Tami Gilley

Katie’s Tears

            The gym was packed and all the volleyball girls from were extremely nervous about competing in their first tournament of the season.  St. Francis and the Lady Wolves had been preparing since early August for this tournament.  Coach Gilley also seemed a little nervous as she prepared the girls for their season debut.

            “Margaret, Catherine gather all the girls together and let’s start to warm-up.”

“Coach Gilley, my mom is actually going to be able to make it to the

game!”Katie yelled out.

“That’s wonderful!” shouted Coach.

            The first game will be against Kinkaid which has a long history with St. Francis.  Kinkaid usually has several girls who play off season volleyball allowing them to be a little more fundamentally sound.  As the referees approached the stand, the girl’s became overwhelmed with excitement. The first server for St. Francis was Katie Skarke.

            “Come on Katie get us started with a point!” yelled Coach.

As the girls clapped they began to chant, “Come on Katie, aww, ace baby ace!”

Katie served for five points before Kinkaid began to slowly start returning the ball.  For the next few minutes the team began to go point for point.  As the teams began to rotate around, it was now time for Katie to begin to serve again.  The score was 23-22 with St Francis down.  All of the sudden , Mrs. Skarke slowly stands up and begins to cheer her daughter on.  The fans began to clap as Katie served the final two points to win the game.

“We won, we won, we love you Katie,” screamed the girls.

Coach Gilley barely had time to enjoy the win before she had to look at the bracket and see when the next game would be.  As the girls hugged each other, Katie immediately ran to the stands and embraced her mom.  The girls gave them high fives and expressed their excitement with giddiness.

“Okay girls, we will have the whole night to enjoy our victory, but we will need to be back at the gym by 8:00 tomorrow morning.  This means everyone please get a goodnights sleep because we will have another big game in the morning.”

“Coach, is it okay if we all get together and go out to dinner?” asked the girls.

“Sure, that would be fine,”pausing for a moment, “Does this mean the Coach is invited?”

“Of course, we would love for you to come,”Katie explained.

As the girls began to leave the gym everyone was skipping and talking about the great win except Katie and her mom.

“It’s okay mom, we don’t have to rush, we have plenty of time to make it

to the restaurant.  I‘ll call Catherine and have her save us a seat.”

“I know Katie,” explained Katie’s mom, “I just don’t want you to get left behind.”

“Quit being silly, mom, you know you and I are the life of the party.”

As Katie and her mom finally exited the gym, a visibly shaken Coach Gilley could only watch as the two cradled one another with an absolute unconditional love.                                   

            The next morning came and all the girls arrived at least fifteen to thirty minutes early.  As Coach Gilley walked up carrying all the equipment, the girls were eager to grab the volleyballs and start passing them back and forth. 

            “Okay girls let’s put the balls down and talk about our first match.”  As soon as Coach finished that statement the girls started raising their hands as if they were in a scene from Welcome Back Kotter. 

            “How tall are the girls?”

            “Where are they from?”

            “Can we go out to eat if we win?”  Coach smiled and started telling the girls to take a deep breath, relax and play to the best of their abilities.

            As the girls started warming up on Court one, Coach Gilley looked out of the corner of her eye to check out their cheering section.  The parents were all wearing blue and grey shirts and started cheering before the game even started.  Unfortunately, there was a vacant seat next to Mr. Skarke.

            “Katie, will your mom be here later?” asked Coach .

            “No,” Katie said. ”She was a little tired from all the excitement yesterday.”

            The girls played St. Johns in their first match and beat them 25-20, and 25-18.  Everyone was elated.

            “We’re gonna win a trophy, we’re gonna win first place!”

            “I can’t believe it!” the girls yelled with excitement.  Coach Gilley calmed them down and told them they still needed to win one more match to get to the championship.  The referee walked over and told the team to move to Court four because their next match was about to begin.  They only had a few minutes to prepare for their next match and unfortunately it showed.  The game was against Trinity Christian was a struggle, but determination was on the Lady Wolves side and they came out victorious.

            Again, the girls had little time to regain their composure and get ready for the final match of the day, the championship match.  It was 12:00pm and the final game was just about to get started. The head of school, the parents and the athletic director were all anxiously awaiting the outcome.

