- April 28, 2024
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Just hours after graduating from the eighth grade, Kyle Oliver received a surprise Facebook message that read: “Hey Kyle, it’s your mother.”
When Oliver was three years old, his mother and father, Misty and Darren Oliver, divorced, and after Darren Oliver received full custody of Kyle, Misty Oliver decided to move back to her home state, North Carolina.
“On one of her visitation days, when she was supposed to pick me up, she never showed,” Oliver said. “She cut off all communication from us. My mom never called me. I went through a long period of my life not knowing where she was or what she was doing.”
As a young boy, Oliver didn’t think that he might not see his mother again, but year after year came and went, and he never received a visit, mail or any phone calls. He and his father looked everywhere for his mother.
“I tried to find her over the internet a couple of times, but nothing ever turned up, Oliver said. “It was tough growing up because, all my best friends’ mothers were always at their games. I would always develop relationships with my friends’ mothers, but it was hard because I didn’t have my mom around to do the things that my friends did with their mothers.”
“The hardest times were my birthdays, holidays and when I played sports,” Oliver said. “My mom never knew I played any sports until this year.” He remembered a time when one of his best friends’ moms came to watch one of his games, and he could only think about the fact that his mother wasn’t there to see him.
Oliver also struggled when he would go to school, and the teachers always asked to meet his mother.
“It’s usually the mothers that stay around,” he added. “But, it was a good thing that I had the best dad and my grandma in the world. They were always there for me.”
Then, just hours after his eight grade graduation, Oliver received a message on Facebook from his mother.
“When my mom walked out of my life, her name was Misty Oliver,” he said. “The message was from a Misty Kinser. “I hadn’t been around her name in so long, that I didn’t recognize it at first. When I opened the message, it said, ‘Kyle, it’s your mother.’ That was a rough day for me. I had mixed feelings. I didn’t reply for hours because I didn’t know what to say; I was in shock. I didn’t know what to say back to her. I hadn’t spoken with her since I was five.”
According to Oliver, the conversation didn’t go well. His mother had remarried, given birth to another son and was dealing with health issues. It was too much for him to receive after eight years of her absence.
After a short while, Oliver and his mother fell out of communication again.
“After that, I began to think, ‘What did I do that my mom didn’t want to be in my life,’” he said.
Then this year, she messaged Oliver again to apologize and work on building a new relationship with him.
“At first, I wanted to say no because I didn’t know what it was like to have a mother,” Oliver said. When Oliver was at Mainland football’s Affirmation Day, a day where the coaches and players get to know each other better, he had a change of heart.
“It made me want to make things right with my mom this time,” Oliver said. “I’ve been without my mom for too long, it’s been causing me too many problems, and life’s too short.”
After conversing for a while, Oliver invited his mother to see him play this year, and she accepted.
Then, after 12 years of not seeing his mother, one day after breaking a team huddle in practice, Oliver looked over to the parking lot and saw his mother staring back at him.
“We just hugged,” he said. “It felt really good. I felt like I had my mother by my side.” The two went to dinner caught a movie, and afterwards, they talked all night.
On that Friday night, Oliver’s mother sat in the stands with his grandmother, and she watched him play sports for the very first time, as Mainland defeated Spruce Creek.
On Spruce Creek’s opening drive, Oliver forced a fumble that Mainland almost returned for a touchdown.
“When I ran off the field, the only face I was looking for was my mother’s,” Oliver said. “That was a different type of feeling for me, seeing my own mother cheering for me. That put a nice, big smile on my face.”
The next day, Oliver’s mother had to leave, after having spent the entire week with him, so she dropped him off at football practice the following Saturday morning. After the two embraced and held on for a while, his mother drove off, and they were separated again.
“I felt like she was leaving me again,” he replied.
As his teammates and coaches looked on, Oliver walked down the hall, and he broke down. Then, his coaches wrapped their arms around them, reiterating how proud of him they were.
Since their meet up, Oliver and his mother has remained in contact.
When the Mainland Buccaneers play the South Fort Myers in the third round of the playoffs Friday, Nov. 28, in Fort Myers, Oliver is excited to have one of his new, special fans cheering him on.
“I’m blessed to have always had my dad, grandma and uncle in my life,” Oliver said. “Now, I have my mom. Life is good.”
