Every once in a while, we need, on this website and in life itself, to stop and look at the bigger picture.

And today is one of those days.

My mom died 34 years ago. While it was my dad, in loving the Browns, Indians, Cavaliers and Ohio State, and really all sports, who was the driving force to getting me into this business of writing about the games that people play, my mom also had a roll in that effort.

She didn’t know anything about sports, and didn’t really care to. It just wasn’t her thing. Oh, she would attend my youth and high school sporting events, but she didn’t understand anything that was going on. She didn’t know the difference between a fly pattern and a flyswatter. But she didn’t need to.

For you see, you offer support to someone even when what they do is not what you like to do m, by doing everything you can to help grow that interest. It’s the job of a parent to do that, and she did it very well. She would allow me to collect my football, baseball and basketball cards, and she let me have all my sports stuff — my sports board games, electric football, my mitts and gloves and balls, and helmets, caps and kicking tees, and all the rest. As long as I kept them neat and tidy, and not just throw them into a big pile, she was fine with it.

She wanted me to be the best I could be, in whatever it is that I wanted to do. That it was sports was immaterial. That it was me is what mattered.

It’s called, unconditional love, and because of that, I think about her every day, and I still miss her very much. She was a good lesson for me when I was having children, because no matter what it was that they were interested in, my job was to just support them. It’s just the way you do things.

So, then, take a moment today to go hug your kids and find out what they’re interested in, and then do everything you can to help them reach that goal.

Steve King