Skater Boy - Coming of Age Part V
Title: Skater Boy – Coming of Age
Part V
Earlier in Matt’s career I had been killing time at a rink,
when I happened upon a mother and a daughter.
The mother was screaming at the girl about how much money she had
invested in the girl's skating and that the girl couldn’t just quit. As I walked away I thought, “That is never
going to be me! If Matt ever wants to
quit, that’s fine.” I know that in the
beginning of Matt’s career I wasn’t a big fan of figure skating but I now thought it was awesome! Still I never lost that conviction that he could quit at anytime no matter how good he became. I might have asked
him to finish out that month to make sure he meant it but I had no intention of
forcing Matt to continue down this path if he grew to hate it at some point.
So... a few years later, I wondered if Matt was sick of skating
and just didn’t have the guts to tell us.
Mom Card would call and say, “Well, he got sick again. I think there is something wrong.” She thought he was “unwell” but as she
described his symptoms, it started to sound more and more like Matt wanted out
of skating. Matt would be fine. They would drive over an hour to the rink and
then suddenly he would get sick. He
would throw up and couldn’t skate. So, Mom
Card would drive Matt back to her house and within a short span of time, he was
fine. The first few times this happened
I thought, “Boy, that is weird.” But as
this became a regular thing I thought, “Matt, doesn’t want to do this anymore.”
This suspicion became reinforced when Mom Card drove Matt
back home from Ithaca
Matt listened to the speech but insisted that he still
wanted to skate. I thought, “WHAT??????”
Mom Card was spending over a thousand a
month in rink fees, coaches fees, professional skates, gas, food, and
competitions! Gail and I were spending
about a thousand dollars a years buying a homeschool curriculum called,
“Sonlight.” Occasionally, we would drive
him up to Ithaca
You have to understand my culture too. My drama director used to say, “Don’t call in
sick, crawl in sick!” You say, “That’s
mean!” Is it though? You’ve practiced for months to perform a
show four times. No one can replace you
in time. If it all possible, you need to
gut through it! I’ve been on stage with
people that have a high temperature, are white as a ghost (under their stage
makeup), and throwing up off stage. The audience
never knew. Then there is my
mother. When I was a teen, she would
send me to school even when I told her I didn’t feel well. I wasn’t lying but she noticed I had a normal temperature. She taught me that
valuable skill of gutting through discomfort and it has served me well as an
adult. I rarely call off sick. I think I’ve only missed one Sunday morning
service in my close to twenty years as the Pastor of a church due to
sickness. Sometimes I’ll ask people not
to shake my hand or get close but past that I get the job done. So it was hard to watch Matthew have such an
odd sickness, after growing up in a hardcore, “Suck it up!” culture. (By the way, the Lord is good, in that I have
been able to be so healthy all these years.
Just because I’ve been able to battle through bouts of sickness and
still perform my job, doesn’t mean that other people don’t have serious issues
that prevent them from doing something.
I am in no way implying that another pastor or person, who is sick a fair
amount of time, should just “suck it up!” if they have serious health issues).
“I’m taking him to the food allergist!” Mom declared out of
the blue.
In my mind that was like saying, “There is this nice doctor
who is an expert on Medieval medicine!
He was wonderful leaches and lances to get out the ‘bad’ blood! Oh, and he says you should only take a bath
once a year!” Yeah, that was my attitude
on that! The quack said Matthew was
allergic to wheat. I wondered how that
explained Matt’s extremely odd instant sickness, when he had to practice, but
we went with it. Matt cleared up and was
able to practice hard again!! Wow!
Interestingly enough, though, I was in my thirties and I knew
something was wrong with me. When I was
young I had always spent a lot of time in the bathroom, but I was a reader, so
no problem. In my late twenties and
early thirties I would get up to go jogging and have a hard time going to the
bathroom. So finally I would go out
jogging and suddenly have to go really bad right in the middle of a long
run!! Ugg!! I was having other problems too and they were
getting worse! My mom was diagnosed with
Celiac disease and couldn’t eat wheat.
Did I have it checked out? Are
you kidding me? I liked eating bread! Gail used to make homemade bread that was
better than cake or cookies! Oh, how I
loved slathering butter on that warm goodness that melted in my mouth each
week! I also liked the Friday fish fry
at the local store and of course, I loved pizza!! Not to mention cake, sandwiches, pancakes,
cookies, and so much more!
I told Gail, “I’ll go on this diet too in solidarity with Matthew
but I’m not sick!” So for months I did
the barbaric gluten free meal plan and although Gail tried hard, it was
awful! I’ll never forget the first time
we had GF pizza. I told Gail, “I never
want to eat GF pizza again.” She had
worked very hard on it and Gail is an amazing cook, BUT it was just
horrible! After a few months Gail and I
had our big two day date. I told her,
“I’m not sick, so I’m going to eat whatever I want to!!! Matt’s not here.” She didn’t really say anything. I had Subway with a yummy chocolate chip
cookies, pizza, and burgers WITH the buns!!
I got VIOLENTLY sick for five days.
I still remember how much pain I was in to this day. After that I stayed on Matt’s diet and life
is good. From the bathroom taking hours
a week, to minutes, and so many more things!
I know people think that food allergies are a “mental thing” but that is
just not true. Matt was skating like a
champ again, I felt good, and Adrianna had less psychotic episodes!
What you say? My
sweet Puffy had psychotic episodes? When
she was younger she was a well behaved kid at school but then she would
suddenly have an event where she was out of control! This was rare and out of character but I
would have never associated it with food.
Puff was the one most likely to cheat out of the four of us (Autumn is
allergic to wheat too). When a kid goes
to school and is big enough to sneak out to the store, it is hard to control their diet every second. We came to recognize the symptoms of an episode though and
finally Puff realized she had a problem too.
(She often will not remember what happens during a psychotic
event). Puff will go ghost white and she
is quite pale to begin with! I often
think of Danny Phantom when he says, “I’m going ghost!” Who?
Um... never mind! Puff will get
irrational and have violent mood swings.
The only thing to do when that happened is have her go to bed. As an adult, she has learned to tell if she
got poisoned (someone accidentally giving her wheat in her food) and immediately
sleeps it off.
At times in the “Coming of Age” story a character’s quest
will benefit others in unexpected ways.
What if Matt had not been trying to be the best skater in the world with
thousands of dollars being invested in that goal? My growing problem might have forced me to
stop being a coach and Adrianna’s life might have turned out very
differently! Matt might have also been
“that kid” in athletics that just needs to “suck it up!” Autumn would have eventually had violent
stomach aches as she got older. Because
of Matt, we caught a problem that might have done horrible things to our
family!!
*** Author Adrian Essigmann has eighteen books in print on
Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen! All of
them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which
will be (Lord willing) an e-book before summer.
All of his books are available in soft cover too! Type Amazon Adrian Essigmann and his author’s
page should come up ***
Book of the Week – American Fairytale - $.99 cents on Amazon
Kindle books (paper version is available too) – “This book blends the magic of
a Fairytale with historical fiction. Although it is set in the years leading up
to the American Revolution, it has an evil wizard, a princess, and other
worldly weapons. It is a book that can be enjoyed by the whole family, yet has
hidden meanings that an adult will find stimulating.”
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