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I’ve always loved sports.  Since I was a small child, sports have been a release, a passion, even a way of life.  Sports can be everything from a conversation starter with a stranger to common ground between a stubborn teen, and frustrated father.  The one thing sports has never been to me is background noise, or a much needed distraction.  Never, that is, until the days between April 30th and May 19th.

On April 30th my girlfriend suffered a cardiac arrest.  We had been together for three years and lived together for two.  She was 28 years old, and it happened at work, where luckily we are both employed as educators.    As I watched her get repeatedly shocked by defibrillators to no avail both in the school and the ambulance on the way to the hospital, I fell apart.  Once in the hospital, a doctor asked me; “If things don’t work out, would you like to see the body?”  I assure you at this point, sports were the farthest thing from my mind.

Things did work out however, and over the course of the next three weeks I would be in a hospital watching the most important person in the world to me fight for her life.  Even after 20 minutes with no blood flow to her brain she awoke with no brain damage and continued to regain her strength as we awaited a surgery that would protect her heart from further attacks.  While she fought for her life; myself, her friends, and her family fought for a way to stay sane.

Women have their own mechanisms of sanity during times of crises.  They cry with each-other, make phone calls, and talk about seemingly anything that may cross their mind.  Men on the other hand have to be “strong”, so we think.  We can only cry when we’re alone, try to be the rock for others, and constantly say “everything’s going to be fine,” even if we know that’s not true.

While she was in the hospital, I had one thing to cling to as a distraction.  One way to talk to her father or my brother without losing control;  Sports.  The Celtics and Bruins were in the playoffs, and baseball season was in full swing.  Normally my days would have revolved around these games, but in this situation we craved them simply for a way to dull our collective pain.  Did I care that the Bruins were down 3-1 to the Cains?  Not at all; but it allowed a distraction from the pain and helplessness we were all feeling.

For a couple hours a night we could do something normal and complain about the local teams.   “Ortiz came off the juice,” or “Allen is all washed up” were things we could immerse ourselves in rather than, “Will she remember us?”, or “Will they be able to save her if her heart stops again?”  I love my girlfriend more than anything in the world, and we were all there because of our love for her, but staying sane in an ICU waiting room is something I can only liken to surviving Dante’s 7th layer of hell.

As I write this, she is in surgery having an internal defibrillator placed in her chest.  She’s come so far, I have no doubt surgery will be successful.  She’s a strong woman and she’ll be home with me soon.  We’ll be arguing about how I can watch golf all day Saturday and Sunday, and then put up with a lousy baseball game brought to life by Joe Morgan on Sunday night.  I can’t wait for that, and I think even she will understand what sports can represent in different situations.

Over the years I’ve read people like Noam Chomsky discuss the irrelevance of sports and how such things are a waste of time.  To those who agree, I challenge you to distract yourself with the BBC when a loved one’s life hangs in the balance.  In the grand scheme of things even I can admit that sports are irrelevant, but they also bring families together, make friends of strangers, and serve as a distraction in times where all you need, is to get out of your own head.

I love you Amy.

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