Parenthood Peace Treaty

My daughter was an extraordinary archer. We found out by accident, when our petite flower picked up my mother's 50 year old weapon and popped off a clean shot. Her tiny piano wire arms pulling a third of her body weight.

We brought her to a school that was tied to the JOAD program. That is short for Junior Olympic Archery Development. There was a kid in her school with a world record. His parents built an archery range through the middle of their house so he could shoot inside in the winter. Her coach had tutored Olympians. When he saw her, he begged us to keep her there for six years when she would be open to opportunities like that. She was that gifted. We would post her scores and pictures of her targets with the arrows sticking out of the center gold on Facebook that our friends and relatives would cheer on.

We don't have much money. Our families saw the passion that she had and did everything they could to support her for two years. They paid for classes, brought her equipment. Her first year, Santa gave her her very own bow so that she didn't have to rent it for school. 

Every Saturday my husband and I would drive her 45 minutes to the school. We would tie it into our weekly Costco grocery shopping. One of us would sneak out and bring back coffee. We would buy her a snickers bar and, later, M&Ms from the store in the school so that we would get through to lunch. It was a family affair that went on for over a year, with the daughter our central focus, growing in ranks. Breaking over 200 and continuing to a much harder level.

Money knocked us out one summer. We were just not around long enough weekends to justify the full price we had to pay (usually in the fall we were pro-rated). When we finally returned, the daughter's body had hit a growth spurt, something very hard on an archer because the bones and the muscles grow at separate times. The coach fell ill and the teacher running the class didn't seem to do much more than run through the process. The daughter was in tears, feeling the pressure of, in her head, failure. Her score fell way below what would have been her normal growth rate. She grew sad and discouraged. When her coach returned, he tried his best to lift her enthusiasm back to where it had been but you could tell, she just felt like a failure even though no one else thought so.

The summer came around again. Our family once again couldn't justify the money. The daughter had lost the joy and the family lost our Saturdays together when we would wake up bitching that we had to drive together so far away every week. That we had made this commitment to each other and cheer on the child that eventually lost the joy in  her gift, our family event.

We spoke to her about returning. We realize that it has to be her choice, that by forcing her it will kill the love for the sport entirely that she stepped into with such wonderful talent. You could tell that we were offering her the option to try fully expecting her to fold. And she didn't.

Today I take her back to the range, just to shoot for fun. The way it was before it became something that made her feel like a failure because her body gave out on her for a little while. Maybe even I will try it. I shouldn't. I can't afford it. But it may be worth it just to make her laugh and want to come back more.

 I miss those awful cold mornings burning gas to go watch a child be brilliantly dangerous with a medieval weapon, running out to Dunks and sitting together on the metal chairs trying not to whoop when she hit the gold with her dad video taping the scores on his phone's camera, "And she shoot....ooh! A nine! Nice, Baby!" Maybe someday she will love it again. Maybe some day our family can pile into the car on a Saturday morning and stop at Costco on the way home. Either way, I hope this is a childhood memory of her family she will keep in her heart when she is older, touching  her old bow fondly that I hope she will always keep near by, proud of her great talent that will always be there.