In the wake of Father’s Day I should tell you what I was really a failure at with my two boys: Sports.
I was always rotten at sports, dreaded being the last one picked for teams in grade schools, horrified at the prospect that a ball might come to me in left field and even worse, that I might have to catch it. So even as I held my first son in my arms, I wondered, “Who’s going to teach him how to toss a ball? Who’s going to explain to him what an RBI is?” (I still don’t know.)
For several years when Will and his brother, Tim, were toddlers I could put off the Reckoning Day by rolling balls around, inside and out, but I knew someday some clueless parent would ask me if I could be Coach. I made some pretty desperate prayers in my inadequacy (and perhaps our best prayers are the most desperate, the most urgent). Every dad wants to be a hero to his kids, but I didn’t see how I could if I couldn’t show my sons how to connect ball to bat.
It was at this moment in my parenting that Inspiration struck – and once again, I think Inspiration is especially active for the desperate. I chatted with some of the other dads in the park, the ones who really could be Coach, and suggested we start our own baseball league.
“That sounds great, Rick,” they said. “I’d love to coach, but who could organize something like that?”
“Well,” I hesitated, “I could try.” I mean, it would take some phone calls and getting a permit for a field and ordering some uniforms, but that sounded easier than explaining the difference between a ball and strike.
That was the birth of Hudson Cliffs Baseball, now in its 13th consecutive season. Every time I see a kid in the neighborhood with an “H.C.” on his ball cap, I want to tell him how it all came about because the first commissioner of the league was a failure at sports.
Am I a hero to my sons? I don’t know. But guess who was the commissioner of an intramural baseball league at his college? My first born. Like father, like son. Except he can really hit the ball. Way to go, Will!
My dad was never one for telling old war stories and that’s probably just as well because we kids wouldn’t have listened much. Like other World War II vets, he came home, finished college on the G.I. bill, got married and did his best to forget what it was like to be on a submarine in the Pacific.
Glimpses of it were revealed when we kids watched an old war film on TV and Dad would say, “See the guy next to the periscope. That’s where I was stationed,” or he’d make a comment like “I guess I’m sensitive to smell because of all those months on the submarine in the war” (what was he talking about?) or when I actually walked through a sub like his and couldn’t get out of those cramped claustrophobic quarters fast enough.
Dad’s war stories, if they got told, were quick anecdotes about sweltering in the desert during boot camp or spotting a pair of giant tortoises through that periscope and being relieved they weren’t enemy craft.
Only recently, in his eighties, did Dad actually explain what his submarine had done in combat and how grueling it was. A researcher working on an oral history project taped an hour-long interview with him and made copies of it.
Wow, I thought as I listened to it, this is a part of Dad that I never knew. I’m glad in a way that Dad never felt he had to prove anything to us with dramatic war stories at the dinner table, but I sure am glad I got to hear them. Finally.
So Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Thanks for having four raucous children and an even louder bunch now with spouses and grandchildren. But you didn’t have to take so long to speak up!
What does a 22-year-old leave behind when he leaves home for the last time?
Will got in the car and said good-bye, heading off across country for his job and his future. Feeling shell-shocked, Carol and I went back inside and foolishly enough, I looked into Will’s bedroom one last time. There on the top bunk was Honey Bear.
Honey Bear goes back to before Will was even born. Someone gave him to us as a shower present and Carol christened him for his honey color and Pooh-like temperament. When we came home from the hospital with the squirmy, pink, placid baby – oh, was there ever a sweeter baby – Honey Bear was waiting in the crib.
They’ve been through a lot together. Late-night bouts of the flu, a broken elbow, chicken pox, the occasional nightmare. Honey Bear had to make room for William’s little brother and a host of other stuffed animals. There was the squishy football named for Troy Aikman and the beanie babies that were all the rage. Honey Bear saw the posters on the walls change from sports heroes to rock stars and the boy stretch out so that he barely fit in the bunk bed. Losing his plush golden color, Honey Bear never lost his place of honor next to the pillow.
He didn’t go off to college, but what would a bear do with all those econ and stat courses William took? He knew plenty about constancy, warmth and getting kicked around to the bottom of the bed. I guessed it was all right that a grown-up like Will, far more capable than I could ever imagine, wouldn’t need his old friend anymore. But I didn’t want him to forget, as I would never forget, the sweet trusting nature that brought him through the turmoil of childhood.
“He doesn’t want Honey Bear anymore,” I said to Carol.
“Yes he does,” she replied. “We’re supposed to send him when he gets settled.”
Got that old bear? Soon you’ll be heading to a new home.
C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere that it was certainly all right to pray for the dead because when you get to a certain point in life the people you want to pray for aren’t around.
Not sure I’ve reached that stage yet, but I certainly think a lot about my old friend and mentor Van Varner, a longtime Guideposts editor and former editor-in-chief. June 6 would have been his 86th birthday and if he were around this year – I mean physically – he would be sitting at the Belmont track in his seersucker suit for the running of his second most favorite race (his first, naturally, would be the Kentucky Derby).
