Life as a Beautiful Game

Daddy's nose is not like mine," my observant offspring stated to me matter-of-factly the other day. "It's a bit crooked. I want a crooked nose too."
It's no secret that my five-year-old worships her father, most girls do. To the extent that a crooked nose is not a throwback to the familiar Hansel and Gretel's ugly witch with the crooked nose and pointed hat, as much as it is a badge of honour, a way to look a little bit more like papa. If you ask her nicely she might even tell you how her dad managed to acquire that crooked nose — boxing, where his nasal bridge was broken, at the state level. If you quiz her further, you might get to know more interesting details of my husband's run-ins with fate. Like how he got the scar beneath his right eye, remnant of a blow that narrowly missed the eye itself, turning black for days (for all his friends reading this, it was NOT because I beat him up, and no, I don't find it funny) playing rugby, or how he got a shattered knee doing the same.
With such an intense level of injuries you might find it strange that my husband continues to play contact sport. As you might agree with those who ask me how I'm "allowing" this to continue, and what's more, trickle down to my little one. For all those who keep on about the 'allowing' bit — I cannot pressure people in my life to give up what they're passionate about. In fact, the real question for me actually is, if my daughter chooses to follow her father's love of sport, more than to 'allow' it, would it be right of me to disallow it?
It is more than obvious what sport can do for the body (besides the injuries, of course). What really matters to me, though, is what sport can do for the spirit. Playing a sport can toughen you up, a team sport perhaps even more so. If you learn about falling down, you also learn about getting up.
Watching her father play, my daughter will learn that there is no shame in losing, only in not trying again, and harder. She will learn generosity towards others, the enormous strength of the 'We' in this individualistic age, catering so to the 'I'. She will understand, as sportsmen do, that winning comes as easy as losing and one must treat both lightly because the joy is in the playing. She will understand grace under pressure — she has watched often enough, my husband wipe away my crocodile tears at a small graze, even as the injury on his stomach (so deep, one can tell the boot imprint) stays unmentioned till discovery by my horrified eyes. She will learn to take aggression on the chin, and equally, to leave it behind on the field when the game is over. If she is lucky, she might also one day know (as in the simplified Disney story of the Greek Hercules) and without irony, that, indeed, 'a true hero is measured by the strength of his heart (not his muscles).'
Yes, my husband gets injured in play, sometimes grievously so. But life's like that — in the pursuit of something you love, you're bound to be tackled, your forward progress blocked. It's how you manoeuvre the obstacles that'll determine how far you'll go. Tariecka finds Chait's face with its ragged edges and war wounds more beautiful than the most aquiline-nosed, smooth-planed fairytale prince that ever captured her imagination. She knows that his battle scars make him who he is, and she wants to be no less. She clamours to play a sport, and if it brings the discomfort of injury, her father has taught her that what matters is that she would've still laughed, lived. And maybe in a world where both joy and trust are at a premium, to negotiate life as a beautiful game isn't such a bad thing.