The school year is over,
another season is past,
and I’m left with regrets for not being there more,
for not being his cheerleader when he was the hero,
for not telling him how proud of him I was even when he wasn’t.
I wash out his uniform for the last time
and I am flooded with memories of this game,
this game that is more than a game,
this thing which has made him who he is.
I see him 18 months old,
in nothing but a diaper,
swinging a plastic bat at a Wiffle ball
strung to a cup hook
screwed into the wood grain of my beautiful 1900 pocket door.
I look at his daddy amazed
and he shrugs his shoulders as if to say,
I couldn’t help it
but the words that slip out under his breath are,
Eye-hand coordination.
And I hear him giggle.
I see him three years old,
{in big boy Power Ranger pants},
swinging a foam bat
at a real baseball
sitting on top of a daddy-made PVC and 6″ x 6″ wooden block tee.
Eight months pregnant with a baby sister,
I look to his dad,
scowling and shaking my head.
He scowls back at me,
as if to say,
I know what I’m doing.
I look to my first born,
and all I see is concentration.
I see him five years old,
playing his very first t-ball game.
He was so small and the field, so big!
He made it to third,
and we watched from the shade of a tree on the hillside
as the coach pointed towards home plate and said something excitedly.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
He looked at us, and again at the coach.
And then he ran off the field,
up the hillside,
and right past us
toward the parking lot.
We called him back
and asked, Where are you going??
And he said, Home! The coach yelled at me to go home!
I see him eight years old,
wearing a wrist brace,
playing rec league ball
and his dad is his coach.
With every contact he makes,
he grimaces,
because the force of the ball is translated through the bat
to his broken arm.
And still, he swings. Every time.
They win that game on a stolen home base
that he decided to take on his own.
He tells us later,
because I knew I could.
I see him nine years old,
standing in the rain
on the pitcher’s mound
in the dark of night,
being brave and fighting back and willing his body to do what he wants
and leading his team to the District Championship,
undefeated.
The bad news bears team that his coach would have given up if he could have,
went on to be fourth in the state of Tennessee that year.
I see him thirteen years old
alone and defeated
in his dug-out,
overlooked and a back turned to him.
And when his father asked if he’d had enough,
he said, I just want to get better. Can’t I just practice with them? I don’t have to play.
I am amazed by his determination.
I see him fifteen years old,
his face swollen, his eyes purple
holding an icepack to the broken bones of his face,
telling me that he is too going to play the next day.
I still catch my breath thinking what if?
And I hear the voice of his father saying to his toddler boys,
Lumps and bumps are a part of play.
He gets up and goes the very next day
and plays a double-header.
I am amazed by his courage.
I see him still fifteen years old,
wearing his high school’s varsity uniform,
Georgia’s red dirt embedded in its knees,
with a beautiful toothy grin from ear-to-ear
as I share the texts we received telling us,
Your son is a hero.
Like when he was nine years old,
he held himself together
under intense pressure
and willed it to be.
And so it was.
And I think of the men in his life.
His father,
the coaches, and other fathers
who picked him up, brushed him off, and told him like it was.
The men who taught him to work hard, to focus,
to never give up.
That champions are made in the off-season.
The men who trained him to believe that he has all he needs to be successful.
The men who loved others
and taught my son tolerance and acceptance
leadership and discipline
respect and self-respect and teamwork
endurance and dedication
and confidence.
I am so grateful for the gift of these men, who helped me raise my son;
God-fearing men, who led by example,
who taught him the most important real life lessons …
through this game we call Baseball.
*****
Sharing our story in words with Emily at Chatting at the Sky:
And in pictures with Darcy at My3Boybarians.
*****
Please join me Friday for my photo blog-hop:
{Details in the tab to the left.}
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