Dec-A-Ball

A few weeks ago, I was having supper with an old colleague, Nate. It was great to catch up with him and see how far he has come in the last 10 years. He’s now married, bought a house, doing great in his career, and most importantly… expecting his first child. I couldn’t be happier for him and his wife.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, but one thing about Nate, in my opinion, he always asks awesome questions. The kind of questions that you might not have thought of before and really get you thinking. As we were enjoying a few drinks and clubhouse sandwiches (highly recommend the clubhouse at MKT on Whyte), he dropped the question on me… “if you had to pick one memory to hold onto forever, what memory would you pick?” Really, it’s like when you watch the movies, and someone is on death row, and they get that famous last meal. I thought of his question as kind of the “Last Meal” of memories. What is the one that I want to hold onto forever?

Objectively, I would have thought that I would have taken some more time to think about an answer and really go through the rolodex of experience to come up with one, but it came over me like a wave. It was almost like muscle memory. I instantly recalled it as it is a memory that is close to my heart… DEC-A-BALL.

What the hell is Dec-A-Ball? Well, let me tell you. If you have read any of my blogs, you know I have three boys. Although they drive me nuts, they are the love of my life. My oldest is 9, so as they get older, they are more into video games and watching YouTube (don’t get me started on that), but when they were younger, they wanted nothing more than to hang out and play. It was the highlight of my day when I would come home from work and my three boys would come rushing to the door like a bunch of English soccer hooligans yelling “DADDYYYYYYYY” and start jumping all over me. Zayn was about 3 ½ and Nour was a year younger than him and Amir was old enough where he was crawling. I always got a kick out of seeing him belly crawl over to me with the same excitement that his bros had hooting and hollering as they ran to me. I knew exactly what they wanted and I was more than happy to oblige. I would scoop Amir up and let Zayn and Nour hang all over me and take them to the Dec-A-Ball field of battle (what normal people call a bonus room).

So, Dec-A-Ball pretty much consisted of two key components: A multicolored kid’s soccer ball and me getting the shit kicked out of me. Firstly, the name… Dec-A-Ball. Pretty simple, Zayn had a pretty good vocabulary even when he was young. He had a small palm-sized soccer ball that was multicolored and would light up whenever he kicked it. Out of the blue, he started calling it a Dec-A-Ball. Pretty much, from that day on, we all just started calling it a Dec-A-Ball. Now for the game…

I don’t recall exactly how it started, but we played it once, we legit did it every day for like 2 years. I would sit on the floor in a crossed-leg position and hold the Dec-A-Ball in one hand, pretending to close my eyes and say something to the effect of “Daddy is the strongest man in the world, this is my Dec-A-Ball and no one is strong enough to take it from me… it’s mine.” The whole time I’m ranting, Zayn and Nour would be creeping up around me (I would be pretending not to see them) and then they would slap the ball out of my hand. I would act shocked and startled and then we would all fight for the ball. Every time they tried to grab it, I would pull them back, the whole time acting shocked that someone could possibly take the Dec-A-Ball from daddy. It was super cute to see Amir crawl into the action. When the other two boys were jumping on me, I would be on my hands and knees and would tuck Amir between my knees and my arms so they wouldn’t stomp him in the field of battle (pretty much acting like a turtle shell). Honestly, it got intense after a while. They would start jumping off the couch and elbowing me. I would crawl around on my hands and knees and Nour would routinely stomp on my fingers and rake the back of my Achilles to slow me down. One time I even sprained my finger playing, but it was all worth it because the boys had a blast.

We would play every day, like clockwork. It could last 15 minutes or 2 hours, it really depended on their energy (and later how much abuse I could take). WITHOUT A DOUBT, that time of life is something that I cherish, and Dec-A-Ball was more than a game, it was a bond that a father was able to share with his sons. It is something that is uniquely ours or as my boys called it “it’s a game that only the bros and daddy can play”. Sounds dumb, but I get a tear in my eye just thinking of it.

One day, for whatever reason, maybe life just got in the way, maybe the boys got bigger, but Dec-A-Ball just stopped. It’s been years since I even thought of it before Nate asked his question, but a wave of memories and emotions started to come back. When I got home, I asked my boys if they remembered playing Dec-A-Ball as babies. In classic Nour fashion, he looked at me and said “Ya…I loved Dec-A-Ball, we got to beat you up.”

Aside from being super nostalgic, the sadness of missing Dec-A-Ball was almost instantly replaced by a strong sense of gratefulness. I cherish that memory and something that will be with me forever. As they get older, I guess we just replaced the game with other things that we get to do together, whether it’s our annual Mexico trip, taking them to hockey games, jujitsu practice, tobogganing, or just hanging out together, the days are filled with Dec-A-Ball moments.

If there is a point to all this, I guess it would be, don’t let life just happen. Find your Dec-A-Ball moments and hold them close. Kids grow up, you get older (slower and wider), and life gets crazy. It’s easy to just go through the days and it all seems like a big haze. Take stock of what you have and be HAPPY! No matter what nonsense is going on, take a time out and remember your Dec-A-Ball memories (trust me sometimes I’m the worst at taking my own advice, so I know how easy this is to forget).

I always tell my wife; our boys will never love us as much as we love them. Not because they don’t love us, simply they can’t remember… and as parents, we don’t forget. To them Dec-A-Ball was just a fun game, but to me, when I close my eyes, I can still see us laughing, playing, and the utter joy it brought. It’s weird, I haven’t thought of it for a long time, then Nate drops this question on me and that’s all I’ve been thinking of. It is a beautiful memory and one of many I have been lucky enough to enjoy. Not only do I look forward to creating a bunch more Dec-A-Ball moments, more importantly, I look forward to being in the moment, present and mindful in these moments.

Take a minute and reflect on your “Dec-A-Ball” memory!

Thank you for reading.

- Robin Nasserdeen