An open letter from a coach's wife after a season-ending loss. I've ridden the waves for four long months again, and after last night's loss, my heart is on my sleeve. And I've learned some things along the way.
Space. Give your coaching husband space. When you find him on the couch for the umpteenth night in a row because he can't sleep, you can stop checking on him. It's his mind. His love for the game and his nature to wake at night thinking about what he could do to improve will not stop. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. And certainly not anytime soon after the season-ending loss you all just endured.
Say a prayer, go back to sleep, and give him space.
Don't compare. When he comes home with that look in his eyes, just listen. Don't compare your passion to his. They are not equal. You've been at this 10 married years with him, which, believe me, feels like a lifetime, but don't compare. He remembers games he played in 1988 and what the pitch count was.
As a coach, he can still recall who he pulled to pinch run in the 6th inning of game 19 in the 2015 season. He can forget dates that have been on the calendar at home for months. He can forget his mother's birthday until you remind him. But he can't forget the game. His mind is like a steel trap for this game, and you might as well get busy admiring it rather than relating to it because he's been at it for 30-plus years and you've only got a decade under your belt.
Get tough and adjust. Bring your appropriate all-weather gear. Navigate your mapping app to get to whatever game you need to get to. Waddle across parking lots late at night, out-of-breath and third-trimester pregnant, dragging an exhausted, dirty toddler. Plan crockpot dinners at 5 A.M. for tonight's dinner or even tomorrow night's dinner. But get it done.
No one's going to walk you out after games when he's loading the bus with his team. No one's going to escort you to games when you are lost in the middle of a town you can't pronounce. If you need to shed a tear because you're still nursing your third born and haven't slept longer than four hours in five weeks, plus you've worked forty of your own hours this week, you are going to have to learn that the life of a coach's wife is not for the weak-hearted.
Get your thick skin out for what he's going through after a loss when he wasn't ready to unlace his cleats. He'll need time to transition back to being at home and while that happens you're going to need to not take it personal. Rain gear, snow gear, sunscreen-- you'll need them all. But always bring your tough skin.
Laugh. Laugh at your kids when it's 9:30 and no one is bathed because you've been at a ball field for the millionth night in a row. Laugh when your two-year-old entertains himself by rubbing toothpaste up to his elbows because he thinks it's lotion and no one is home to handle that crap but you. Laugh when that same two-year-old floods your upstairs bath tub, which leaks onto your dining room table through the ceiling down below.
Laugh that God called you to marry a coach. Funny, right?
The man that you just happened to fall in love with gets paid the lowest salary for the longest hours and the most selfless passion of a sport and a group of boys you know mostly through the numbers on the backs of their jerseys. Laugh when church lets out and your husband says for the 10th Sunday in a row that he's heading to the field to mow and work on the infield because he looked at the radar and Monday could be rain, which would push Tuesday's game to…blah, blah, blah.
Laugh and just let him go.
Grace. Give grace to the parents of the boys who are on the field. You're not them. You're not there yet. Your kids are still little, and while you're trying to navigate potty training at home and birthday treats heading to school, their hearts are on the field and their emotions are high, wanting what is best for their boy. Don't let their words or the hearsay of their words keep you up at night.
You are not them, and they are not you, and you see the man at the dinner table who is doing the absolute best he can. You see the kindergartner who is totally invested in his daddy's team praying for another win. You see the man who seeks guidance from God for his team and genuinely wants to shape them as young men, like countless coaches did for him years ago as a fatherless athlete. You see the man who makes tough choices, not the popular ones.
Love. Love where you are. Losses and wins. This season and next. And the season ten years from now, when God-willing, you are still doing this. Get invested in what your coaching husband is invested in. Be a baseball family. The family that roots for dad together stays together. Of course, with some help from the big man upstairs.