as I'm racing down the ice stick on puck, fighting against my body as the throbbing pain begins to set in all the while going full speed toward the other net, seeing my teammate ahead, and with one smooth flick of the wrist I send it her way to put it home, GOAL!!!!!! Horn blaring signaling as another is added to the scoreboard. Crowd cheering, the entire team is high fiving, fist bumping, and cheering, but to me it's another step towards a dream, and a dream that I wanted to never end.

Sadly though that dream did end.

"It is so weird thinking back to when you first met someone and that moment you had no idea they would have such an big impact on you," I thought as I was sitting there, staring at the old photograph of the three of us that I held in my hand, and a smile comes across my face as I am remembering those times. "Where have the years gone?" I ask myself as I am sitting up on the rooftop, listening to my music player, just glazing at the stars, and thinking about those times twenty five years earlier when as a junior at Northfield High School, I helped create what would become one of the premier powerhouses of girl's hockey in the state.

Suddenly my thoughts change as I bolted straight up, "who am I kidding?" I said as I was becoming mad at myself. "Why am I doing this" I thought to myself, "Why did I let them talk me into coming home for this?" I said as the old me was beginning to creep in making me regret my decision to come home because for me home was painful, I mean sure I had many good memories, but it was the fact that it was those exact memories that I just had issues with as I could not shake them from my mind, everywhere I looked reminded me of growing up in this town and just how proud that I was about being from this town made me feel along with all those good times with her, I could feel the anger rising inside of me "I know why I left this town in the first place" I thought as I leaned over wrapping my arms around my knees "There was a reason after all why I went to Boston for school, why I joined the Army after graduation, and why I went into the civil and mission service after my duty was done I did it all to escape this own personal hell where I once enjoyed my life, but now I hate it, and everything that this town once held dear to me is dead to me." I thought angrily to myself as I punched the roof out of anger.

"Snap out of it" I thought as I shook my hand out after the fact of punching the shingles of the roof, "Remember what you learned from her" I told myself as the wave of anger passed. "It's not about you anymore-You aren't here just for your own means, you are here for the good of the team, and the team needs you. You are the captain-the leader you have got to take care of the puck." I started to laugh to the point of almost crying as that was one of the many catchphrases that we had as a team. "Oh the memories there are so many I can't limit myself to just a few to talk about at the gala." I said laughing quietly. It was then that it hit me like a weight had just fallen on my chest, and I realized that in my heart I knew that what was coming day was going be harder than I thought on so many levels. "What is wrong with me and why I am just an emotional mess, I mean just look at me the old Sam would never get this choked up." I tell myself as I checked my tracker seeing that I still have some time before I needed go to bed, I leaned back to continue staring up at the sky, as I lay there my mind drifted and my heart became heavy as I thought about her, the memories that we made the things that she had taught me about looking deeper into myself, and putting my trust into God, and about that day that I heard the tragic news during my junior year at Boston College. "I miss you" I say out loud, voice cracking, as I'm looking up at the stars. "You and I have so many memories together and I wish you were still here to enjoy this time with not only me, but the rest of us as well, but I understand that where you are now you are happy and pain free, and I know you are looking down on us smiling." Many thoughts crossed my mind laying there everything from who else was actually going to be there from the team to the actual events that were planned which include not only the gala banquet, but also the jersey retirement ceremony as well as a few other events, and my thoughts on just how far I have come since that season and the life changing events that took place in my personal life that might not have happened if it weren't for those girls. Tears were forming in my eyes as I lay there a bit longer just collecting my thoughts, praying, and calming down before climbing back in the house for the night.

As I was crawling into bed to get some sleep my mind once again went to thinking about the both of them just two girls from totally different walks of life just walking into mine, and having an impact on me that I never expected to take place whose lives as far as I knew would lead down very different paths just like mine. But all that I knew at that moment is that the upcoming days were going to be some of the toughest emotional days that I had coming for me for the first time in a long time, and then having it all come to a close at the gala celebrating that night twenty five years ago- the night that a ragtag team silenced the haters, and shocked the state.

That night I fell asleep with a smile on my face for I had a feeling that maybe, just maybe finally coming home again will for once not come back to bite me in the butt.