            “I guess my mom just didn’t have the energy to sit through the games today,” commented Katie.

“Oh well,” the girls explained. “We’re gonna win this trophy for her and you can take it home to show her.”

“That’s an awesome idea!” expressed Coach Gilley.

            The championship match started and they were playing an undefeated Grace Christian. The Lady Wolves started out behind by seven points.  Again, thanks to Katie’s strong serves, the girls were able to come from behind and win the first game.  The second game wasn’t quite as easy as Grace exploded out and won by ten points.  The last game of the match was about to begin as St. Francis won the coin toss.  They chose to serve first and began with Katie as their first server.  The fire in her eyes was so intense that they would seem to melt steel.  As she started serving, she gave the Wolves a strong four point lead.  Grace could never recover and the Lady Wolves went on to win their first volleyball tournament in school history.

            “We are the champions…we’re number one,”

            “Thank you Coach Gilley,” shouted all the girls.  Coach Gilley with tears in her eyes told the girls she had never coached such a determined and thoughtful group of girls.  After all the pictures were taken and the gym started to clear out, Coach Gilley pulled Katie to the side. 

            “Katie, make sure you take that trophy to your mom and just bring it back to me on Monday.”

            “Okay, thanks Coach.  You’ll never know how much that means to me.”

            As the season progressed for the Lady Wolves, the girls were never able to perform as well as they did at their first tournament.  Finishing the season in a disappointing seventh place, the girls never showed any signs of giving up.  Hopeful news was also spread throughout the school that Katie’s mom was continuing chemotherapy and she was showing signs of improvement.  This seemed to be just the news that Coach wanted to hear because her part-time job at St. Frances was about to end in a couple of days.

            As Coach Gilley cleaned out her mailbox on her last day, the athletic director called her into his office.  She went in his office and slowly closed the door behind her.

            “First I want to apologize for never giving you the full details of Katie’s mom’s illness.  Eugenia started her battle with breast cancer five years ago and was just about to go into remission, when the doctors found that the cancer had come back and spread with vengeance.  As of right now we are all hopeful, but it doesn’t look good.

  Just please remember the family in your prayers and we will call you if anything happens.”

“I appreciate the explanation,” expressed Coach Gilley. “Katie is such a vibrant, happy young lady that I could never get the courage to talk to her about her mom.”

            Sadly, after six months had past, Coach Gilley received a call that Katie’s mom had lost her battle with cancer.  She sat in a moment of silence and knew that the road for Katie was getting ready to be one of the loneliest she would ever face.  Even though Katie will be surrounded by her father and her brothers, a mother’s love for her daughter could never be replaced.  Eventually Katie’s tears will be wiped away, but her mother’s memory will never fade.

Revision account:

Again, I hate to sound cliché’, but I am such an amateur writer.  I started writing Katie’s Tears a few years ago, but I felt like my personal feelings were taking over so I decided to put it down for awhile. Well, luckily I have been able to pick it back up and write with a sense of direction.  I started out with a blank piece of paper and basically began to free write.  This time the passion was there, but my motivation was much greater because I knew someone was actually going to read it and give constructive feedback.

My reason for writing such a piece as Katie’s Tears definitely goes back to my desire for writing personal experience.  This piece is semi-true, but a few details were fabricated.  Several people in my life have been affected by breast cancer and I have always wanted to do something to be proactive.  It struck me while writing this piece that if I could work it all together that I might be able to actually get it published and do one of those “proceeds go to help fight breast cancer” campaigns.  That would be one of the most amazing accomplishments that I could ever ask for. 

I gave this piece to Heather Meza a few weeks ago and she had several insightful suggestions to help my paper flow more smoothly.  Throughout the whole semester I have felt that Heather genuinely gives very helpful feedback.  She gives constructive, but then comes back with positive.  This is why I chose her to critique my paper.  I felt her comments to be simple, but effective.  I am attaching a few of her comments below, but left off a couple.  The reason I did not send them all was because one has to do with the future of my paper.  She suggests to have more relationship developments between the coach, Katie and her mom.  I definitely see this as an asset and plan on working this into the beginning of the book.  The only relationship I want to leave suspenseful, will be between Coach Gilley and Katie’s mom.  I would love to add a twist to this and spice it up a little.