A world of difference

Tonight I watched part of the soccer match between the Netherlands and France at the European Championship in Switzerland. I'm not a big fan of watching sports, but sometimes, when half the nation here is infected with soccer fever, I watch a game or two.

When the match was over one of the Dutch players went to side line, picked up his toddler and carried it onto the field, to take part in the euphoria of winning the game. After that several of his team players followed suit. It had been a good match and though I enjoyed watching it, I'm just too little a sports fan to get really excited over it, so seeing these players with their children was for me by far the best moment of the evening. I thought what it must feel like 10 to 15 years from now, being that child and seeing back that footage.

When I got back to my laptop to see what had happened on this website, I found a PM that pointed me to another athlete, former football player Rich Tylski. Where the Dutch soccer players showed their children triumph and shared excitement, Tylski and his wife Jane showed their adopted daughter a belt, the surface of a table and eventually the inside of a hospital.

What a world of difference. The girl adopted by the Tylski's was only 6 years old at the time charges were pressed against her adopters for abuse that had been going on for 3 years at the time. So when the abuse started she must have been as old as the children I saw in the arms of their soccer playing dads on the television today. The soccer player's children were in the spotlight for a few minutes and whether they remember this event 10 to 15 years from now remains to be seen, while the girl adopted by the Tylski's will live with the memory of pain and abuse for the rest of her life.