Thoughts On Turning Thirty

I have had mixed feeling about turning thirty. As an athlete I started thinking my prime competitive years were over and that I would have to get used to the idea that I am not going to be able to keep competing at a high level for too much longer.....not to mention getting a stuck ball down from the rim. (ha, ha) When you turn thirty, you also naturally start to look at your life and think about what you have accomplished and not accomplished so far. What do I have to show for myself? Am I a success? Do I have any regrets?

As my 29th year of life came to a close, I started thinking more and more about leaving my twenties behind, and entering a new era in my life. Quite frankly, I was not looking forward to it.....

So here I was, a couple of weeks before my birthday, when Darla Monroe, the mother of one of the players in the basketball program I coach in, let me know that she was going to have a surprise birthday party for her daughter Kristin's 18th birthday. As soon as I found out I thought, "We have got to do a video of Kristin's life for her party." Well, her Mom was thinking the same thing, so her and her husband Bill brought me pictures and videotapes of Kristin from her birth up to the present. I put together a video of her life and couldn't wait until her party to show it to her.....

Kristin is a very special young lady to me and to lots of other people and I just kept thinking how wonderful it was that her parents were going to all this trouble for her birthday to show her how much she meant to everyone. Thoughts of me turning 30 went on the back burner as my energy went to making Kristin's day special..... The weekend approached.....

In the meantime my beautiful bride Kristi started asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday. Kristin's party was on Saturday and my birthday was on Sunday. She started making suggestions about what we could do on Sunday. Well, I had a ton of video editing to get done for my video business and I knew I was probably not going to be able to do much on Sunday for my birthday. Kristi mentioned going out to eat with some friends and I finally gave in and said I could probably do that and get my video work done. I wasn't too excited about my birthday. Turning 30 was not my idea of a good time so I shut down all thoughts about getting a year older......

Well, Saturday came and I couldn't wait to surprise Kristin! We arrived at the Tiffany Inn a little after 5 PM and I had to get one last TV set up to show her video. I was chomping at the bit. Kristin and her parents were scheduled to get there sometime between 5:15 and 5:30 and I couldn't wait to get inside and get the video ready to play so I grabbed the TV out of the trunk and I walked inside........

"SURPRISE!!!!!!!!"

I thought to myself, ha ha very funny. Everyone was kidding with me pretending I was Kristin, or they were just practicing for when she walked in the doors. I quickly glanced to one side of the room, half smiled and mumbled, "Yeah whatever...." and I continued my quest to set up the TV on the table. Well, I walked another 7 steps or so when an image flashed into my mind. All I could see was my sister-in-law Kim, with her bright red sweatsuit, and a big old smile on her face. Within a split second I had a bunch of thoughts go through my mind.

"Why was Kim here?" (She had stopped by my practice recently, so she must have seen Kristin in the other gym, and that's why she's here.)

"No dufus, seeing someone one time doesn't get you invited to a surprise party!"

Did I really see Kim."

(If not, I have to tell my wife that I am seeing visions of her sister!) "This is not good."
(All right, Michael, I think there were some other people that shouldn't be here. You need to take another look.)
I slowly came to a stop just feet away from my destination, and I turned, TV in hand......
Yep! There was Kim, smiling from ear to ear. I went from face to face and saw family and friends all laughing really loud at me...... I don't remember exactly what I said to everyone, but boy did I feel bad. I had walked in the doors and totally snubbed everyone who had come to surprise me. It had never occurred to me that people would be there for me also, and I was totally shocked.

Speaking of shocked, my three year old son Caleb had walked in the door right behind me, and when everyone yelled surprise he went flying back out the door crying his eyes out. "Those people scared me Daddy!" So here is the scene at the Tiffany Inn. Michael walks in the door, people who have taken valuable time out of their schedule come to surprise him for his birthday, and Michael walks on by hardly acknowledging them, and his son runs screaming and crying out the door! Talk about gratitude!

