This year held for me the first time ever that I watched virtually every game knowing they would win rather than worrying about how they could pull off a win. What a fabulous feeling that was!

I am still too scorned to really appreciate it at this point. I just hope I can find a way to sever the explosive diarrhea ending of this year from the rest of it because the rest of it was an awesome ride.

I’m there I think. It was anger and frustration, and now I’m just numb with denial.

That didn’t just happen.

I’m going to bed.

and it describes just how I feel. Just… so very very sad. There is this emptiness. I am not angry at them, just baffled and hurt.

And I will be a Cub fan next year, and every year after that. But tonight, I cry.

Forgive me if the crisis counselor and pastoral counselor shows here: posited by a therapist many years ago, there are five stages of grieving. As infinitely diverse as people are, ultimately, their behavior is predictible and quantifiable, so the grieving of the Cubs Nation will be expressed somehow in these kinds of ways in the days and weeks ahead.

After the initial shock and reaction wears off (and all of these posts are showing this), you segue into the following kinds of reaction, all marked by the emotional and rational baggage they all bring — I borrow these from Wikipedia since I can’t quite bring myself to write examples that Cub fans can pen in all too easily ..

1. Denial:
Example – “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening.”’Not to me!"

2. Anger:
Example – “Why me? It’s not fair!” “NO! NO! How can you accept this!”

3. Bargaining:
Example – “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”; “I’ll do anything, can’t you stretch it out? A few more years.”

4. Depression:
Example – “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die . . . What’s the point?”

5. Acceptance:
Example – “It’s going to be OK.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”

Everyone will feel these. Everyone will grapple with them. Grieving takes place when ever any significant loss is endured (loss of a loved one, failure to reach a personal goal, divorce, destruction of a home by fire, etc.). The fan base of the Cubs has to deal with this every year, it seems, for the past century. Every failure is a unique meltdown for us that has an additional bizarre twist .. because in the end, because it is a GAME and it is a sport that will resume again NEXT SEASON, unlike say the loss of a child, the whole thing is set up annually to happen all over again .. with the potential for the FULFILLMENT of success.

Along with that comes all of our hopes, our dreams, our personal stakes we put into the chase of what is purely a professional sport involving two teams of athletes competing against each other to earn a living. It’s what it’s come to mean to us – the endearing fondness and faith we invest in them and all of the cultural baggage that comes with it -that becomes threatened, on the line, and then savaged.

In the end, the Cubs themselves have to deal with this every year – and we go along for the ride and it affects the way we live also in ways we often never quite connect the dots and see. There’s no way to really gauge what they might feel but the shots of Z, Pie, DLee and the team after they imploded, night after night showing their own facial expressions is enough to convince me that they too are human and hurt with us. They’ll have to go home today to their families and loved ones and live with this all winter long, with a chance at redemption next spring .. or DFAville.

And I’m also thinking of No Southern Belle and her own and what they’re having to endure right now .. on top of this .. after losing her certainly beloved father after game 2 ended and who didn’t live to see the Cubs get into the world series. I’m thinking about the millions of Cubs fans who felt the same way and who are thinking about their own family who didn’t live to see it.

I’m thinking about the Cubs fan like Al who’s invested soooo much of his or her life into following everything the Cubs do and who has joyously put so much of himself out there to document and rally us. In light of this sorrow, can anyone blame him for not wanting to deal with this for a couple days??

I’m thinking about the young Cub fans out there who don’t have anything else but sport to live for and who will use all the escapes of youth to drown sorrow .. and who may not learn how to handle it better and not reinforce destructive behaviors in their lives that hurt themselves and others.

And yes, I’m thinking about my own personal history, what I’m going to say tomorrow at work, how my own Cubs fan family (scattered all across the nation) is taking it (I simply didn’t have the heart to call either of my divorced parents or my 4 brothers to see how they endured), and how much of my own life I put on hold to follow the Cubs … and

The problem with this kind of grief we Cub fans have felt, it got progressively worse as the NLDS progressed, it has a history of failure a century long, and that the beckoning of the New Year will bring us back into a place to join all over again. And we’ll do it. I know I will.

Why? Because as a Cubs fan who passionately loves this club as surely as I did as a boy since 1969, I too still feel that I must “keep the faith” and believe .. after a fitful sleep, I realized I still have the old blue Believe bracelet on I wore all season long. Being a minister helps me understand what faith is a bit more and what it means to have it tested and tried, so I guess my decision to root for the Cubbies gets a bit more crossover from that.

In the end, however, there are more important things in life then the Cubs. We all know that – how much of our lives we’ve exposed to the implacable cruelties of sporting reality is what we’re grappling with and nobody expected that This Next Year That Was Here to end the way it did .. again .. So the pain fills our lives again, and yes, I am grieving too.