Sports provide comfort, hope

By FAITH MOLDAN

Bigfork Eagle

There are a lot of things that divide us in this world.

Religion and politics are the big things that come to my mind. They've been the cause of wars and other conflicts. As optimistic as I try to be sometimes, I doubt that there will be an end to that in my lifetime.

Thankfully, there are usually handfuls of stories about good deeds done and togetherness created among all the bad things that happen.

As a Minnesota native, I struggled to grasp the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last Wednesday evening. How could this happen to people on their way home from work, running errands and on their way to the Minnesota Twins game? All the images I saw were unreal. All I could think was, "That can't happen in Minnesota."

But it did, and in respect of the victims and to help with traffic congestion on the Twin Cities roadways the Twins rescheduled their game the next night and the ground breaking of their new stadium as well. The game the night of the collapse was played. Only because there were already thousands of fans in the Metrodome awaiting the first pitch that was thrown almost exactly an hour after the collapse.

With their hearts hurting, Twins fans returned to the Metrodome Friday night. I've been to the Metrodome many times — state high school football tournament and countless Twins games. It's a loud place, especially when packed and cheering on a team that has done as well as the Twins have in the past few seasons. Crowd favorites like Joe Mauer, Johan Santana and Torii Hunter pack fans in by the thousands every home game.

The roar that the crowd expels was silenced Friday before the Twins' game against the Cleveland Indians, as a moment of silence was observed for the people in the bridge collapse. It was amazing and brought a tear to my eye to see thousands of people that belong to different religions, were of different races and of different political beliefs join together to help each other cope with the tragedy.

I cried again Monday morning while reading the Daily Inter Lake article "Joel's last jump." I smiled too though, happy that the friends and family of Joel Atkinson were able to say goodbye to him in the most perfect and fitting way.

They all lost a dear friend, son, brother and boyfriend. They came together though, joined by a sport that is no doubt dangerous but also a comfort. A comfort because it was such a large part of who Joel was and his life.

One final story for you, that I recently heard about how sports have brought people together.

I graduated high school a year behind a girl that I can only best describe as a combination of Bigfork senior volleyball and basketball athlete Alyssa Fierro and Eureka's Amy Roberts. She was tall, muscular and one of the best high school athletes in our conference and area of Minnesota. She went on to play college volleyball for a small college in South Dakota and has since coached at one of the high schools in our hometown. She continues to be active in athletics by playing in softball leagues and other sports as well. That's where the story gets interesting.

During a softball tournament in the Twin Cities this past weekend, a member of the other team hit a single. At first base, the position my high school friend Nicole was playing, the woman proceeded to tell Nicole that she looked like her niece. Intrigued, Nicole asked for the niece's name. It ended up being that the woman's niece was Nicole's birth mother who had given her up for adoption 24 years ago.

Of all the odd coincidences, my friend ended up at the same tournament as her great aunt. I stopped to question what if one of their team's had decided not to play in the tournament or had not qualified for it? What if her great aunt had struck out? Would she have approached Nicole after the game?

Nicole will soon get to meet her mother, father and brother in Texas, as her team won and qualified to advance to another tournament in there. I wonder if her mom plays softball too? It could be a nice conversation starter and some common ground.

That's all we really need in this world. It may sound awfully naive of me, but people just need to find some common ground and work past the differences that they have. It could be their choice in literature, film, art or maybe even a shared hobby or sport.