The Last Dance and Mixed Joy

Like most kids in the 90s who, it was fairly easy to be fan of Chicago Bulls and I was no different. It’s no surprise then I have been feasting on the ESPN Documentary “The Last Dance” over the past three weeks. However, as I have been watching, I have found myself feeling a mix of emotions that I haven’t been able to truly understand (and maybe still don’t).

At times, I feel like a dope being sucked back into the memories and stories of a team I spent an unhealthy amount of time being obsessed with when I was a kid. Other times, it’s pure joy, as I remember where I was for every moment, from listening to the triple overtime game in the car with my Dad to shouting at my cousins and brother not to move as the Bulls came back to win Game 6 in ‘92.

I have also felt what I can only describe as a longing as I watched which I chalked up to wanting to return to the early innocence of childhood. It’s only recently I realized some of this longing was made up of missing someone that I had bonded with over that Last Dance: my mom.

During that last three-peat, my fascination with Bulls (and MJ in particular) was crazy. I read every piece of news I could get my hands on, collected at least 500 hats with some variant of Jordan or Bulls on it and even wrote poems about the team (which seemed totally normal to me at the time). While I am sure my mom found some of it worrying (crying after a loss for instance), she did very little to discourage my obsession other than the occasional “you aren’t playing/can’t control the outcome” variant (though I was quite convinced I could, playing hundreds of games of NBA Live with Bulls to ensure victory that day).

My mom had always marched to the beat of her own drummer and I think she felt a certain kinship with Phil Jackson’s approach to motivating the team, showing me articles about his trips to Native American reserves and the various meditation routines he would do with the team.

During that last run during my sophomore year of High School, I distinctly remember my mom and I reading and discussing every Bulls article in the Chicago Tribune. That May, as the playoffs started, my mom often drove out to wherever my brother and I had our school tennis matches where she would park, and leaf through the newspaper, waiting for our match to start.

As I was an easily angered teenager, I remember she did her best to see but not be seen, lest she face the wrath of me getting annoyed at her presence. When I would saddle back to the car, she would always hand me the sports section, usually with a comment about something Rodman said or the columnist I should start with.

Obviously, when you are in it, you don’t realize it but my mom and I were bonding. She made my obsession feel OK, more than OK, a fun way for her to connect with her son and also instill a love of reading and understanding news (not necessarily hard news, but that came later). She saved the sports section from every playoff game that year and after Stockton’s 3 clanged off the rim to secure the 6th championship, she framed the reprints of the front page of every championship.

I can still see her putting her arms up and screaming “We did it!”, a running joke we had from a Rick Reilly column in Sport Illustrated that had skewered the Bulls and their fans. I had laughed, feeling a sense of relief as MJ held up six fingers. We hugged and debated going to the rally. Twenty-two years seems like yesterday.

This April was fifteen years since my mom passed away. I don’t think about her every day but I know I miss her every day. The Last Dance has stirred that longing to share these memories with someone who made them with you. I’m sure my mom would tell me something that I had forgotten, a detail or something I did that she remembered. It feels good to realize where my mixed feelings are coming from but it sure would be nice to be able to talk to her about episodes 7 and 8 on Monday. I miss you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day. Sorry I made you buy all those hats.

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