Reason 103: My Country

Reason 103: My Country.

When my father was younger, about the age that I am now, he made several trips to South America. His first trip was just a simple high school exchange program, but it quickly shaped the years of his life that were to follow. He lived several years in transit between the United States and Brasil, and from Brasil in transit to Argentina,Chile, and Uruguay. For most of my childhood I never really knew much about these excursions other than when it comes to "futebol" we root for Brasil. That fact was quickly reinforced in 1994, when I (at that age about to turn 6) was given the holiest of holy tasks: waving a huge Brasilian flag out the window of my fathers Astro van as we drove through the streets celebrating Brasil's World Cup win in the USA. As I grew, I would hear more of my dad's escapades and meet this infamous "familia de Brasileiro" as a conscious human, and not as the child who only briefly met a strange family who I called names I didn't understand but apparently meant "Grandmother,Uncle,Aunt,and Cousin." As my time with them increased, so did my knowledge of my fathers youth. I heard stories of forgotten passports, rowdy nights in Buenos Aires, and everything in between, but there was always a hole in the story that one day was filled by my mother in a restaurant.

"Your father lived in Uruguay for a year, and he almost married a woman there."

My adult relationship with my father has not always exactly been the closest, but in that moment when my Mother said those words I saw a look in my father that I recognized. It was a recognition not based on expression, but based on emotion. In that moment I saw in my father the feeling I felt when Madeline left, when Rachel left, and when Christie left. I saw every moment of this relationship that was ancient to him and completely new news to me begin and end and then end again all in the flash of a second. And in that moment I understood why I had heard so little about my fathers year in Uruguay.

Several years later was the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. I started with high hopes for my teams (my home USA and my adopted Brasil) However, after watching the United States take a disapointing defeat to Ghana and then watching Brasil blow a lead to the Dutch and lose, my celebrations took a backseat for at least 4 more years. Then what was a tournament of 6 promising South American squads quickly turned to 1, as team after team lost to European heavyweights in the quarterfinals. All that was left of South America's hopes in the end was little Uruguay. Uruguay: A country that won 1 World Cup (and that was in 1930 when there were only 8 teams in the tournament). A country that hasn't been to the semi-finals in 50 years and who's population is smaller than the city I reside in. A country who would be facing Ghana, the team that beat my beloved homeland and who was the only African nation left in Africa's first chance to host the tournament.
The game was tied 1-1 through 90 minutes, so they went to overtime. Then, with seconds left in overtime a Ghanian player headed the ball past Uruguay's goalie, all of Africa was about to explode in jubilation, when the ball was swatted out of the goal by a Uruguayan player by the name of Luis Suarez. Suarez had saved his country and his countrymen by doing the dirtiest thing a player could do in football unless you're the goalie: use his hands. He was ejected from the game, and Ghana had a penalty kick that would surely send them through to the semi-final and into all of Africa's hearts forever...except they missed. And Uruguay ended up winning the game. And all around the world football fans collectively boo'ed Uruguay and Luis Suarez, and called them a nation of cheaters. Even though with the stakes that high, and adrenaline pumping and tired legs wearing, anyone in his position would have done the same not because of malice but because of instinct! Anyone would have done that for the country and their countrymen and for the game that was their lives.

Several days later my father and I went to a local bar to watch Uruguay eventually lose to Holland, and it amazed me, because as we sat and drank at a bar in the USA (the country who apparently doesn't care about soccer/football), I felt pride that these people were as thrilled as I was as a child to hopefully one day celebrate their country hoisting the World Cup. However, simultaneously I was disgusted to see these same people call Uruguay cheaters and even nearly brawl with the few Uruguayan supporters that filled the predominantly Dutch bar (including my father) when in their hearts they all knew they would've done the same for their team.

When Uruguay eventually lost and was reduced to fighting for third place against Germany my dad said something that struck me. "It's pretty amazing that such a small and rural country can do something so amazing isn't it?" In that moment I thought about my father's near marriage in a foreign land that I knew/know almost nothing about, I thought about Luiz Suarez and his burden, I thought about a country who's only major city(Montevideo) holds over 1/2 their population, and I thought about my own quest to define myself as a romantic, suddenly it was all encompassing. My country is Uruguay.

A tiny place at the near ends of the earth, nestled just beneath my adopted country and the country I have spent so much of my life being taught to love by my family and particularly my father, yet unable to ever really grasp because at the end of the day I am just an average mutt American of European descent. A place where my father once went looking for only what I can assume is youthful adventure. Ultimately all he found was love and the enticing prospects of life as a guacho far from American life, and all he ultimately received was a broken heart and a plane ticket back to Southern Illinois to years later move to Chicago and begin working in a restaurant and fall in love with a waitress and marry her and 23 years later watch Uruguay lose their first World Cup Semi-final in 50 years with the 21 year old product of that 23 year old love that happened to spawn with my mother, all whilst drunk-ass Dutch fans boo'ed Luis Suarez and his "Mano De Deus" that had saved a small nations hopes while chastising them to a world of once-every-4-year-American-football/soccer-experts.

Luis Suarez did what he had to do to keep his dreams and his countries dreams alive, and my father (at least from what little I know and mostly what I can infer) spent a hell of a lot of effort trying to keep his year in Uruguay to last for as long as possible. When push comes to shove both ultimately failed, but both simultaneously gained everything. Luis Suarez brought his country closer to greatness then they've been in 50 years, and my father ended up falling in love with my Mother, and since that relationship ultimately yielded me I can only say that it was a great success! Somewhere in the middle of all of this I stand in the wake of the break ups of Madeline,and Rachel, and now Christie, and my own search for a romantic identity.
All I can say is that in terms of the "romantic" country, I am Uruguayan, because this tiny country has taught me through soccer and through my father the sheer importance of not only being able to love, but to love again. When you allow yourself to do that, incredible things are possible.