Later I found out everyone thought I had found out about the surprise and was being arrogant about it. Boy did I feel badly about it and spent the next five minutes trying to explain why I did what I did. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted two people that I knew shouldn't be there. I blinked and realized that they were for real. Carole and Bart, Caleb's Grandpa and Grandma, on my wife's side were there. How? They were supposed to be in Jeckyll Island, Georgia, where they were spending most of the winter. Come to find out, Carole found out about my party two days before and they hopped on a plane and flew back to Wisconsin! I was stunned. I couldn't believe they would do that. It meant more to me than they will ever know. (Now contrary to what others may tell you, the only reason they came back was to wish me a happy birthday. It had absolutely nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing to do with missing all their grandchildren!)

I hurriedly started setting up the TV's to show Kristin's video before they got there. Suddenly a thought occurred to me. "This is not right. I should not be a part of this. This is supposed to be Kristin's special day, and now the focus is going to be on me too." I won't lie to you. It really started bothering me. There aren't many 18 year old girls that would want to "share" a big day in their life with some thirty year-old, over-the-hill, geekazoid. I kept thinking, "This is all wrong!"

Well, before I knew it Kristin and her family arrived.

"SURPRISE!!!!"

Kristin walked in, shock registering on her face, and then she turned and buried her face in her Mom and Dad's shoulders. The tears came, and they shared a moment as she whispered words of thanks in her Mom and Dad's ears....

She walked around hugging and greeting everyone, and the tears continued to flow, and I thanked God for being a part of it. In a world that is so negative, so full of hate, despair and hopelessness, here was a young high school girl who was being shown how special she was. How much she was appreciated. How much her parents, family, and friends loved and supported her. I just could not keep from being encouraged and thinking how neat it was.....

We started the video soon after and everyone got a chance to see Kristin grow up in about 40 minutes. From infancy to her senior picture, and all the wonderful moments in between..... For those who don't know Kristin, she is a young lady who has been touched by something special her entire life. She competed in gymnastics, starting at an early age going up to her freshman year in high school, winning numerous competitions. She ended her career with a trip to nationals in San Diego where I believe she placed no lower than second place. Watching her tumbling in the floor routine reminded me so much of watching someone on ESPN. I couldn't believe how good she was. In Junior High she won a basketball game on a last second shot, getting mobbed by her teammates and fans afterwards. She then gave up gymnastics to concentrate on her high school sports. In track she set school records, and earned herself a trip to State. In basketball she started on the varsity team as a freshman, and blossomed into one of the best players on the team before blowing out her knee before her sophomore year.

Dealing with this adversity is where I saw another side to her. She worked hard to rehab her knee and came back her junior year only to re-injure it a couple of games into the season. I watched her deal with thinking she may never play competitive sports again. She worked hard again to rehab, but was told that she might not be able to play again.... After sitting out two straight years of sports, she told her doctor that all she wanted was to play in one game her senior year. Just one game...... My wife and I prayed that God might grant her one game..... Well, she not only played in her one game, but has played the entire season so far and has played wonderfully. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. She was the prom queen too!

But besides all the things that the world looks at as success, she has turned into one of the nicest Christian young ladies my wife and I have ever met. She carries herself with grace and class, and besides all she has going for her that could make her get stuck on herself, she has remained humble of the talents and gifts that God has given her. My prayer for her is that she continues to put God first in her life and allows Him take care of all the rest...... Well, she watched her first eighteen years go by, sharing the memories with her friends as they sat and laughed and cried......

I thought to myself, "This is how it should be." Honoring someone and encouraging them in their young life. So often in our culture we only say nice things about someone after they have died. We all gather at a funeral and tell stories and good things about someone who can no longer hear them.

Why do we do that? Why do we build someone up after they have gone into eternity? Why can't we do more things like this and tell someone how much they mean to us when they are right there in front of us to be built up and encouraged? We should celebrate life. Not only celebrate someone when they are gone.......

I gave Kristin a hug after the video and told her how neat it was that her parents had pulled this all off for her. I then mentioned to her that I felt kind of uncomfortable sharing her day with her.....She shut me right up and told me that she was very glad that she could share her birthday with me. That made me feel a lot better, but I still felt a twinge of guilt.....

