I love a show. I love a game. I love a performance. I love a presentation. I just love to be there, and not only do I love to be there, I love to be there for the people I love.
I am fortunate enough to come from a family I could count on to be at every game, every recital and every ceremony. Seeing my family either in the crowd or in the stands was something that always made me feel like someone recognized all of my hard work. Someone was proud of me. Someone saw me and my effort enough to be there.
They weren’t the loudest, they didn’t bring signs with my face on them, and they didn’t wear crazy face paint (except for those select occasions), but they never needed to.
My aunt Dawn with eight million pounds of gifts, my aunt Peggy with her signature Doc Martens sticking out in the aisle, my Grammie and uncle Pop with a 100 dollar bill they won’t let me refuse, and even my dance teacher of fifteen years, Miss Henrietta, always with the most beautiful dance themed card in hand.
My mom’s reassuring smile, my dad sticking his tongue out, my brother giving me his signature straight-faced thumbs up.
These are the moments sewn deep into my heart that I will never forget. Recently however, I was fortunate enough to have the roles reversed and to show up for one of the most important people in my life, my younger cousin Audrey.
Now, Audrey is 14 and in the throngs of adolescence, but I am still lucky enough to be her cool older cousin. I never had a sister, but boy she is pretty darn close.
She just starred in my high school’s yearly musical and I knew as soon as I found out the dates that I was going to go.
When I was sitting in the auditorium with a goofy grin plastered on my face, I realized she was growing up in front of my eyes. No power on earth could help me stop time and let me go back to tugging her around the pool or dressing her up in every piece of medical equipment we owned, which was quite a few (yeah, it was a weird phase of hers).
I hadn’t told her I was coming so when she came down the hallway, exhausted with her stage makeup still on and her little itty bitty Lululemon bag in hand and saw me, she was over the moon.
Though she was so excited I came that she didn’t want me to leave, her excitement paled in comparison to the pride and love I felt for her.
It wasn’t a grand gesture. It wasn’t a poster with her face on it, I wasn’t the loudest person in the audience (or maybe I was) and I certainly didn’t paint my face… but I didn’t need to. That moment meant the world to both of us and it’s simply because of showing up.