I think about him every time I edit a Guideposts story and his classic advice about storytelling: “Tears should be in the eyes of the reader, not the narrator.”
I think of him when I see a big dog loping down the streets of New York – he adored dogs. Readers often ask what happened to Coke his last dog. You will be glad to know that Coke is the care of Van’s nephew Gordon and from reports, very happy.
I think of the stories he told that made him laugh so hard his face would turn purple.
I think of him when I read Daily Guideposts devotionals. He knew how to find the godly in the everyday.
I think of him when we pray on Monday mornings for others. His curiosity about people was immense.
I think about his ratty old knapsack – his reticule, he called it – and how it always brimmed over with manuscripts.
I don’t worry that he’s happy – he had a gift for happiness that surely has followed him into the beyond. I pray simply because I miss him. When you love somebody they’re always in your prayers, whether in this world or the next. Happy Birthday, Van!
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The other evening Carol served up a fabulous chocolate mousse. Now, I’m generally known as the Butter Fat King at home. Give me ice cream, give me whipped cream, give me toast slathered in butter, and I’m in pig heaven. My other not-so-secret obsession is chocolate. This is purely for medicinal reasons, of course. Everybody knows about the anti-oxidants in dark chocolate. I keep a desk drawer full of the stuff for emergencies.
You can imagine my delight when she took the neat custard cups out of the fridge and sprinkled slivers of chocolate on the velvety mousse.
“It’s really easy to make,” she said, “You’ll never guess what the secret ingredient is.”
To guess at a secret like that, you have to do some very serious eating. I could taste the chocolate and some cinnamon. Of course there were all those egg yolks and that cream (let’s not talk about the cholesterol), but what indeed was the secret?
Licking the last of the chocolate off the spoon, I said, “I give up. What is it?”
“Tofu,” she said, “it’s all made from tofu. No cream, no butter, no egg yolks. This has got to be the most healthy dessert you’ve ever eaten.”
I was dumbfounded, to say the least, and wondered if my taste buds had gone on a vacation. The next day, in fact, I found one more cup in the fridge and tried it. Alas, ignorance in this case proved to be bliss. With full knowledge of the ingredients, the mousse wasn’t quite as rich or satisfying. Whoever said, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you?” What I just ate was a truly healthy dessert by Mark Bittman. Click here for the recipe.
I pass it on with full disclosure. You can decide if you want to keep the secret or not. And thanks to Carol for keeping her family healthy!
Carol and I flew out to California for a long weekend for Will’s graduation from college. There was so much to celebrate. That he put himself through the rigors of a tough econ major, that he finished a thesis, that in this economy he managed to get himself a job. That he’s done all of this without a parent by his side making sure homework got done, job applications were filled out, interviews were attended. That must mean he’s an adult, 22 years old, ready to take care of himself.
There were campus barbecues and backyard dinners with his friends and their parents, all of us congratulating ourselves that somehow our children made it to this milestone. There was the cleaning out of his dorm room – what a mess – and packing up boxes, some to go in storage, some stuff to come home and some to follow him to his job. We were parents but we managed to refrain from saying parental things, like, “Shouldn’t you throw out that old shirt?” and “Have you made plane reservations yet?” and “How are you going to find an apartment in San Francisco?”
We celebrated. We did just what one commencement speaker, columnist Bob Herbert, urged, “Take it easy.” William had a fine cheering section, 23 family members in all, shouting out in glee when his name was called. He waved to us on his way to accept the diploma.
At the end we gathered for a picnic lunch, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins and celebrated the family for no graduate does it all on his own. The way is paved by family and friends who support, applaud and over the years came through with a car on loan (thanks Gioia and Larry!) and a summer job (thanks Mike!).
Only as we were throwing the paper plates away did I see the words on the back of a plaque in the patio: “This is the day the Lord hath made, rejoice and be glad in it!”
Just the right words. Congratulations to the graduates you know and love. Rejoice and be glad in them!
On my jogs through the park I stop at the playground and lift myself off the ground on the high bar. It all started when I read a fitness magazine that suggested you do a series of 10 chin ups. “Yikes,” I exclaimed (not in those very words), “I can’t even do two.” But I started, one exhausting attempt after another, and in a couple of years – we’re talking years here – I got up to nine. Count ‘em, nine!
Then I had heart surgery. The first day I went on my jog in the park a couple of months into my recovery, I reached up to the high bars in the playground and ugh, ouch, yuck, struggled to do one very sad pathetic chin up. “It’s not fair,” I exclaimed (in language even more colorful), “I worked so hard to get up to nine…and now I’m back at ground zero.”
Insert here a heavenly voice: “Rick, you did nine…you’ll get back to nine…just keep at it.”
And so I have. Struggling, sweating, squirming, scowling, promising myself that it’s really too hard for a guy like me, I’ve kept at them. Today I have something to celebrate. I got back up to nine. Not a heroic, put-it in-a-magazine nine, but one set of nine it was. I don’t expect I’ll ever repeat it again, but I did it once.
