There Is No Field Of Dreams

I am wealthy, in more ways than one.  My various bank accounts are plenty full.  The government is going to give me a nice check this year because all of my income last year was interest and dividends, but interest on my very large and overly expensive (even at today's prices) house was quite the write off.  In money terms, I've got enough to last my lifetime and three more, had I believed in reincarnation.

I'm rich in other ways.  Kids, wife, mother...  I've got family that I appreciate more every day.  I wonder why at times.  I probably - no, I did take their existence for granted while I played.  Now that I don't play, now that my body creaks and aches... Now that I'm human like you, I don't have a major career goal that I find in my heart to be more meaningful than loving and being loved.  Yeah, it's a little sappy, but it's really true.  If you're a player and you're done, and if you can somehow get over the adjustment of not being a player anymore and being human like you, then you can eventually learn to discover life as a civilian.  I found that that life doesn't include living for me as much anymore.  I'm living for others.  When I punched in at 41 years on my time clock, I realized loving others more than myself was actually pretty cool.

Which brings me to how I understand certain things I couldn't before.  My father died three weeks and a day ago.  Since then, my insides have been churning.  There are times of the day when I'm fine, when I'm okay.  Times that I forget; forget that there's a hole in my life that I never knew had been filled before.  The worst times are my vulnerable times.  For me, this is when I sleep.  When I'm awake, I can be busy.  I can even pretend that I'm in denial.  I don't pretend that Dad is alive and just a phone call or visit away.  But I can utilize my old skills, the skills a baseball player who has a family uses while on the road.  These are called Out of Sight, Out of Mind.  My father, during the day, is like my family used to be when I played.  In other words, I can block out what happened and take care of whatever menial tasks I need to care for.

But the night.  The dreams.  Like I wrote, that's when I'm most vulnerable.  The difference between my dreams now and my dreams before my father's death is like night and day.  My old dreams, before this loss, were always cheerful.  There was excitement for life in them.  There was joy and laughter.  I can't tell you how many times I've awakened in the middle of the night laughing at something in a dream.

My dreams now are full of despair.  I wake up and, even if I can't remember the dreams, my chest pulls me down with heaviness.  I can't smile as easily.  I can't get my voice to raise into my "Everything's great" mode that I've been good at for so long, even when it wasn't.  I can't get myself to get beyond what I have to do.  And ironically, I'm so exhausted all the time, I just want to go to sleep, which is where the dreams come back and abuse my sweet, cool self.

At my dad's wake, one of his friends approached me.  The guy is in his middle seventies, I'd say, and he said this to me: "You never get over it.  You just get used to it."  I thought that was pretty profound.  He told me his father died when he was 20.  I realized this man has lived more than 50 years without his father.  I was lucky in this man's eyes.  And maybe I am.  But realizing this fact doesn't help.  It doesn't make the hurt go away.  It doesn't keep me from going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, after waking up screaming, and stopping me from crying my eyes out.  It doesn't stop the small muscles in my neck from aching and cramping because I'm literally screaming with no sound.  Maybe I never will get over my father's death.  In 50 years, I might finally get used to it.

For now, I write this as part catharsis and part apology.  I've been so active in writing, almost every day, for you (and me, sure) the past two years.  I sometimes write things that cause you to think I'm the biggest, most complete fool in the world.  I sometimes write things that I believe to be true and get so furious at your negative comments that I want to quit throwing myself out there and crawl up into a ball.  But I was always able to wake up the next morning and start again.

Right now, it's very, very hard to start again.

My mom is coping well, I guess.  She's alone in her house.  Well, she has the dog who keeps her occupied.  She goes bowling (averages a 120, which at 71 years young is pretty damn good), is part of the Thursday Morning Club, is active in her church, including the choir.  But she goes home to a house that was once full of family and, as recently as three months ago, was full of my dad's ideas and wishes and complaints.  Yes, complaints.  Boy, could they bicker.  They'd bicker so much, at times, that I just wanted to walk away.  But it was part of their relationship.  I guess when you're married for 48 years, you get used to stuff like that; maybe you even look forward to it a bit.  There's no more bickering for my mom.  I figure she's just trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, considering three weeks ago she didn't think she'd be a widow anytime soon.

So I am lucky.  I've got my wife, two daughters.  I've got my mom, who's just a phone call or visit away.  I've got some friends - real ones, as well as the neat Facebook ones.  I've got money, all that I need or my kids will ever need.  Their kids too, I guess.  And I've pretty much got my health.  In fifty years, I'll be just about 92.  At 92 years old, I will have lived more life without my father than I lived with my father.  I hate to think that I won't see my dad again in heaven for that many years.  I hate to think I'll begin to forget things, like his voice and his handshake and his jokes because, God, I miss him so much.  But if that's the plan, then I'll just have to get used to it.  I've got kids too who need a dad, just like I needed mine.  It wouldn't be fair to them for me to see mine before they're through with me.  That would be just one more selfish act this old ballplayer played on his family, taking himself out of the equation because he found something else he wanted more.  I'm not on the road anymore.  I'm home every day.  I owe it to my family to do for them what my dad always did for me.  Heck, my dad lost his in 1982 and he kept on going for another 28 years.  If he could do it, so can I.  My family deserves that.

So maybe I'll never get over the loss of my father.  We lost him way too soon.  Way too soon.  It's hard to share this with you, but maybe it will help my heart repair itself just a little bit faster.  Then I can get back on with my life, the life my dad wanted me to keep living.  So bear with me until I can get used to this; until I can fill in the spaces of your life with my little drivel and interesting interviews.  I love baseball.  I just loved my dad a whole lot more.

I'm still here.  Just a little more quiet than usual.  See you soon.

- Jimmy