Something my dad said to me a long time ago has been ringing in my head recently. It's been a long time since I've heard my dad's voice. He used to ramble on in my head as I played golf and make his pithy comments and sarcastic remarks as I blundered my way through the day. He used to haunt my dreams like a ghost of Christmas past or the catcher in Field of Dreams. But it seems now he has let me go. Or I him.
I realized the other day I had played a whole round of golf with my daughter and not once did I hear him say in my head, "Hardly worth looking up for! Or Hit it Alice!" Not a single word out of him about my lack of golfer's ettiquite or that I just needed to play my own game and not worry so much about winning. Looking back I see maybe it's because I never looked up and I hit it through the whole on every putt. More importantly I played gentleman's golf, I played my own game and most importantly we had fun. I didn't hear his voice, but I surely felt his pride. He was proud of me. As proud of me as I of my daughter.
Pride is a sin and being proud isn't easy. But I believe it's a hard earned gift of life. A side effect of hard work and accomplishment. My dad was a proud man and back in the day it was hard for me to take. I couldn't put many of the things he said in proper context. I just couldn't appreciate his perspective. At times he was so self deprecating and humble. And at other times he would be so bold and confident the world would step aside and defer to his experience.
On one such occasion I was at a low point in my early manhood. I was 18 years old and on my 14th day in a hospital bed. I had just received the good news from my doctor that it looks like I may not loose my leg after all. He, for the first time, sees signs of improvement in our battle against the post surgical staph infection that put me there. He said, "we have a long way to go and I expect you will remain here at least for a few more weeks, but the rest is up to you. You won't be playing baseball this Spring and your football scholarship this Summer is out of the question, but if we keep you on this new IV antibiotic and you work really hard in physical therapy you just might be able to walk out of here sometime next month. Oh, and no more morphine or pain medications, but I will allow Tylenol." He then turned away from me and asked my father if he had any questions. My dad looked right through him and said, "Son, sometimes you must endure the pain and suffer fools."
Did he just call my doctor a fool right to his face?
If my dad wasn't between him and the door he would've walk out. But he was in the way and at that moment he did one of magic tricks by swelling up to twice his normal size and actually sucking all of the air completely out of the room (or maybe it was all the morphine and other stuff they had been pumping into me for weeks), but, he went on to say, "Nothing is ever out of the question. If you want to play baseball then you are going to play baseball. If you want to play football then you are going to play football. The good doctor just doesn't want you to get your hopes up. At times like these sometimes Hope is all we got. He has no idea what you are capable of doing. I've seen what you can do. I've seen what you have already overcome. If you want it bad enough you will make it happen."
Two and a half weeks later I walked out of Holy Cross Hospital. Three days after that I relief pitched three innings against Gaithersburg and I shut them down. Coach Manual said it was one of the most incredible things he had ever seen. Latter that summer we won two more baseball league championships. Somehow in August I survived summer camp and made the Miami University football team as a tight end and long snapper and claimed my scholarship. This is by no means a happily ever after as I went on to endure a lot of pain and suffer many fools. Or maybe it was I suffered a lot of pain and endured the fools, but either way I think I finally get it now. The fool is the one who thinks he knows it all. The one who shares his opinions so confidently. The guy who knows all the answers. The expert. The guy who knows best.
I've been that guy. I am that guy. But I see it now. I guess what's been rattling around in my head has been more like, "Sometimes you have to endure the pain and suffer yourself!" Maybe now I'll be able to move past this and not just endure the pain, but determine it's root cause and actually make it go away. Maybe I can quit suffering this fool and teach him how to be someone I actually want to hang out with. Maybe If I want it bad enough I can make it happen.
Thanks DDD. Happy Farhers Day. Miss you.
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