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by redsox907 » 10 Jan 2026, 23:41
Chapter Sixteen: The Sum of Our Choices
The similarities were too hard to ignore. Just eight years ago I found myself in a similar situation. Different hospital, different city. But same predicament. Lying in a hospital bed barely breathing, hooked up to more machines than I could count, with a hole in my hand and a demon in my head. Only this time the demon didn’t live in the head, but in the lungs. Both of us, driven to the hospital bed by the same circumstance:
Choices.
It was too late in the recovery game to fully blame the sins of my father on how I ended up face first in rock bottom. And for Mom too, the same applied. Did the stress of running from a chaotic situation likely shave years off of her life? Sure. You could say the same about the final years with my father, fearing the unknown that was lurking around every corner.
But her chain smoking, that grew worse on the trek to Havre, slowed when we settled, then intensified again when I left for the Academy, played a starring role. A habit that even after her lung cancer diagnosis, she struggled to fully give up, despite the best efforts by Jessica and me. One was the star, but the other was on the marquee as well.
The signs had all been there. The multiple bouts of pneumonia, sometimes within days of each other, the labored breathing, lack of energy. Lately, she’d started having random bouts of confusion, usually after pushing herself too hard physically. Each time, we’d asked if we could take her in for a checkup, practically begged her. But she refused.
She’d made her choice and respiratory failure was her consequence.
After undergoing testing all night on Saturday and most of the day on Sunday, the doctors finally came to tell us the result. Dr. Adams explained that since Mom opted out of immunotherapy, the tumor had expanded, starting to obstruct her airways and causing fluid buildup (pleural effusion). They believed that this, along with a variety of other factors linked to her illness, contributed to the constant bouts of pneumonia as the fluid continued to build up in her lungs.
“If we had seen her earlier, when the pneumonia first started, we could have taken aggressive measures to slow the spread of the cancer,” continued Dr. Adams, clearly choosing his words carefully. “But at this point, there has been too much damage done to the airways. She simply can’t get enough oxygen on her own to sustain herself.”
As Dr. Adams continued to explain the diagnosis and options, Mom kept the same serene look on her face, nodding in the right spots, but never speaking up to add anything. Finally, after about thirty minutes, the doctor asked Mom what she wanted to do.
“I’m not spending the rest of my life attached to a tank of oxygen,” she stated, matter-of-factly. Jessica and I exchanged a glance that said we didn’t agree, but both knew arguing with her would be pointless, as the doctor immediately started to protest. Before he could even get started, Mom raised a hand to hush him before adding, “I know what it means, Doctor Adams. But it is my choice.”
She agreed to remain on oxygen through the rest of the weekend, so she could see the grandkids one more time, a final goodbye she insisted remain positive. “I doubt they’ll remember this moment, but I want the pictures of us for the final time to be joyous,” Mom declared. And she got exactly her wish. Tara Lydia and AJ came by, spent time cuddling with her as best they could, before sharing one final embrace.
On the morning of Monday, November 17th, 2025, they officially unplugged Mom’s oxygen. Jessica offered to spend the day in the hospital with Mom and me, but Mom insisted she continue the day like normal, opting to say her goodbyes Sunday night when the kids were ushered away.
The doctor warned there was no timetable for how long Mom would last without oxygen, but put the odds that she made it to Tuesday morning less than 5%. To his credit, Coach Vigen had reached out multiple times to check on me over the weekend, a gesture that extended beyond a mere employee-employee relationship. Despite my insistence that I would do my best to be on the sideline for the upcoming rivalry clash with undefeated Montana, Coach was having none of it.
“If I see you at the facility anytime this week, I’m dragging you home myself,” he growled, with more admiration than anger behind it.
So with nothing on the schedule and no timetable in front of us, Mom and I sat there in the hospital. We played cribbage for a time, talked about the past, and I watched a motivational speech from Eric Thomas—unironically about the weight of our decisions—while she napped. Every time her breath caught, or her breathing slowed further, I grasped her hand, worried it was the final moments.
She roused from her nap sometime that afternoon with a sigh as she gave me a once over.
“It never ceases to amaze me,” she nearly whispered between shallow breaths, “how much you look like your father, yet how different you are from him.
‘I don’t have much longer, Mando,” she continued as I leaned closer, “I can feel my energy slowly fading. Like a candle flame burning out the last of the wick. But before I take my last breath, I need you to know;
“You are more of a man than your father could ever hope to be. I know the weight you carry. The resolve to never be like him. I see it in how you approach everything. Your work, your family, your decisiveness. Your father would have taken the easy way out long ago. Looked for the shortcut. That’s just the person he was. Below all of the bravado, all of the smooth talking, he was simply a boy that never grew up, that always looked for the easiest solution. He only cared about himself and that is why he died, alone.
“I may not live to be an old woman. But I will die a grandmother, a Mom to an honorable man who has fought to create a family he can be proud of. No matter what I braved throughout my life, that is my greatest accomplishment, Armando.
“You just make sure that you show those beautiful babies that you can’t live life in fear. Chase your dreams. Show them that it is honorable to try something, regardless of the result. Don’t act in fear of making the same mistakes of your father, act in confidence that you are in a place he could never dream of.”
I don’t know when I had started crying, but by the end, I was openly sobbing. Up to that point, I’d prided myself on keeping my composure. If not for myself, then for the kids when they came to see Grandma Tara, not knowing it was their last time. But now, all of the emotion came rushing back. Throughout everything, Mom had always believed in me. Always been there, regardless of the mistakes I had made, the depths I’d fallen.
