My Spirit: this seasons last football game

Walking up to the football field with my whole family was a treat. There were the aunts, uncles, grandmothers, cousins, daughters, step-children and babies. My youngest of my many nephews had so much fun with all of his siblings (half and step) surrounding him. He will be three years older than my grand daughter and (as my sister and I are planning) to have them grow up together and become in the same social groups. That would make me a very happy Titi and Grandmother. Making our way through the crowds, we had to pay to get in the game at a make-shift desk with a couple of the mothers who have children in the football game. I opted to buy raffle ticket for a $50 coupon to benefit my nephew's football team. Everyone in our group had walked over to the grandstand to find themselves a seat on the cold, metal bleachers. There is my beautiful nephew, my "Spirit" in a crowd of young boys donned in football gear. My sister always introduced sports to the kids to teach them that "Its not winning or losing, its how you play the game". I appreciated it when she introduced my daughter to softball as a child. There is a reason why I had something in common with NASA as I was waiting for his birth. It was in the early part of January 2004. My mother went to the hospital to be with my sister as she was giving birth and I wanted to sit by the phone and wait for any news. Remember this was South Florida and the sun was setting in the west. I decided to turn on CNN to watch NASA anxiously awaiting a satellite drop both Opportunity and Spirit Rovers on the Martian surface.  (Opportunity was dropped 2 weeks later.) Watching the scientists watch the satellite was so exciting as I am sitting on my couch in the air conditioning, holding a remote control in one hand and a cell phone in the other. It is about 8 p.m. and the first rover drops, bounces in a balloon-like vessel then lands with pure grace. Mission Control I get a phone call *as Mission Control is cheering* to learn that I have a beautiful nephew that just entered our world as we know it. Funny.....I am jumping up and down cheering along with NASA Mission Control for the same thing. Welcoming two beautiful vessels into a new world. I love you, my Spirit, my nephew. Love, Titi