Janet and I were waiting in line last evening to see a friend.

There is an odd, funny thing about waiting in a line at a funeral home. (At least for me.) I am there to view a friend and give my condolences to their family, yet while in line there other things going on that make it all part of the process. Maybe it is my way of grieving.  I just don’t know.  I ran into people I have not seen in a long time. So I caught up on the past months or years with a few of the people standing in line.  After that I started to think of the oddest things about my lost friend.  Things  like I better call the AD and tell him I won’t be needing the time of the auction for the weight room. (Neil was looking to upgrade his weight room at the house I guess.) I say I guess because Neil was not a “buddy friend” of mine.  We never went fishing or hunting together. We talked a lot about fishing and hunting but never did “buddy friend” things.  (explanation in the following paragraph) So when he Facebooked me about the school’s weights I assumed he wanted them for his house.  In line I laughed about his kids.  I used to coach his two boys when they were at the elementary level. That is how I met Neil. It seems you meet great people through wrestling.  Anyway, the kids were handfuls.  Not bad not mean…. just handfuls. And you want that in your wrestlers. All I could think about was Neil’s one boy doing exactly what I was barking out during practice, “In your attack stance you gotta be on the balls of your feet!  You gotta be on the balls of your feet!” His son heard, “balls to your feet, you gotta have your balls to your feet!” (You can imagine what that looked like)

As we turned the corner into the room all the conversations ended and my memories from practice had faded.  I watched the video they had made up of pictures of Neil and his family.  I could not help but smile at some of the images…..I mean, a mop looking wig on Neil’s head with a big grin on his face….. what is not to laugh about?  Watching the images made my mind remember WHY I had become friends with Neil.  Sure wrestling had something to do with it but I meet a lot of people through the sport and not all of them are people I would call friends.  Neil turned into a  friend. We would discuss his kids and wrestling and then the wives.  During baseball season we would talk up at the field. See him at the local store and we would talk about the wives and then about our kids.  The odd thing was, Neil always asked about Janet and Trey first.  Never how his kids were or how Amy was. (That would come later, after he asked about my family) Always about the family first.  And then we would talk about wrestling or baseball or fishing or hunting.   That is how I knew Neil was a friend.  We would not see each other for months, but he would always pick-up from the last conversation we had.

After some time we had made it up to the viewing and to the family.  It was while I was shaking his oldest son’s hand that I had one more image  race through my mind.  It was the image of Neil sitting at the top of the bleachers watching his son wrestle one of his toughest matches of the season.  No yelling or screaming from Neil.  No running to the mat to interfere with the coach’s job.  No, Neil was at the top of the bleaches watching his son wrestle. I am not sure if Kyler won or lost that match.  Did not matter.  Neil acted the same.  Win or lose, he would jog down the bleachers, walk to where his son was and hug him.  He would either tell him good match way to wrestle, or good match get him next time.  Neil understood  what it meant to be a father.  To be there for the good times and for the disappointments.  I am sure he did the same things when it came to watch his daughter dance.  (Again, I reference the mop like thing on his head in one of the pictures)

Neil did not know it, but he taught me restraint.  And that, I hope, has made me a better father and a better coach.  Kind of funny where you pick up some of life’s lessons.

I hope his kids understand that their father loved them very much and that he was very proud of them.  I am sure they will remember, I mean, just look at that image with the mop thing on his head.