Shining Moment

Somewhere in the first quarter of last night's Bronco game, I looked across the room and noticed that my mother, visiting me here from Colorado, was staring at the TV with her legs crossed and her arms folded tightly against her chest. I noticed this because it was the precise posture I found my own body in as I watched our team start out on Monday Night Football. It has been several years since my mother and I have shared this experience in the same room. I often call her after a game, or when things are going very well, or very poorly. We commiserate and rationalize, and remember when things were different.
But last night, we remembered how much the same things are. I remembered how much fun it is to root for a team with a room full of people who care as much as you do. Or at least, they pretend to. There was another four orange and blue clad Bronco Buds in the room for the second half, and try as they might to be ambivalent, when Andre Hall ran sixty-two yards to the end zone to put Denver ahead comfortably and for good there was a lot of whooping that did not emanate from my mother or myself. It was a giddy good time.
My wife got to have a themed party. My niece got to wear a John Elway jersey. My younger brother spent what could be considered quality time with his family and had some delicious pizza. Was it the Super Bowl? No, but my mother and I finally relaxed and enjoyed the events unfolding half a continent away, and it was good.