It was another long day today.
But it was a good day. Prep for tomorrow's game is mostly done and I called the Hopkins/Brunswick soccer game tonight. I think it might have been my best soccer call of the year.
You can just feel it some nights.
Then I came home to the picture above, taken on the day of my Aunt Fay and Uncle Bill's wedding in 1960. My cousin sent it to my mom.
Yep. That's my dad on the left.
There aren't many new pictures of him to be found so it's always bittersweet to see one that's unfamiliar to me.
Of course, it took my breath away, and I stood there, trying to remain composed.
He's been gone 30 years and it still hurts deeply.
The question of "why" it still hurts is easy to answer, of course, but why must every mention of him make me struggle to hold my emotions?
I know I've asked that question on here before, and I guess I'm dealing with it again tonight.
We all suffer losses. My friends at Hunt Scanlon had a loss earlier this week. We lost my cousin Ted a few weeks ago and there's still grieving there.
I've told you all so many things about my dad to the point that have to be sick of him (and that's not unfair).
I love hearing people talk about him.
I wish newer people in my life got to know him.
I wish he had met Sean, heard me become a broadcaster, been my counsel for me for myriad stuff, and so on.
I wish he could have gotten his hips and knees done so that his pain would go away. It would have taken a certain level of stress off of his heart.
I wish he had stopped smoking, but that's a whole different beast for another post.
But my oh my am I sick of struggling to talk when he comes up.
It embarrasses me, for one thing.
This letter from Payne Stewart's daughter to him on the 20th anniversary of his passing certainly grabbed at my heart.
Anyway, I really don't like that pithy line "I'm not crying. You're crying."
No, dammit. I'm crying. A lot.
And that's the problem.
1 comment:
My Mom passed in November 1969. I like to say she saw man land on the moon and the Mets win the World Series, so there was nothing was to see. (She was a smoker too.) But, she never got to hear me broadcast sports and she never met my son. (She would have been 85 when he was born.)
My Dad died in 2008, having barely ever watched me play sports, likely never heard me broadcast them, never met my son (Dad was 88 when he passed) and left me woefully equipped for life as a single parent which is strange because for awhile from 1969 into 1970 or 71, it was just me and him. Yet, I miss him, like I miss my Mom.
My Mom was the sports fan of the family. She came to most of my ballgames when I was a kid, taught me how to keep score and on January 28th, 1968, 3 days after my 13th birthday, took me and one of my brothers to our very first hockey game. I expect she would have been thrilled to hear me on the air.
As you and I get older, change, as well as loss, is inevitable. But, that doesn't make it any easier, does it?
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