I then tried to mingle with everyone who had come and tell them how special it was to me that they were there. I was so touched. Here were people in my life that meant so much to me, and they had taken time out of their busy lives to wish me a happy birthday. My lovely wife then took me over to the corner of the room and showed me where they had set up a picture board of my life. Each picture had a caption, and right smack in the middle was a poem that my buddy Brian "Buzz" McGuigan had written about me. He roasted me pretty good through most of it, and I was touched again, that he had taken the time to write it out. Slowly I started realizing that me being included wasn't a last second thing, but that it had been planned like this from the beginning....

Well, Darla called Kristin and I over to the back of the room so we could get a picture with our cake............ The cake........... That was what finally broke the ice for me.....It was a basketball cake with both our names on it....... It finally hit me..... "This was planned this way from the beginning." I started getting emotional, but I was bound and determined not to cry in front of everyone. I was so humbled by the thought that her family thought enough of me to include me in on their daughter's special day. I started opening gifts and reading cards. I laughed as most of the gifts were a kid's puzzle, coloring book, or something else that was a present for a child and not a thirty year-old. Matt Roach, a young man whom was always my little buddy when he was growing up, gave me a T-shirt that says, "Aging is inevitable. Maturity is optional." I started getting a complex. The people that know me the best were giving me a hard time, because I refuse to grow up. (ha, ha)

I started reading the cards, and again I had a hard time holding back the tears. I felt so liked, so loved, so appreciated. Besides the cards and gifts from everyone, Darla had two giant cards going around the room. One for each of us. On each one she had written something special, and then it went from person to person, as friends and family wrote a little something to us. When I started reading it, I couldn't hold back the salty drops from my eyes and I had to stop, or make a blubbering idiot of myself. I didn't read it again until I got home where I knew I could cry and cry and cry.

The only thing I had a hard time with then was that I felt I couldn't spend enough time with the people who had come to see me. Each and every person was special to me and I wanted to make sure I let them know how much I appreciated them. From my niece Jennifer, who hardly knew anyone there and probably could think of a thousand places she'd rather be, (but it meant so much to me that she came any ways), to friends old and new. I especially appreciated seeing those couples that have played such a huge role in my life. Men and women whom have become our role models as examples of good marriages and the Christian walk. I did a horrible job spending quality time with everyone, and it is the only regret I have of the night.

As the night went on, and I was able to visit with friends I hadn't seen in a while, talk with former and current players of mine, and get to know some of Kristin's family I had not met, I felt more and more loved. I can honestly tell you that I didn't want to leave. The incredible feeling that I had was indescribable. To think that God had blessed me with such wonderful friends and family was too much. All the trouble that Darla, Bill, and my better half went through to make the night so special for Kristin and I just humbled me tremendously.......

We got ready to leave and I expressed to Darla and Bill how much it meant to me, but I just couldn't seem to find the right words..... On the way to visit with grandpa and grandma before they left again for Georgia I told Kristi how much I loved her and appreciated her going through the trouble to surprise me. We visited with them for an hour or two and didn't get home until after midnight. We talked as we drove along, and I started crying a couple of times, but I was always able to bring my emotions under control. Until we got home........

I checked my e-mail when we got home and a former player of mine that was at the party had written to me. After fighting back the tears all night long, what she wrote to me just reduced me to an emotional mess. I grabbed my wife, and just shook uncontrollably, as I cried my eyes out on her shoulder. It was just too much for me to handle in one day. Everyone should have a day like this in their lives. A day where everything is right in the world. A day where you feel like you have made a difference in people's lives and they care enough to let you know that they love you. A day where you grow closer to those friends and family that have been there for you every step of the way. I am eternally grateful for everyone who made me feel loved, especially The Monroe family and my wonderful wife. I've done a lot of thinking since this past weekend..... I may have turned thirty. I may not be totally happy with what I've done with my life as there are things I wish I could go back and do differently. I may have some regrets......

But I am a very blessed man..........

Michael T. Powers
Thunder27@aol.com
Copyright © 1999 by Michael T. Powers, All rights reserved
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