Posted:Sun Nov 9, 2008 7:21 PM CST
I Just Wanted to Throw a Ball
My father's passing. left a wife with no job and three young children behind. Looking back, I don't know how we survived. Mom never worked, and was forced into the role of bread winner without any kind of warning.
Aftter the funeral, everyone came over to our house. It's kind of a tradition in a Slovak family. Friends and family go to the berievved's house for sandwiches and conversation. Cars were lined up and down the street. Dad was loved by many.
Mr. Trendy, (yes, that was his real name) had taken me aside. We stood next to my dad's old blue Chevelle and he put his hand on my shoulder. The words he said would stick with me for the rest of my life.
"Jimmy," he said with tears weling up in his eyes (there's something aboud a grown man fighting back tears that's just incredibly gut-wrenching) "You've got a responsibility now. You're Dad's gone. Time to step up to the plate."
It took me a few years to figure out what Mr. Trendy was trying to say. I was the man of the house now, and although I wasn't offering the financial support my father did, I was thrown into the position on the strong one of the family. I was the protector. And I would live up to that responsibility.
In August, just before school started again, Miss Day, my third grade teacher came to the house and picked me up to take me to the park. Once we got there, she opened her trunk and took out two baseball gloves and a ball.
Silent game of catch. No words exchanged. None at all. But the message was clear. She understood what I was feeling. The abandonment, the anger, the sadness, the sense of loss. She didn't have to say anything to confort me. Just her simple act of throwing me the ball, teaching me how to plant my foot before throwing it back to her was enough. This lady KNEW. She knew I didn't want to hear anymore "I'm sorry's". She knew that all I wanted to do was learn how to throw a ball.
Before we left, she gave me a gift. It was a poster. On it was a picture of a sunset on a beach. At the bottom was a saying.....
"I do not need the courage to carry on, just the strength to understand."
There were others that offered kindness in their own way, but Mr. Trendy and Miss Day will forever be the ones to stand out for their simple words and actions for a 9 year old boy who just lost his father. Who's world had just been flipped upside down. Who just wanted to be left alone and throw a baseball in the park.