DETROIT – Kelly Stafford is back in Detroit for an event Friday ahead of this weekend’s matchup between the Lions and her husband’s Los Angeles Rams.
Matthew Stafford was the face of the Lions for over a decade, and the Staffords were also prominent members of the community.
But after the intensity of last season’s playoff matchup, Kelly said she won’t be at Ford Field for the season opener.
She penned a letter to Detroit for Local 4′s Hank Winchester. Here’s what she wrote:
Dear Detroit,
As I sat here in this hotel room in the middle of this city, hopped on Instagram Live via the Morning After page, and started to speak on the game here this weekend, it dawned on me: This could be my husband’s last time stepping into Ford Field. I was overwhelmed with emotion, enough to tell those watching the live that I needed to end the video. I ended it and tears started rolling.
I would love to sit here and tell you I have no feelings for this place and it was easy to move on because I feel like that’s what is supposed to happen when you move, but I just can’t do it. Detroit still has my heart, no matter how hard I tried to push it out, and sitting here reflecting, it’s starting to become a little more clear to me.
Maybe because there is more to life than football, and the life we experienced here -- ups and downs, for 12 years -- I never want to forget or even try to forget because it helped make me who I am today.
This community has molded me in so many ways, and although I credit my incredible parents for instilling important core values in me, I credit Detroit for helping me to keep those values strong. It’s easy to do when you’re surrounded by the people who make up this city.
Detrioters never expected handouts, but worked hard for what they wanted and were given. I learned that no matter what you might be facing, if you are a Detroiter, this community will always rally behind you. I call that “loyalty,” and I believe it’s one of the most fleeting traits there is, but not here in this city.
I witnessed a passion for a city that has gone through a lot but continues to fight to build it back (it’s definitely back now). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Detroiters are different. I have now lived in the South, the Midwest, and on the West Coast, and Detroiters are just different in the best possible ways.
So ya, it is hard for me to move on, because I see what I want my children to be like when they’re older when I walk around this city. I see the values all around me that I want them to grow up knowing and embodying, and we all knows it’s easier to maintain values when you’re constantly surrounded by them.
I thought I could leave Detroit in the past after the last game because, yes, I am sure you heard the drama, but even after that, I can’t. THAT was about football, and this city has done too much for me and my family in LIFE for me to ever just forget and move on.
I’m not sure if I’m writing this to everyone or really just to me. Maybe I’m putting it to paper to try to make sense of it all, but even as I re-read this over and over again (sorry for my grammar -- math was definitely my stronger subject), I am realizing it’s OK if I don’t entirely move on, because why would you from a place like this?
I truly can’t believe that this could be Matthew’s last time ever stepping into Ford Field -- a place I feel like I could navigate with a blindfold on, a place where it started out as bringing high school and college friends to games and then turned into four little girls crawling and running around. A place that I always want to remember.
Although I will always be cheering for the team that my husband is on -- and there is absolutely zero question about that (so, yes, I want him to kick your butt Sunday) -- it is safe to say, I respect and love this city and the people in it too much to not cheer for them when my husband isn’t on the other side.
Sometimes relationships are hard, including this one I hold with this city, but it’s a relationship worth fighting for and keeping because of how much this city means to me. I’m lucky to have ever experienced the community that is Detroit and am looking forward to the game. Let’s go Rams.
Kelly Stafford