Her inspired speech had briefly reignited a fire behind her eyes, but with her statement delivered, the energy faded from her faster than it had returned. As I knelt beside her bed, still sobbing, she could only pull me close and whisper one final line:
“Just remember, no matter what. Your family loves you, Armando. And that is more than your father could ever say.”
She didn’t pass then, but we didn’t speak anymore, knowing the end was closer than ever. I just knelt beside her bed, her hand in mine, content to be in her presence for just a few moments longer. I don’t know how long I knelt on that floor, my knees certainly protested for days later, but at some point I finally heard it. The haggard, labored breathing, a final hitch, then nothing.
I stayed on the floor, kneeling, waiting for her breath to return. After a few minutes that felt like an eternity, I finally stood. I clasped her hands together on her chest, leaned down and placed one final kiss to her forehead, whispering my final goodbye in that small moment, before composing myself and fetching the nurse.
During our conversation that day, Mom had told me she didn’t want a funeral, or a celebration of life. All she wanted was to be cremated, so she could always be near us, and put in an urn with each of our handprints on it. That, and letting a few friends back in Havre know of her passing, were her last wishes.
By Friday that week, we’d finished consolidating the rest of Mom’s estate and notifying all the applicable parties. I’d expected her death to hit me suddenly, all at once. But it came in fleeting moments. Waking up and not seeing her in her usual spot by the window, in the rocking chair I’d bought her when we moved. Her seat at the table empty at dinner time. When the kids asked to say goodnight to nana one more time—we’d told them that she’d gone on a trip to far away, with them being far too young to understand life and death. But by that Friday, with everything but the raw ache in my heart settled, there was one thing left to do: get back on the football field.
“I know people grieve in different ways, sweetheart, but I don’t see how that is going to help you in any way,” Jessica sharply declared, although her concern was evident despite the tone.
“It’s what Mom would have wanted. Not to dwell on the past, but to continue forging forward. Continuing to be the man my father could never be.”
The protest sat in her expression, strong and unwavering, but her words showed none of it. “I understand. Just remember, if it gets to be too much, there’s no shame in stepping back, even for a moment.”
Coach Vigen was less than understanding. “Armando, I respect the hell out of you. But I repeat, there is no way in hell you’re getting on that sideline this weekend,” he reiterated for the third time on the ten-minute phone call. “Monday? Back in the saddle, but not this weekend.”
So for the first time since I was the defensive coordinator at Havre, I was home on my couch while the Montana State Bobcats took the field.
It is never an experience I want to repeat again. Watching guys line up out of position, completely miss assignments, and generally look lost was akin to torture to me. But despite the many miscues, including a 52-yard run by Eli Gillman to pull within three points, the defense held just enough for us to end the Grizzlies’ perfect season with a gritty 31-28 victory.
I was the first one in the facility Monday morning, already breaking down game film and on my second C4 of the day when Coach Vigen walked in.
“You know better than I do, those are bad for you,” he joked, before pulling me in for an embrace. “I haven’t gotten to say it in person yet, but I’m sorry, Armando. If there’s anything you need, you know we’re here for you.”
“I appreciate it, Coach,” I managed, starting to lose my composure sooner than I’d anticipated, “I just need to get back to work and make sure I keep making her proud.”
He clapped me on the shoulder with a nod and simply said, “Well, letls get to it then. We’ve got a Championship to win.”
You couldn’t have written a better story if you tried. We’d earned the #2 seed in the playoff with the win over Montana, meaning we had home field throughout the playoff until the Championship Game and we took full advantage of it. #24 Yale was first and left Bobcat Stadium limping after a 24-0 demolition that featured three turnovers and six sacks. #20 Stephen F. Austin was next and suffered a similar fate, a 44-14 drubbing with five more sacks and both touchdowns coming in garbage time.
A rematch against Montana, who were eager to end our season after we thwarted their perfect season, was the closest game of the bunch, and that isn’t saying much. The 20-16 game at the half ended in a 48-23 victory after we conceded a kickoff return touchdown on special teams, but collected a pair of interceptions and four sacks in the 2nd half to boost us to the Championship Game.
#17 Illinois State had dethroned the North Dakota State Bisons, robbing us of our shot at redemption on the biggest stage, and we took that personally. 35-0 read the final score after Tommy Rittenhouse absorbed six sacks, threw three interceptions, and was pulled after the 3rd quarter in the blowout victory. After the heartbreak of last season, then the earth shattering death of Mom, this moment felt cathartic, proof that perseverance and hard work rewarded those with the guile to power through. A final reminder that I was everything my father had never been. And I was only just getting started.
I’d dodged questions the entire playoff run about the emotional weight of coaching through my mother’s death and had given the generic, by the book answers of “one game at a time,” and “grieving is a process,” but standing on the stage with the FCS Trophy in our grasp, it finally hit me in a wave.
When Stormy Buonantony finally got to me on the stage, the question didn’t pull any punches.
“Coach Leon, by now we all know the enormous grief your family suffered right before the playoff with the sudden passing of your mother, Tara Briggs, after a long battle with Stage 3 Lung Cancer. What can you say about the strength it took to return to the sideline and inspire a historic defensive effort on the way to the Bobcats first FCS Championship since 1984?”
I fought the tears back as long as I could, which admittedly wasn’t long, before gathering myself to answer:
“I can’t thank my family enough for their support. My wife Jessica, my children Tara Lydia and AJ, they’ve always been my anchor. But, of course, Mom was always there first. Just to be able to use her memory as a guiding light, keep making her proud, that’s what drives me. I know she’s looking down and smiling.”
Then with AJ in my arms, Jessica and Tara Lydia by my side, I pointed up and added through tears, “Keep looking Mom, cause we’re just getting started.”
snap back to reality quick
