Watching the Birds with my sick father in Paris brought us closer than we had been in a long time
Americans say "I love you" easily to family members. In France, we are bashful about this. An Eagles game gave me a chance to tell my father how much I cared for him — without saying a word.

There is no outplaying the disease, and the clock is ticking. So I hurry back to Paris on a red-eye.
“I saw your team won last night.”
My father’s voice sounds even raspier in person than it does on WhatsApp. It’s a cold December Monday. My eyelids drop like stage curtains, and my brain feels hazy from the jet lag. I do a double take.
“Your favorite team.” My father pauses. “Dallas.”
I’m jolted hearing the archenemy’s name, in a place where NFL football doesn’t mean jack. Or is it because it’s the worst possible confusion? A mix-up brought on by all those chemo treatments, perhaps? Because my father has no idea of the taboo he just broke. He smiles and corrects himself. He meant the Eagles.
I do the math in my head. “A little late to watch the game, don’t you think?” Dawn in Paris means it’s after midnight in Philly. Even Sunday Night Football must be over. He shakes his head. “I got the notification at 3 a.m., with my first coffee.”
The smile lingers in my father’s eyes. His lips are pale and thin. He must have lost 50 pounds since I last saw him, back in October. He used to be a big man — not tall, but stocky. Une force de la nature. All his life, he worked hard and played hard.
One liquor-soaked night five years ago, my father slipped in a hotel bathroom and broke a couple of ribs. “You are one lucky man,” the doctor said as he checked the X-rays. “See this tiny dot in your lung? That’s a Stage 1 tumor. We would never have detected it this early without your bathroom stunt.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” my father commented to me later. “You just have to be consistent with the drinking.”
I think about his bravado as my 13-year-old son gives me a recap of the Eagles’ win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on the phone. When he talks about football and gets carried away, English and French blend into an epic grammatical hodgepodge.
“On a take over après les fumbles de Cooper DeJean et de Jalen.”
The language teacher in me sighs, but there are other things to worry about right now. Also, because we are where we are, I have decided to make sure the people I love know that I do. As obvious as it sounds, I don’t want to look back one day and realize I should have been more open about my feelings.
How do you make sure? Americans (I have been a U.S. citizen for a decade) say “I love you” easily to family members. In France, we are bashful about this. My parents never said “je t’aime” to me, and I never said it to them.
Does saying the words render them meaningless? Untrue? Because both my children were born in Philly, those words are exchanged in our home, in French, every time we say goodbye, or when it’s bedtime. The Frenchman in me doesn’t object.
What NFL football and the Birds gave me is a way to love — and express that love — without verbalizing it. What were the odds? I still teach my students that the real football is that thing Americans wrongly call soccer.
What NFL football and the Birds gave me is a way to love — and express that love — without verbalizing it.
In 2018, when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, I couldn’t have cared less. France was on its way to the World Cup (we also won). Everything changed two years ago, when my son started to root for the Eagles.
First, he taught me the rules. The plays on both sides of the football. Then he started playing flag football. I never thought I would enjoy standing on the sidelines of the South Philadelphia Super Site. Early on a Saturday morning? In the cold? No, thank you. The next thing you know, I was signed up in a touch football league.
My father and I are in a taxi, on our way to see his oncologist. Because I am afraid of what’s coming, and because I’m trying to say “je t’aime” without saying it, I bring up my oldest memory. Fall 1981. I was 5 years old, and the national team was playing the Netherlands in a World Cup qualifier.
For the first time in my life, I was at the game. Just like at the Linc when the visiting team’s offense is driving, the whole stadium was booing — in Europe, we boo by whistling — to help our defense. That’s when the sound came out of my mouth. My father turned and looked at me. I knew he’d heard the whistle through the arena’s roar, and in that moment, we connected as father and son. I was overcome with pride.
At the hospital, almost half a century later, we received bad news, as expected. My father decides to stop all treatments. The conversation and the next few days are a blur.
My memory comes back in focus that Sunday because a clear picture has been stored: my father wearing the Eagles sweater I brought him from Philly. It’s nighttime in Paris, and we’re watching the game against the Washington Commanders.
“I like that guy. I like his beard,” my father chuckles when the broadcast shows a close-up of Nick Sirianni. I explain the physics of the Tush Push. I also ask my father if it bothers him, as a politically conservative person, that the team logo he’s wearing is the only one in the NFL facing left. The look he gives me is worth a fortune Elon Musk can only dream about.
We watch on. QB1 gets a concussion. The game takes a wrong turn. And yet, my father and I are in a moment that cannot be taken away, even after I lose him. It’s more than something to remember. It’s a place, out of time, where we can be together. Loving the Eagles has given me a way to tell my father that I love him.
The last time we spoke over the phone, it was the morning after the NFC championship game. We joked about the mighty revenge inflicted on Washington. “This is our year,” I ended up saying. No matter how hard I’m trying now, I can’t remember what my father answered, or if he said anything at all.
He died Friday, five days after the Eagles’ victory.
He will not see the Birds take the field in New Orleans, but he will be on my mind every second of the game.
Julien Suaudeau teaches French and film at Bryn Mawr College. The new season of his “Song of Philadelphia” podcast will debut in the spring on Hidden City. “The People Left Behind,” his podcast on survivors of gun violence in Philadelphia, will return on the Grid magazine website on April 1.