Hammok And Goalkeeper Gloves

One Saturday, I took my sons to the park where foreigners were holding a meetup. I was invited there by an Irish friend of mine. My husband was working on that day and I had to take care of my sons alone. I somehow persuaded my crabby eldest son to follow me there. He accepted the plan under the condition that we were going to play soccer in the park. I also brought my ukulele and sheet music there.

When I was driving and arrived at a temple near the park, I saw some foreign guys standing and checking smart phones, and I thought they might have got lost, but I should find where others were at first. So I continued driving to the parking area near the park. I found the group of people relaxing on leisure sheets at the opposite side of the park. While my sons were still sleeping, I got off my car and walked to them to let them know some guys seemed to have been losing their way. My Irish friend went walking to find them after thanking me. I went back to my car to find my sons had just waken up.

He belongs to a soccer club and wants to play soccer with someone when there is no team practice. I need to get him lots of goods to let him play soccer. He needs uniforms, leg guards, soccer balls, training shoes, etc. Furthermore, he started asking me to get him gloves for goal keepers. He is one of the smallest pupils at his elementary school. I could hardly imagine he would be able to fulfill others’ expectation as a goal keeper. So I didn’t want to get him goalkeeper gloves. But he seemed not to be able to give it up easily. We had serious quarrels when we were talking about it.

I went to the lawn area of the park with my sons and set up the goal for them. We were playing soccer for a while. Then I noticed the group of foreigners were hanging a hammock between two trees and some of them were relaxing on it. I remembered my sons were very fond of hammocks, and thought it would be a good excuse to join them and make my sons speak some English, so I asked my sons to go to their hammock and talk to them. They got interested in the hammock very much, and they spruced their courage to get close to them.

The guys relaxing on the hammock kindly offered my sons to get on it together with them. They enjoyed rocking it and playing together. My eldest son even started tickling one of the guys on the hammock.

Suddenly, my eldest son started to say he wanted to play soccer with one of them. Luckily, the guy who was tickled by my eldest son accepted his request. I was surprised to hear his younger brother was a professional soccer player and was going to go to Russia for the World Cup. He was from South Africa, and he was also playing soccer until he was a high school student. He says he was a goal keeper. Indeed, his technique was remarkable. His strong long shoot accurately flied toward the center of the goal. To my astonishment, my eldest son caught this ball with his hands. The South African man sounded amazed and he said my eldest son was talented for a goal keeper. I said he was too small for that, but the man said he would be OK when he grows up. A Korean man who is working for Kagawa prefecture also joined them, and made it even more exciting.

I was very glad to see them playing soccer happily. I was grateful for our encounter. I thought it could be some kind of destined miracle.

So I decided to get my eldest son keeper gloves. He is very happy with them now and brings them to his team practice. He asks everyone to play soccer with him. His father and even his grandmother play with him. I like to see him developing his team working skills, enduring spirit, consideration for others through playing soccer. I was also glad to see my sons were having a good time with foreigners speaking English a little bit in an international meetup. They are very friendly and willing to play with my sons. Though parenting is not easy at times, I feel very happy when there are some nice people like them out there if only I say I need them. Though I'm Japanese, I feel I'm in the company I really want to keep when I am with them.