Always Knew She Was Crazy

My dad and I were not close. He didn't know that I boxed until I told him as he lay in a hospital bed. Little did either of us know that his leukemia, along with other long standing health problems, would never allow him to come out of the hospital alive. That was early summer of last year. He passed away in October of 2004.

He laughed when I told him, a laugh that said, "I always knew she was crazy." He watched boxing on and off, but he was never a big fan. His sport was football, followed by baseball. Boxing was the only sport he watched that I found interesting. "I bet you could knock my teeth out," he grinned.

My stepmother certainly thinks I have left my senses to be involved in such a sport. "You need to be careful," she always says with a mix of concern and horror. My late younger sister just said what was on her mind. We were watchng "Nightline" one evening. They profiled a boxer who had recently died after being knocked out during a match. I had seen the fight when it aired on ESPN2. "Why in the hell would anyone want to get involved in something like that?" she spat. I tried to convince her that amateur boxing had all kinds of checks and balances to keep it safe, but she wasn't convinced. I remember letting her try my sparring gloves on once. Unfortunately, she was in the hospital, too, struggling with oral cancer that would eventually beat her in February of 2002. She did think the gloves were cool.

Both my younger sister and I were little street fighters when we were kids. My late little brother was no slouch either, but he was a lot more mild mannered than his hot-headed sisters. Our mother, who had suffered domestic abuse at the hands of our father (they divorced when I was seven), encouraged us to stand up against classmates and other kids who picked on us. "Never let someone hit you and get away with it!" she'd say. If I came home sniffing after an after-school beating, Ma didn't give any sympathy. "You'd better stop being a chicken and learn how to fight back!" she'd snap.

When I was sixteen, my younger sister, my oldest niece, and myself planned to beat down some gang affiliated girls who had been harrassing our paternal grandmother. The poor woman couldn't come back from grocery shopping in peace. Three girls would wait for her to drive up, then they would insult her and pick on the way she walked. Grandma walked with a limp due a hip that never set right after it was broken years earlier. This went on for weeks. Grandma wouldn't say anything until after she had come inside the house. We would run out to grab the girls, but they were long gone. Grandma knew she had crazy granddaughters. Actually, I realize now that she was actually doing the right thing.

One day, we did catch the gang girls in the act. Before we could get out of our grandparents' house to jump them, Dad caught us. "What the hell are you doing? Get back up those stairs!" he yelled. We explained why we were after the girls, but the old man didn't want to hear it. "Talkin' about fighting somebody! That's so unladylike!" he snapped. We caught them later--one by one--when he wasn't around.

When I took up boxing, it occurred to me that I was learning the proper way to fight. I'm not knocking the wild, vicious moves of street fighting. Those are extremely valid for those times you need to get a mugger or rapist off of you. The thing about boxing is it has rules, and when executed properly, is a beautiful thing.

I still get the "she must be crazy" look when I tell people I box, but it doesn't bother me. The naysayers just don't realize the beauty of the sweet science.