When One Win is Better Than the Others

Friday, September 17, 2021, 12:16pm CST, Pascagoula, Mississippi

Charli Win

And just like that, life changed for the better.

Roughly an hour earlier, Christy knew it was go time, and she switched into beast mode. I kept asking her, Should we get the nurses?, but she just powered through the discomfort, squeezing my hand. At this point, through tears in my eyes, my admiration for moms went sky high. When the nurses finally came in, it wasn’t five seconds until they said, We need to get the doctor. From there it went quickly, only ten to twelve minutes until Charli Win was born. When she arrived, through tears in my eyes, I felt myself soften. I lost a little edge, in a good way. In real time, I felt it go away, replaced with love.

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Saturday, September 18, 2021, 6:30pm CST, State College, Pennsylvania

Penn State Win(s)

As we bebopped around the hospital room on Saturday morning, I received a text from a fellow Big 10 fan asking if I was at GameDay in State College, PA right now. I laughed out loud, and then let him know that Christy had just delivered a baby. He quipped back, Well you better not be at GameDay then!

We spent the better part of Saturday convincing the nurses and doctors that, assuming mom and baby were all good, we didn’t need to stay in the medical cave for another 24 hours. As the caregivers did their jobs almost too well, explaining breastfeeding to Christy in painstaking detail, I wanted to tell them that Christy wrote the damn breastfeeding brochure with our first child.

Home at 3:30pm and greeted by all of the other pieces of my heart, we settled in, kickoff for Penn State-Auburn a mere hours away. It was a great game and a great win for the boys, but one that will forever be completely overshadowed by smells, purrs, facial expressions, and all of the love in the room.

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Sunday, September 19, 2021, 12pm CST, Charlotte, North Carolina

Panthers Win

I told the fellas at the golf course that they better be glad I wasn’t working on Sunday because I would be chirping like a bird, the sole Panthers fan surrounded by a Saints army. After the Saints’ Week 1 dismantling of Green Bay, their fans thought Jameis Winston was the second coming of Christ. Turns out, against the Panthers, he was actually the second coming of Jameis Winston.

Carolina completely dominated. Charlotte looked beautiful. I allowed my brain to wander briefly, a past life and a new life intertwined beautifully for the first time.

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As a new week starts, the moon glistening over The Gulf, it’s only a couple more days before it happens again. Thursday Night Football. Panthers at Texans. Charli Win on my lap. There’s magic in the air.

Have a great week.-Benj

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