Life is Wonderful

More Baseball stuff. Going through my notes again and I found another story from my son’s early baseball years. This was sometime around the spring of 2002.

My wife, Nora was busy one particular Saturday morning and it was up to me to watch Timmy, almost 7, and keep him busy. I failed at that. I gave him a baseball bat and told him to go outside and swing it to build his muscles. Katie went camping with the girl scouts. Poor Timmy was bored all morning. I fixed him lunch and then he looked over my shoulder as I worked on the computer. He wanted to play his Toy Story game but it needed to be re-installed. It kept giving me an error and besides I was trying to get the new computer set up. I was going on only four hours of sleep. I am afraid I was a little abrupt with him. I went to take a nap. This gives you a glimpse of my tremendous parenting skills.

Got him to his bball game just in time. My mom and dad came out to watch him play and that was nice. He got a hit off of live pitching and made another assist from the outfield. But that isn't all, his game went to about 5:30 and we needed to get ready for the Padres game that evening. We got there at the middle of the first inning. We sat down in our seats and Timmy noticed something for the first time.

"Dad, look, the Padres have base coaches just like we do."

I was impressed. He had not noticed that before. I turned to him and told him that since his team isn't using the pitching machine anymore that he is playing the same game as the major leaguers. From that point on he seemed really tuned in to the game. You know, as much as a soon to be 7 year old can be.

During the game when he got tired, he climbed up onto his mom's lap. She held him there for awhile. I looked at her with the look of "you know we paid for that seat" and she told me that she may not get to do that much longer. I nodded. He is growing up. You know what I am talking about. Time is precious.

I was up till two AM that night, reading, writing, and listening to music. I wrote a poem. This was around the time that Country Song, "I hope you Dance" was popular. I had a lot of feelings going on that night. My daughter was growing up, my son doing the same, and I was remembering the old times. This was the poem I came up with that evening in April, 2002.

"On occasions I have danced
and swayed to the music of love
And many times I have chanced
upon a delightful thought of us
But time, my old foe, barges in
to tread upon my heart.
Dances and chances become dim
and memories fade to dark. "
C. 2002, David Normand

I hope you like it. I was thinking about my kids, memories and watching them grow. I realized that time has stolen memories from me. I was listening to a lot of old music and I guess this poem can be read a few different ways. But overall, I like the sentiment. Life is too short. Enjoy what you have.