The Resemblance

Jenna is now a student assistant college basketball coach at Faulkner University! This is from May 15, 2012.

There's this sixth grade girl on my basketball team named Jenna. Her family moved here from Colorado over the summer so I'd never met her until the first day of school. Jenna, like the other girls on this year's squad, had never played the sport and it showed from the beginning. But, Jenna is a good athlete and has improved immensely since early August. One thing I like about her as a player is that she doesn't take the constant correction of coaching personally but realizes it will make her better. Jenna comes from a great family and is very bright. She fit in immediately at WCS and within a few days, it was like she had been enrolled for years. I doubt there has ever been a young lady I coached who I tease more than Jenna, often about the opposite gender, but Jenna can tease right back, always aware of proper boundaries. There are kids who you love to coach and kids who cause your teeth to grind at night; Jenna is on the roster of category # 1, maybe even as a co-captain.

There's one other thing about Jenna; she bears an striking resemblance to my mother when Mom was a teenager. I showed Mom's picture to Jenna's mother, Lisa, who runs our Wildcat Store and Lisa agrees with me. Jenna doesn't see it but no one ever thinks someone else looks like them. Jenna acts mildly irritated when I call her Mom and so she has taken to calling me Coachy. I told her to expect a Mothers' Day card. I even asked about her 4th and 8th grade siblings, Uncle Mack and Aunt Chloe. (I can't call Lisa Grandma- I know where to draw the line!) The joke has about run its' course and I will take a vow to the lovely Jenna not to use her name and Mom in the same sentence anymore. (In this season of political commercials, full disclosure requires me to state that Jenna approved the writing of this entry!)  But there is one thing I hope Jenna can see in this ongoing back-and-forth. When a guy compares anybody to his mom, it's a compliment. Our mothers take us from the cradle to maturity and in the case of some of us, that's a like a Star Trek journey. Moms teach us how to act and love us when we fail and their wisdom stays with us so we can give it to our kids. My mother was an introvert while Jenna from all evidence is a rather extreme extrovert. We talked in my Gospels' classes today how one of the seven recorded statements of Jesus on the cross concerned the care for Mary after His death and subsequent resurrection. Moms aren't supposed to outlive their kids according to conventional wisdom but the offspring will never outlive their mother's love. So Jenna, you can go back to being Jenna and keep working on your jump shot- it's getting better every day. And one last thing- I hope your first Mother's Day was a good one. I pray when you are all grown up you will be blessed with many, many more.

Applicable quote of the day:
"Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world."
 Kate Douglas Wiggin

God bless,
Steve (son of Sarah Nelda Chesshir Hawley)
Luke 18:1
E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org