STEPHEN HEMELT, City editor

I checked back on Friday morning just to see how my cell phone exchange went. It was the day after the New Orleans Saints lost, and I wanted to remember how my conversation went with the football team’s No. 1 fan — my mother.

At 10:46 p.m., I texted her, “Year after year, they are just good enough to break your heart. It hurts to be a Saints fan.”

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Her response was quick, simple and all heart — the way moms are supposed to be.

At 10:48 p.m., she texted back, “That is the same as the Red Sox, but it will happen. Hang in there.”

She was referencing a baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, the other sports team for which she and I share fanatical support. The Red Sox went almost 90 years between championships from 1918 to 2004.

The only thing that stands between my mother and I and complete sports happiness is a Super Bowl win for the New Orleans Saints. Something that is much easier said than accomplished.

Every year before the football season starts, we talk up all the talented rookies the Saints have while patting the organization on the back for acquiring just the right group of veteran free agents to make this year the right year.

Yet without fail, as was the case last Thursday, the Saints lose and prolong the team’s championship draught, which now stands at 41 years, 13 years longer than I have been alive.

This brings me back to a phone conversation with Mom a day after our text exchange.

I told her I was afraid to raise my 8-month-old son a Saints fan because if the team had not won in my mom’s or my own lifetime, why would they win in my son’s?

She assured me they would win a championship someday, although she worried she would not live to see it.

“Promise me one thing,” she said. “When the Saints win, and they will, remember to bring plenty of black and gold flowers and paraphernalia to my grave.”

She was not being pessimistic; she was just stating her faith in the team she loves.

I believe she has many healthy years left, so it’s tough to imagine the decades of losing the Saints still must go through.

We never decided if it was the best thing to raise another generation of our family to be Saints fans, but if a grandson can’t believe in his grandmother, then what can he believe in?

So, I’m sorry son, welcome to the Saints — your team.

STEPHEN HEMELT is city editor of The Daily Iberian. He can be reached at stephen.hemelt@daily-iberian.com.