grandfather, my dad. He couldn’t understand why a farmer could want to be running off every night to play a game. But he let me do it. He let me because he loved me and he knew it made me happy. Just like you two. I always had to borrow a glove to play. We didn’t have the money for extras. But I came down to breakfast one day and there it was, sitting where my plate should be. He just sat eating his oatmeal and reading his paper like there was nothing strange going on. He was like that. Never made a fuss over anything. On the outside anyway. But I know he was churning with happiness on the inside. So I sat down, picked it up, put it on and ate my cereal through the biggest, thickest lump anyone ever had in their throat. I loved him then. Loved him as much as I ever did, maybe more.
“That night he came to see me play. Mildmay was playing Wingham and I was the left fielder. Pretty good game but not much hitting. We were up by a run going into the ninth inning. Wingham put a couple men on base with two out and their best hitter was at the plate. Everyone was tense. Mildmay has always hated to lose to Wingham. Anyway, he connected with a shot that sailed out into my field. It looked like it might go over the fence but I chased it down anyway. As I got closer and closer to the fence it seemed like the world slowed down to slow motion and all I could think about was my father and the glove I was wearing on my hand. Well, I wanted that ball more than I wanted anything in the world. I ran a step faster and then at the very last moment I leapt into the air and came down with it right at the fence! What a feeling. Everyone cheered, of course, and we won, but the best moment for me came right at the last. Everyone had been making a big fuss over me and my catch and I finally got away from them. My dad was right there, waiting. He was looking at me with a world of pride and love in his eyes and I handed him that ball. He stood there looking at it for a long time and we never said anything. We didn’t have to, I guess. He just put his hand over my shoulder and we walked to the truck and drove home. He kept that ball on his dresser right up until theday he died. I made sure we put that old ball in the casket with him. He would have wanted to keep it.
“So that’s where I got that funny-looking thing, John, and I guess that’s why Joshua’s mother and I decided to get you guys the bat. Because if this game makes you guys happy, we want to be part of it. When you’re happy, we’re happy.”
As the highway spun away beneath us we were each lost in our thoughts. I’d never known until then that my dad and I shared any passions beyond fishing, faith and farming. Thinking of him playing the same game with the same zeal and verve as I was bringing to it was magical. We were tied together so seamlessly. That night I discovered for the first time that loving is a learning process. The geographies of our lives demand it. Just when you start to believe that you know all the territory, the sweep of a life, you’re surprised by a sudden scarp of habit, of history or belief. And that’s the magic of it all. You’re always being given someone new and the pull of it is tractive, strong and relentless. That night I knew for dead, absolute certain how much I loved my father.
Where Johnny was I don’t know. He stared straight ahead and never said a word. I can only imagine. His world was so different from mine. Ben Gebhardt lived his life like a covert operation and Johnny bore the detritus of that on his shoulders like an unkept promise — cumbersome and cool to the touch. The comparison between my father and family and his own must have seemed titanic that night, and I believe that’s what he was thinking.
My dad could have been anywhere between the back forty and Cooperstown. But we shared our silence as respectfully as friends can, and when we pulled up in front of Old Man Givens’s place and Johnny clambered from the car, I knew
“That night he came to see me play. Mildmay was playing Wingham and I was the left fielder. Pretty good game but not much hitting. We were up by a run going into the ninth inning. Wingham put a couple men on base with two out and their best hitter was at the plate. Everyone was tense. Mildmay has always hated to lose to Wingham. Anyway, he connected with a shot that sailed out into my field. It looked like it might go over the fence but I chased it down anyway. As I got closer and closer to the fence it seemed like the world slowed down to slow motion and all I could think about was my father and the glove I was wearing on my hand. Well, I wanted that ball more than I wanted anything in the world. I ran a step faster and then at the very last moment I leapt into the air and came down with it right at the fence! What a feeling. Everyone cheered, of course, and we won, but the best moment for me came right at the last. Everyone had been making a big fuss over me and my catch and I finally got away from them. My dad was right there, waiting. He was looking at me with a world of pride and love in his eyes and I handed him that ball. He stood there looking at it for a long time and we never said anything. We didn’t have to, I guess. He just put his hand over my shoulder and we walked to the truck and drove home. He kept that ball on his dresser right up until theday he died. I made sure we put that old ball in the casket with him. He would have wanted to keep it.
“So that’s where I got that funny-looking thing, John, and I guess that’s why Joshua’s mother and I decided to get you guys the bat. Because if this game makes you guys happy, we want to be part of it. When you’re happy, we’re happy.”
As the highway spun away beneath us we were each lost in our thoughts. I’d never known until then that my dad and I shared any passions beyond fishing, faith and farming. Thinking of him playing the same game with the same zeal and verve as I was bringing to it was magical. We were tied together so seamlessly. That night I discovered for the first time that loving is a learning process. The geographies of our lives demand it. Just when you start to believe that you know all the territory, the sweep of a life, you’re surprised by a sudden scarp of habit, of history or belief. And that’s the magic of it all. You’re always being given someone new and the pull of it is tractive, strong and relentless. That night I knew for dead, absolute certain how much I loved my father.
Where Johnny was I don’t know. He stared straight ahead and never said a word. I can only imagine. His world was so different from mine. Ben Gebhardt lived his life like a covert operation and Johnny bore the detritus of that on his shoulders like an unkept promise — cumbersome and cool to the touch. The comparison between my father and family and his own must have seemed titanic that night, and I believe that’s what he was thinking.
My dad could have been anywhere between the back forty and Cooperstown. But we shared our silence as respectfully as friends can, and when we pulled up in front of Old Man Givens’s place and Johnny clambered from the car, I knew
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