Appreciation
I talked to Curtis last night and he mentioned that when he was in school, his parents never came out for his basketball games or when he ran cross country. It made me sad, because I know what it’s like to be able to look in the stands and see your parents there, knowing that there’s at least one or two people who are absolutely rooting for you to succeed. It’s a feeling of protection, pride. It gives you strength.
It made me think about how as moody and terrifying as my dad could be growing up, with as much pressure as he had between his company and my brother and his marriage, he went to every single one of my softball games. No matter where the games were, home or however far away, he would take off work, show up in his suit and sunglasses like a Chinese hit man, and sit in the stands supporting me. Even when that thing went down with the team ganging up on me, it was my dad who came as soon as I called him sobbing, went straight to the coach and found out the coach wouldn’t let me play because “she doesn’t get along with the other girls.” I remember his face when he came back to the car and told me that I just had to be tough about it, that sometimes ignorant people make life unfair, but you still have to fight through. You never let anyone nail you down. I think I told him something along the lines of I want to kill myself, and he said not to be stupid about it. You don’t take life’s unfairness out on yourself, to hurt yourself. You stand up and because of it, you show you’re stronger. I was still so upset so I said, “Can I throw a rock at his car?” I was surprised by his answer. He thought about it for a second, then said, “Yes, but just a little one.” So I got out of the car, picked up a rock about the size of a jelly bean, and with my shortstop cannon of an arm, threw it at the coach’s truck. Dink! It didn’t really make me feel better. But it gave me the first step towards letting go.
I wrote an email to my dad just now to say how much it meant to me that he went to all my games and supported me even though he had so many things going on. I know over the years, he’s had a lot of guilt over who he was as a father, the things he regrets. But I always tell him that we wouldn’t be the people we are today if we didn’t go through the things we did, and what matters is that we appreciate each other today and every day. Our family has gotten so much closer, so much lighter. The biggest difference is how we’ve each been able to forgive ourselves for the past, and move forward appreciating what we have.
The health scares this year have worried me. I can’t lie…I think about it every day. I know it’s brought my parents closer to each other, and it’s allowed them to take things easier and appreciate life more, but it’s true when they say that at the end of life, you don’t look at the little things. You look at the regrets, the time you didn’t spend, the things you didn’t say. Sometimes I think about how when the people you love are gone, you’ll never get to find out more about them. Little things, like…did they like peaches? What was their favorite Christmas present as a kid? What things scared them that they never told anyone? Did they like to sing in the shower?
There’s never as much time as you think. There’s never as much time as you want. You try to make the most of life, open the lines of love and communication with people, but at the end of the day, the deal was always that everything in life comes on loan. And when it’s time, you have to let go.