The Greatest of All Time

Recently, I plopped myself on the couch bright and early to watch the Wimbeldon ladies final match. Serena Williams, the twenty-three-time grand slam champion tennis star was up against German stand-out Angelique Kerber. I held my breath nearly the entire time as I rooted on my girl Serena! This woman, the best athlete of all time in my opinion, had a baby ten months ago and was back on the court looking fly. This is the same woman who won her last Grand Slam title while three months pregnant. She took nearly a year off during her pregnancy and post-partum months. The woman needed it.

Sadly, after Serena birthed her sweet baby girl via c-section, she had a pulmonary embolism. Small blood clots had formed in her lungs. After that, her cesarean section stitches came apart due to heavy coughing from the blood clots. Days after, the medications she was using caused a hematoma to flood her abdomen. She was confined to her bed for six weeks. Not exactly the picture perfect start to life as a new mama!

I can’t imagine the sheer physical pain Serena endured to bring her daughter into this world. The greatest of all time, as she’s often referred to, was confined to her bed; but once she healed, she practiced. With her coach’s help, she returned to the game when she ready, not a day earlier. She left the game on top and returned at the bottom. Since becoming a mom, she had only played in three tournaments before Wimbledon, and the world watched Serena once again make it to the finals.

It was a dream to watch Serena whip through the matches at Wimbeldon and land a spot in the finals, but she endured a crushing defeat by Angelique Kerber. What would have been her twenty-fourth Grand Slam title in the open era was instead a disappointment on the world’s stage, but Serena held her head high and praised the progress in her post match interview. She shared,“It was such an amazing tournament for me. I was really happy to get this far. It’s obviously disappointing but I can’t be disappointed, you know. I have so much to look forward to. You know, I’m literally just getting started. So, I look forward to it.” After the interviewer called her superhuman-supermum, she responded, “No, I’m just me and that’s all I can be. To all the moms out there, I was playing for you today.”

In a moment where victory was so close, even the great Serena admitted that greatness takes time. She celebrated she had made it as far as he had; and although she didn’t win this time, she said that she won’t quit. She’ll keep going. Because she knows that in tennis and in life, victory is a process that takes time.

Excerpted from the book She Dreams: Live the Life You Were Created For, Tiffany Bluhm, Ó 2019 by Abingdon Press. All rights reserved.