What a football rivalry, a family tragedy, and a lifetime of loss taught me about showing up for my own healing
My home state of Alabama doesn’t have any of the big four professional sports. But the biggest day on our calendar — by far — is the Iron Bowl, the annual football game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers.
Friendships have ended over this game. Trees have been poisoned. People have even been shot over it.
Understand, I’m not condoning any of that. It’s just a football game. But these are the facts.
Let’s go back to 1984. The Crimson Tide were hardly the powerhouse they are today. Less than two years removed from the passing of legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, the program was in disarray. That 1984 season was rough — Alabama’s first losing season since 1957, the year before the Bear answered the call from “Mama.”
Fun fact: the first Alabama game I ever attended was that same year — the season opener against Boston College and eventual Heisman winner Doug Flutie. Despite the loss, and despite being only seven years old and not fully understanding the game, I was in love. The pageantry, the fight song, the marching band, I loved it all.
That day began a love affair with the Crimson Tide that’s lasted more than forty years and will continue until the day I leave my body.
The 1984 Iron Bowl was played on December 1. Bama was looking to spoil Auburn’s SEC Championship hopes. Late in the fourth quarter, Alabama led 17–15. Auburn had a crucial fourth down deep in Bama territory. For reasons still debated four decades later, Auburn head coach Pat Dye decided to go for it instead of kicking a chip-shot field goal.
The Tigers lined up in the wishbone. The quarterback handed the ball to Brent Fullwood around the right side. The other halfback was supposed to be his lead blocker — but he went left. A Bama defender came through untouched and Fullwood was a sitting duck. Fullwood never had a chance. Auburn turned it over.
That halfback who missed his block? He’d go on to win the Heisman Trophy the next season — Bo Jackson.
My family are all devoted Crimson Tide fans, many of us — myself included — proud Alabama graduates. My Aunt Joy and her husband Carey lived in the small town of Ashford. Carey’s family ran a contracting business that he worked with, and Joy was a registered nurse working for a kidney dialysis clinic.
After that Iron Bowl, they wanted to celebrate — a little Christmas shopping, a nice dinner, some cocktails. But on their way to Dothan, on an isolated stretch of State Highway 52, a car tried to pass them on a double yellow line. The driver misjudged the distance, clipped their left front fender at high speed, and sent their car flipping over and over into a ditch. Both were life-flighted to a nearby hospital. Joy was dead on arrival. Carey’s parents made the heart-wrenching decision to end life support the next day.
My mother, Ann, and her sister Joy were inseparable. They were maids of honor in each other’s weddings. And no — my mom did not handle her grief well. She turned to alcohol to numb her pain.
In my opinion, my childhood ended that unseasonably warm December afternoon.
I was seven years old.
By that point, I had already lost my maternal grandmother the year before. I would lose my maternal grandfather — one of my greatest heroes — seven years later. We were also estranged from my paternal grandparents for reasons I won’t go into here. It was a lot of loss for one kid.
And I’ve gone on to lose so many people I love.
This piece isn’t about complaining that people — or “soul puppies” — die. It’s a deeper conversation than that.
When we experience trauma, especially as children, we learn to internalize it. The lengths we go to in order to avoid feeling our feelings can be astonishing.
My uncle Ed, my mother’s brother, passed away in 2002 at only 46. He had a complicated relationship with his own grief. I believe Ed turned to drugs — mainly cocaine — to numb the pain of losing his sister and his parents. In my opinion, those years of cocaine abuse led to the heart issues that eventually took his life.
When he died, I think a part of my mom died too. Her body held on until 2009, but her spirit was long gone. Grief and addiction swallowed her whole.
After she passed, I turned to two things to numb my own pain: food and alcohol. I believe my food addiction landed me in the hospital with a ruptured gallbladder — something that came dangerously close to ending my life.
And while I don’t believe I had a drinking problem, I was treading a dangerous path. I come from a family of people with addictive personalities, and I knew that if I wasn’t careful, it could consume me too.
Here’s my point in sharing all this. I can sum it up in seven simple words:
If we ain’t feelin’, we ain’t healin’.
In December of 2014, I went to the doctor for a checkup. When I stepped on the scale, I was horrified by what I saw — and so was my doctor. The first number of my weight was a three.
My dad, Tony, had been battling cancer, and I had no idea. Years of smoking and his own addictions had caught up with him. After my mom passed, he didn’t handle his grief well either — numbing out with more alcohol, more cigarettes, more marijuana.
On December 23, 2014, Dad left his body.
I was eating my grief away before my dad even died.
After my dog Pete passed away in November of 2024, I didn’t handle it well either. I turned to food to help numb my pain. On the outside, I was still the funny guy I’d always been, but on the inside, I was miserable.
Someone recently challenged me to schedule time to feel my grief — especially around losing Pete. I resisted that for a long time. It just felt dangerous and unsafe.
But I’ve come to realize that my complicated relationship with my body is deeply tied to how I handle grief.
I know I’m not the only one. So many of us turn to food, drugs, alcohol, work, sex — any number of things — to numb out. But here’s what I’ve learned after all these years of running from pain: it always catches up. The only way through it is straight through it.
Every November when the Iron Bowl rolls around, I still feel that familiar flutter — that mix of hope, rivalry, and memory. It’s never been just about football. It’s about all the people I’ve loved and lost since that December afternoon in 1984. My aunt and uncle. My mom. My uncle Ed. My dad. Pete. All of them part of my story, whether I like it or not.
Life, like football, doesn’t always go the way you drew it up. Sometimes you make the wrong call on fourth down. Sometimes you fumble. Sometimes you watch the people you love taken off the field far too soon.
But you keep showing up. You keep lining up again. That’s what healing is — not pretending you don’t hurt, but learning to play through the pain with an open heart.
If we ain’t feelin’, we ain’t healin’.
And after all these years, I’m finally starting to feel.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
