therealwil.com

The Day I Became A Blocker!!
One day Angelo and I were at the hospital and the doctors came in and changed the game. It seemed like football to me. For the next three years, every play that was called involved him running the ball and me BlOCKING. Nobody wants to block but everybody want to ball. Somebody gotta block. 

Blocking meant I took the hit so he could run without interruption or interference.

Who wants to get hit on behalf of someone else? It’s evident that the opposition is not coming for me, they want to stop the person with the ball. To get to him they have to move me and that will not be without a fight. Everyday, a new opponent, a new field, new uniform, but same play, Angelo running and you blocking. Wonder if he appreciates the block? Is he under the impression that he is untouchable because he is not being touched?  

Blocking is more about providing an atmosphere surrounding the one with the ball. Stay behind the blocker bro!!! I look at our videos from time to time. They remind me of the worst days he experienced. I never attempted to paint a picture of life for him that suggested that running down this field would be easy or perfect. You cannot live in this world and not take a hit. You are gonna feel it.

 You couldn’t fool Angelo anyway. He stared ginto mirrors, he weighed himself, he videotaped himself and showed the world what it looked and felt like to wake up with patches of your own hair on the pillow. He said, “It’s not the cancer that kills you, it’s the chemo.” I add to that and say, “It’s not the cancer, it’s the chemo and how people respond to you when they see you.”  
Blocking is an attempt to isolate. I tried to keep a little distance between the world’s reality and our reality. The world’s reality said lay down, quit, and die. Our reality said, get up, live, and do it now! Faith and fear can’t live in the same heart or dance to the same record. The tempo is a tad bit different. 

Blocking meant insulating him. His world consisted of pills that taste like poison and by the way, how do you willing take a pill or agree to take medicine intravenously and knowing that it’s going to make you sick? 

I never forget the day He said, “Look at me, I’m losing all my little weight, my skin turning colors, my legs swelling, my eyes turning yellow.” My response, “You still look good.” Why? There is no need in blocking if the runner won’t run!! 

His shoe size went from a nine to a thirteen slipper with compression socks. His response? Hey Dad, let’s go to the mall!! My response? You running? I’m blocking. Why? If he can muster up the strength to run under these conditions, I am at the ready to block!!

I don’t know what caused me to write today, other than the thought of watching a video of Angelo and I rocking in the car with the music blasted and how we created our own world. We just simply upgraded the old school movie, “The boy in the plastic bubble,” to the “Brothers bumping in the Beamer” I like “Cancer Dancer”. Pick your poison? Laugh and have a good time or be judged my church folks for secular music? Poisoned picked. Can you all serve this on the rocks? Shaken not stirred. In this life you must pick your poison!! We all gonna die anyway!! (I assume that’s the proper interpretation of that idiom).

I desire nor deserve any credit for any of it. I’m not writing to expose or seek accolades. I just want someone to know that every now and then, you have to block for somebody else.