Long before Lisa Potter met Dale Bryant and became Lisa Bryant, she was a cheerleader for East Ridge High School in the late 1970s. Because her father Pete was the football coach at McCallie School, and because her mother Lorraine was always in the McCallie stands to cheer on Pete and the Blue Tornado, Lisa never expected to see her mom at the Pioneers’ games on autumn Friday nights.
But there she was for Lisa’s first varsity game, which sort of unnerved her, as in, “Is something wrong? Why is my Mom here and not at McCallie?”
So during a break in play, she ran to where Lorraine was sitting and asked why she wasn’t watching the Blue Tornado.
Replied her mother: “Because you’re here.”
Is there any more concrete example of a mother’s love and devotion to her child than that? Isn’t that what we all hope to hear from our own parents or, better yet, tell our own children?