Over the course of the last few weeks, I've found myself being asked frequently by the kids to play ball, to draw, to sit with them and spend time together in one endeavor or another. The more I do so, the more they enjoy the time and attention, and I find myself reflecting on my own childhood with a recognition of the opportunities before me today. In most cases, I try and engage in the activity for as much time as I can, knowing that it's also "while I can".
Tonight, when my son, daughter and I were gathered in the back yard to play, I pulled out some tennis balls that we ended up throwing back and forth and up into the air. They were having a blast. Then my son started swinging at one perched atop a nearby umbrella stand with the plastic 'club' from his "bam-bam" halloween costume, ala "t-ball". I won't hesitate to tell you, the boy's a natural. He's signed up to play t-ball this summer for the first time. I think it'll be the start of a life long love affair with the game.
When I was a child, about 9 or 10 years old, I was a pretty decent ball player myself. I remember being taught by my father to break in my glove, to repeatedly bend and flex it, almost wringing it dry like a cloth, in order to soften it up. He showed me his own glove. It was aged, worn, it smelled of musty, damp leather, yet it was as soft and flexible as you'd expect one used for decades to be. I spent hours with my own glove on my hand, smacking the ball into it over and over again. I played on a kids team in Pennsylvania, and although I wasn't the king of home runs, I did make a mean first baseman, which is a pretty critical position to play. The ball typically came to me first, and it would usually do so quite quickly. My father had taught me to get behind the ball when it was coming at me, keeping my glove up and in position, my free hand cupped behind it, and not to be afraid. Once I overcame the fear of the ball doing anything besides landing directly into the center of that glove, that's all it ever seemed to do.
Many years later, when I was about 15 or 16, when my parents were first starting to talk openly about divorcing, i'd been experiencing some ambivalence toward my father. it wasn't out of hate or anger, it was just a sense of being disconnected. I was a teenager, after all, and I now recognize this as a rite of passage for most young men. And although this was the man that ran beside me as I wobbled my way to riding a bike without training wheels, that shepherded me on Sunday paper routes through the sleepy streets of a small town in Pennsylvania, and that played catch with me in my little league days, this was also the man who'd embarrassed me on more than one occasion, who'd enforced rules at home that I felt compelled to challenge, and who'd let some of his own frustrations with life pour over into our relationship. One day, he came home from work and made the effort to pull out the baseball and both of our worn and weathered gloves, and to approach me with the desire to throw the ball about in the front yard. A simple exercise that I know, in hindsight, would have meant the world to him then. And in fact, in hindsight, would mean the world to me now had I done it. Yet I responded as a typical defiant, independence-seeking teenager might; I dismissed the invitation, even stating something along the lines of "I'm too old to play catch, Dad. Those days are gone."
I can still see his face sinking, a shallow breath of air escaping as if somebody had struck him in the gut with a bowling ball. A moment or two later, after heading our own directions, I think I knew, deep down, the significance of what had just transpired. And I think I knew how it hurt him, just as it did the year my brother and I stopped letting him to read "The Night Before Christmas" to us on Christmas eve, and I regretted how it'd played out. But I was in that defiant teenager stage, so the last thing I was going to do was admit it at the time.
As I take time now to reflect on my own childhood during these busy days of parenting, I think about the choices we all have to make every day about the things we put our time and energy into, or take our time and energy away from. I can't help but feel that my own regrets of missed opportunities ultimately find a 'redemption' of sorts through the chance to be there for my children in the same fashion that my own parents were there for me. In ways that matter even forty plus years down the road.
I also realize that, at some point and time, I'll be told that "I'm too old for that" when I try and read them "The Night Before Christmas", attempt to sit them on my lap, try and give them a hug while dropping them off at school, or extend the nostalgic attempt to toss a ball back and forth in the front yard. I know they'll pull away in their own fashion, and I expect I'll feel that momentariy loss of air as they do so, just as my own father did. Only this time around, when they read this entry as an adult, perhaps with more insight into this whole process, perhaps even as parents themselves, they'll realize that I knew it'd happen, and that it's OK. I understand.
PS: This kind of thing is what makes men tear up when watching "Field of Dreams".
