It Was Always About Something More

It’s a crazy feeling.

It’s just an indescribable feeling.

These past two weeks have been a roller coaster unlike anything I’ve ever been apart of before.  So many highs, so many dream’s coming true. So many moments of pure elation and joy that I wish I could just bottle up and relive at any time I wish. Yet for the past two weeks, it’s always been about something bigger than myself.

Just under two weeks ago, my sister called me from back home and simply started the conversation with “Hey Pete, don’t freak out, but dad is in the emergency room at the hospital right now.” – Note: Never start a conversation with words like that, you’d be surprised the number of thoughts that overload your brain in the two seconds before she says “everything is ok”.

My dad had had an accident working on the farm back home that could have cost him his entire hand. A freak accident that left him sitting in a hospital bed, no pain meds, awaiting surgery to fix his hanging limb. However, the surgery was successful and he will make a full recovery, which is all I needed to hear. He's a strong bloke that one.

You have never experienced a feeling where you sit, helplessly, across the other side of the world while your dad sits in a hospital bed in one building whilst your mum is across the hospital on the other side having a major scan for her cancer treatments. And yet, I just sit in my room, not being able to be beside either of them during any of it. My dad hasn’t missed one of my mums appointments in the four years she has been battling this cancer, not one, until that day. That was tough for me to swallow, but seeing how strong my mum has been for the last four years, you just can't show anything but strength, for their sake. They make that possible, each and every day.

Family Over Everything

Yet here I sit, two weeks later. I managed to travel from Long Island where I won my second Championship in two years, to Ohio to win my first ever NCAA Tournament game then to Florida to play the best team in the country on one of the worlds biggest stages. Yet after all these life changing memories and triumphs, it falls short to something much bigger and more important than it all.

After speaking to my dad the night before my game in Ohio, he told me that after four years of battling cancer, my mum has been cleared to have surgery to remove the remaining tumors from her lungs. After four years of chemotherapy and more, it’s all about to be over. The news my family had been waiting for, had finally come. Every battle, every tear, every struggle was worth it, just to hear my parents cry in joy and ecstasy about the news. Those are the tears I can handle. 

I know my parents wanted to be court side for each of these last games, but it just wasn't meant to be, this news was much more important. I know that hurt them, I know how bad they wanted to be here. But it was the best news I could hear. It was always about something more than basketball, it always has been.

All my parents kept saying before every one of my games was how proud they were of who I have become and that they couldn’t ask for anymore than what I had already achieved. Yet, I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to do it for my family more than anything else.

That helpless feeling I had whilst I sat in my bed and prayed for each of my parents in hospital would slowly disappear after each game when my parents would speak to me in tears about how proud and happy they were. That’s the biggest win of all for me. If I could bottle up that feeling, that indescribable moment – it’d be the happiest moments of my life.