Shirley Marshall wasn't missing her son's final strut across Owen Field Saturday, even if she had to be wheeled in on a stretcher.
And for the first time this season, she didn't.
Wheelchair, yes. Stretcher, no.
Marshall, mother of Jason Marshall, the Pride of Oklahoma's drum major, attended her first OU home game of the regular season Saturday during the Bedlam square-off to watch her son's final performance from her south end zone seat.
"They never show the band, they never show the Pride," said Shirley of her obstructed view from the television, her portal to the other OU games this season.
Shirley suffers from Crohn's disease, an autoimmune disease. After six months in the hospital, which included a few weeks Jason, music education senior, described as "touch-and-go," she was released mid-October.
"It's bittersweet because it's his last time," said Shirley, reflecting back on his first strut as drum major last year. "I just bawled. I wanted to run out there and hug him. It's been a fast five years."
And it's a spiraling span of time from which Shirley--tagged as "drum major mom" in her hospital chart by one of the doctors--still hasn't recovered.
She still remembers the performance anxiety that struck Jason as a 10-year-old, when his nerves quaked and joked with him in their living room Friday afternoon about his anxiety during his fifth grade cello performance in the all-city orchestra.
"He was so nervous he gave himself a migraine," she said as Jason, who she describes as an ambassador for the band, having shaken the hands of OU celebrities like President David L. Boren and various high-yielding university donors, laughed. "Now to watch him perform on that field. It's just incredible."
And for Jason, who stood in the Pride's "O" after the Saturday performance to honor the band's departing seniors, he admits the next phase--a foggy embark into "what's next?"--is still up in the air.
Maybe, a position as a high school band director, he said. But that could still include those 6 a.m. rehearsals he said he wouldn't miss.
But this weekend, Jason put the quandaries of his future and his mom's medical battles aside; he'd rather revel in the present.
He's just happy that after six months, during which he brought members of the OU pep band to play at her hospital bed, she's home.
"Just to have her here at my last game ... I couldn't do it without her," he said, as he bent down to give her a kiss, first on the cheek and then the top of her head after his halftime performance Saturday, eventually leaning and whispering in her ear.
"I love you, too," she said.
Adding, "it's a beautiful day, and I woke up feeling so good. What more could I ask for? Except, a win from OU."
And maybe a stadium view of her son, poised center field toward the south end zone, kicking and strutting beneath his 4.5-pound shako.
Wishes granted.
Nanette Light 366-3533 pop@normantranscript.com
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