This basketball season has been a memorable year of reunions for my myself and family. It began last Thanksgiving when my sister spearheaded a trip to bring us all together for the first time in 18 years, meeting in Albuquerque, NM.
My father and I, longtime Jayhawks fans since we left the heartland for the desert southwest in 1971 talked about another reunion during that reunion, that being to go back to Lawrence and watch KU play at Allen Fieldhouse. I felt it wasn’t appropriate to be doing a reunion without paying homage to my original hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. So my father and I met there for the Jan. 25 game against Nebraska, our first time together in Lawrence in 37 years. We both were choked up and overcome with emotion that warm Saturday winter day. After the game we sort of joked how much fun it would be to watch KU play again this year – in San Antonio. We had been to the last Final Four there, in 2004 when I was working for the media covering Oklahoma State, so experience made it feel like it wasn’t going to be an impossible task getting tickets – if KU made it to the championship game.
Sure enough everything fell into place. When KU beat Davidson I knew they were going to win it all, after showing they could handle the pressure of beating a fired-up underdog and at that moment my plans shifted from looking for work (I was just laid off a job), filing for unemployment and finishing my taxes to instead follow the Jayhawks.
Here I sit 3 days after the championship and still buzzing over Monday night’s win, during the moment with an empty bank account and future in my field of photojournalism looking bleak – well right now that doesn’t seem to matter. I lived the moment in the Alamodome Monday night with my Dad and for right now, experiencing quite an experience of earthly jubilation not ready to let go of yet, or take off my Jayhawk shirt I wore to the game Monday night.
In the meantime, the check to the IRS will be in the mail tomorrow.
