Apologies if you’re not a basketball fan (and particularly if you’re a Golden State Warriors fan), you may want to skip this post…
Although I now live in Austin, I was born and raised in Northern Ohio. If you’re a fan of professional basketball in the United States, you know that the Cleveland Cavaliers finally broke the drought of sports championships for the town. It’s a big deal for the fans of Cleveland sports, who have endured so much heartbreak when it comes to sports – and for life there in general. In addition to the Cleveland Indians losing the World Series in the ninth inning of the final game; or the Cleveland Browns fumbling away a victory in the playoffs; or the Cavs losing the Finals last year in six games – in addition to the sports heartbreak, Cleveland has also seen the rapid decline of the manufacturing industry that was once the backbone of the local economy; the devastation wrought by the one-two punch of the recession and the housing market crash; and the loss of population as people left the area to seek opportunity elsewhere (including yours truly).
Ironically, I was in San Francisco last weekend, right across the Bay from where Game 7 was being played. During the gorgeous day, my husband and I spent the day wandering the Presidio area and eventually walking across the Golden Gate Bridge and back again. But as we walked, I could tell my husband was checking the time, looking to see if the game had started. Finally I said, let’s go back to the hotel and watch the game. There was no way we, as fans of the rival team, could just go to a sports bar and watch the game. We were vastly outnumbered by the legions of people around us wearing Golden State Warriors gear and although I’m sometimes fearless, I’m not reckless.
In the hotel, I was too nervous to watch the game. Unless you’ve grown up in Cleveland, you don’t understand the mix of nervousness, anguish, fear of getting your hopes up, and trying to steel yourself for the inevitable disappointment when watching your sports team in a critical situation. I paced, which drove my husband nuts; so I retreated to the bathroom so he couldn’t see me pace but where I could still hear the TV. In the final minutes (which in a basketball game can seem to last days), I sat in the bathroom on the edge of the tub, waiting for the final seconds to tick away and girding myself for the last minute basket that would squash the Cavs and Cleveland’s hopes again.
Except, it didn’t happen. Instead I heard the words “and the Cleveland Cavaliers are the 2016 NBA Champs”. I raced back into the room and stared at my husband. “Did he really just say that? Or did he just jinx us in the final seconds?” My husband, mute, just nodded his head towards the screen. It was only when I saw everyone pouring onto the court that I realized that it was true. Cleveland finally had a major sporting championship.
I admit, I got a little weepy. All of those years of pleading with God to please let us win one, just one, and getting losses in return. And now, when I was so beaten down by failures of the Cleveland sports world, I no longer even made those deals with God. So for it to happen now, when I no longer bargained for “just one”, it felt surreal. We had a reservation for the hotel car to take us to dinner. I told my husband to ask for them to give us 15 minutes. I needed to watch the trophy ceremony. I needed to watch the team hug each other and high five. I needed to see LeBron James, once the most vilified man in all of northern Ohio and then the promised savior who delivered on his promise to bring a championship, fall to the floor and weep with relief, with joy, with pride. I needed to see all of it because I had never seen it before, and quite honestly, I may never see it again in my lifetime.
Afterwards, in the glow of the celebratory mood in a tavern filled with surly locals, I realized that had my melanoma not been caught early enough, I may not have lived to see a Cleveland sports championship celebration. It was a sobering thought. I could have lived my life without once ever seeing the hometown have a parade and rally and speeches and ticker tape. Amelanotic nodular melanoma could have taken that and so many other things away from me. I’m so lucky to have had the opportunity to be alive to witness this.