The holidays are a great time to spend with family and reflect on what is important in life. This year my now 23-year-old daughter reminded me of what she described as one of her “core memories” growing up.
The year was 2013 and she was doing competitive figure skating for the first time. The Port Credit club was hosting a competition and one of the options was a “Family Ice Dance”. This required a child and parent to perform the Canasta Tango on ice. Having played hockey all my life, I was not at all intimidated by being on the ice, but I was far from graceful. My edge work was on par with being a hockey player, not a figure skater, but I jumped at the opportunity.
Leading up to the event we had numerous on ice practice sessions with our coaches where we worked through the routine. This was great father daughter time, and this was probably the most fun for me. Lots of laughter and self-deprecation was involved!
My daughter likes to brag that we won the silver medal that day. The reality was there were only two teams competing. Our competition was a mother and daughter team, and the Mom was a long-time figure skater. When we stepped on the ice, I can distinctly remember hearing a lot of chatter in the stands. I think a lot of the crowd was surprised to see a Dad out on the ice in his hockey skates. I can remember feeling a little intimidated by the whole event but once we were on the ice we did just fine.
We may have only won a silver medal that day but having my daughter tell me it was one of her core memories growing up, a dozen years after the event, makes it feel better than gold in my books! (And yes, a few tears were shed upon hearing this.)
So, as an empty nester now, I will just encourage all you parents with younger kids to make the effort to participate in your child’s activities when you’re given the opportunity. Years later they won’t reflect on the stuff you gave them for Christmas, but they will recall when you built a core memory with them.
Normalize showing up to figure skating competitions in your hockey skates… you won’t regret it!