Choke Up on the Bat, Boys

Sometimes I hear her whimper and I turn my head just far enough to remember that she is not there.  She has been gone for weeks and she will be gone forever.

I turn back to my desk and my world and my piles upon piles of work not done and in doing so my eye catches the rain falling quietly upon the place that she has gone.  The place that she will be forever.

Memories echo on two small voices, one small and forgetful and looking, always looking, for the old dog that didn't run from his advance - not because she couldn't but because she wouldn't.  She welcomed him.

The other is older and softer and full of understanding.  Too much understanding.  His turns in anger and compassion. "No," he whispers below six years of furrowed brow. "She's dead."

And sometimes he cries.

The boys haven't seen their mother in three weeks.  She is sitting at the bedside of her father.  His bed grows emptier by the hour.

The World Series is starting.  They watch the games on a hospital television and people come and people go and they talk about the things that people talk about when they don't know the score but feel that they should say something.  There is an awkward silence between hits.  The ball drops.  The conversation rolls softly across the infield.

There is no crying in baseball but hospital hallways are perfect for it.

Four months ago I stood at the funeral of my grandmother and exchanged pleasantries by rote.  My wife and my children were states away and as close as the words that spilled from me.  I spilled other words upon my return. 

Two young boys lay quietly in their respective beds and watched as their father lobbed lessons of life and death in their general direction.  The windup was tainted by a lack of sleep.  The pitch was influenced slightly by the lingering shadow of a ten dollar airport beer. It was wide and just a bit outside, but they were safe at home and they let it slide.

A roomful of tears is a sorry excuse for a rainout.