Dad

Well, Dad, there's that one indelible memory that I have of you from an incredibly powerful portfolio of memories you left me in your short 58 years.

We were at Cedar Creek Parkway in Allentown. You brought a baseball, a glove and a bat. I was 6 years old. The sun was shining and the grass was sweet beneath our feet. There was a willow tree nearby. Little Lehigh Creek gurgled just off to our right.

With your firstborn. You're just a kid yourself.

 It was idyllic.

You told me to put on the glove. You showed me how to get into an infielder's crouch, with my hands on my knees, including the hand with the glove. Then you walked a few steps away and batted soft grounders to me, telling me to get behind the ball. And to catch it with two hands.

We did that for a while, stabbing at grounders that practically died in the thick grass before they even reached me.

Then it was my turn to bat. You showed me how to take my stance, how to hold the bat, to keep my eye on the ball. Soft pitches, rock solid memories. You showed me how to love baseball.

It was my Field of Dreams moment, although I wouldn't know that for another five decades or so.

"Hey, Dad. You wanna have a catch?"

That's the memory that, to this day, doesn't go away. I don't want it to.

There were other moments. You showed me how to properly shake hands with a firm grip. You made me understand I wasn't being picked on when a joke was pointed at me. You were an English teacher back then and you helped me learn how to write. I turned that into a career as a sports writer, which I think made you proud. You once showed me a scrapbook you kept of the stories I wrote for the paper. I didn't know you did that.

We had the talk. I think I already knew most of this stuff, but I was your first born, and I think you felt it was part of the parenting ritual. Our talk might have lasted two minutes. I don't remember asking questions.

Somewhere along the line, you became a Moravian minister. You officiated at my wedding, and Kim felt she was lucky to have in-laws like you and Mom.

As we got older, we learned to play golf. The trouble was, I was in North Carolina, and you were in Wisconsin. We'd get to play together whenever we saw each other on vacation. We were horrible golfers, but this was never about our skill set. It was about our quality time together.

Time. I didn't know there was so little of it.

There was that phone call from Wisconsin. You told me you had cancer. The doctor said you had a year to live. You endured it for as long as you could. You assisted at Scott's, your youngest son's, wedding, even though the pain of your cancer must have been horrible. I don't know how you did it.

And then you were gone, way too soon.

And now, 34 years later, I can only hope that I've become the person that you hoped I'd be.

Maybe somebody like you.

Hey, Dad. You wanna have a catch?