Personal Change expert Ariane de Bonvoisin emphasizes how important it is to give yourself time when you’re making a change or trying to grow in any significant way. I can tell you from experience, that if you’re recovering from surgery and you’re not happy about your progress, give it a year. Give it more than a year. It’s been 16 months since my surgery, and I’m finally up to nine chin ups.
Years ago when Mom first visited me at college – I’d been a student there for six months and she hadn’t seen my room yet because it was a long flight from home – she looked with curiosity at the posters adorning the cinderblock walls, the dirty clothes piling up on the floor, the books and papers littering my desk. She might have said a typical mom thing like, “Why do you keep the place such a mess?” Instead she surprised me by saying, “I always feel better when I see where my kids live. It’s easier to picture them when I go to bed at night and say my prayers.”
I remember thinking, “Mom prays for me?” I never once doubted that my parents loved me but that Mom would regularly pray for her four children, in between sending us chirpy letters, candy at Valentine’s Day, calling us back whenever we made a call home so it wouldn’t be “on your nickel,” came as something of a surprise. Sure, she’d been a sterling Sunday school teacher, supervising craft projects that were the envy of the other teachers, but I never thought of Mom as a praying type person.
Now that I’m a parent I have a better understanding of the spiritual glue that keeps families together, the way you’re always praying for your kids because you’re also always thinking about them. On a daily basis I have a dozen images of my kids passing through my head, and yes, sometimes it means picturing them in their messy dorm rooms, praying that they’re doing their homework. That I passed through college with flying colors is surely a credit to my mom’s prayers, but that I’ve never thought of that until now is also a credit to Mom.
What she did for us kids never came with any strings attached. She didn’t expect a thank you. So here’s one, better late than never, and may I do half as good a job with Will and Tim. THANKS, MOM!
Do you have a prayer partner? It’s something I’d never considered until a dozen years ago. I’d hit a dead end in my prayer life and I realized I needed a little help. Yes, I tried to be consistent, reading a few psalms a day and closing my eyes and seeking a certain peace, but I also figured I should have someone I could talk to about what was working and…well, what wasn’t working.
That’s when my friend Arthur and I started having lunches every few months. Arthur is twenty years older than me and a good deal wiser and someone who’s always working at his own prayer life.
I don’t know what I expected when we had that first lunch, but what I’ve discovered is a long, abiding friendship. Because prayer encompasses all of life, we talk about everything – our kids, our marriages, our work, our health. And we laugh a lot too. I don’t think we look especially holy. The only rule is that we talk about how we’re doing when we pray.
Arthur is the one who gave me words to a prayer that I say every day, it’s an ancient text going back centuries. Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me. Make haste to help me. Rescue me and save me. Let thy will be done in my life. No matter where I am, no matter how disjoint I feel, the words help me focus my thoughts. That was his gift to me. His gift to hundreds of other people, I daresay.
His other gift is an understanding that to pray for others is to love them and when you grow in prayer you grow in love.
Arthur and I had lunch today. Can you guess? It was a good day.
I’ve often felt that if Dante were alive today he’d put airline travel somewhere in the seven circles of hell. The agony of waiting, going through security, having your flight cancelled, coping with bad weather, coping with rude passengers, getting knee-whacked by the flight attendant’s cart, finding that the one place you want to travel can only be reached with a five-hour layover in O’Hare…in short, the experience can be infernal. And yet, flying often puts us in touch with the people we love.
The other day I had to fly back from Portland, Oregon to New York City. There was one direct flight, but it would get me in pretty late. The other options had me changing flights all over the map. The only thing that looked possible had a two-and-a-half-hour layover in Long Beach, California – not exactly the shortest route between two points. At least I wouldn’t be too far from where my boys both go to college. Maybe I’d give them a call from the airport.
A few emails passed through cyberspace and then a phone call to Portland. “We’ll meet you for breakfast,” my older son, William, said. “But what about your classes?” I asked. “Neither Tim nor I have anything until noon,” he said.
The plane dipped over the Pacific and dropped into a tropical-looking paradise. Will and Tim pulled up at the curb in their borrowed-from-a-cousin, held-together-by-prayers old station wagon, and we drove off to a coffee shop at the surf’s edge. The hour and a half we spent together was worth every minute of flying. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the miracle of flight – how easy it is to forget what a miracle it is – we wouldn’t have been together.
Let me change that suggestion for Dante. Put air travel up in the heavens. It’s a blessing--and so are my kids.
In the wake of Father’s Day I should tell you what I was really a failure at with my two boys: Sports.
What does a 22-year-old leave behind when he leaves home for the last time?
Carol and I flew out to California for a long weekend for Will’s graduation from college. There was so much to celebrate. That he put himself through the rigors of a tough econ major, that he finished a thesis, that in this economy he managed to get himself a job. That he’s done all of this without a parent by his side making sure homework got done, job applications were filled out, interviews were attended. That must mean he’s an adult, 22 years old, ready to take care of himself. 