For this blog, I was encouraged to write about my belated return to fast-pitch softball.
Last week, I emerged from a four-year retirement to participate with twentysomethings and thirtysomethings in the national Class A tournament in North Mankato at the age of almost-60.
But it didn’t go the way I hoped. I had a chance to get the game-winning hit in our fourth game, but I grounded out to second base. I couldn’t turn back the clock, I guess.
I returned home to Worthington thinking fate had dealt me a cruel blow. This might very well have been my final appearance on a fast-pitch softball field ever, and I came away feeling cheated.
I wanted one last shot at reaching for a star, and instead all I got was a handful of air.
That same Saturday night after my ignominious last game of the national tournament, I got a late-night phone call from my youngest daughter, Laura, telling me that she’s in the hospital. And in a few hours, doctors said, she may be ready to deliver her and Nathan’s second child.
I’d still been fuming about how life can be so heartless to a dedicated old ballplayer, but I spent that night thinking of babies. Early on Sunday morning, Sandy and I rushed to the hospital to be with Laura and Nathan, and at 10:41 a.m. their second boy made his appearance into the world prematurely — but beautifully.
There are many thoughts that burst upon the senses when a baby is born, and especially when you happen to be there on the day it occurs. I’ll never really understand what a mother feels at the moment of birth, of course, but as I pondered the appearance of my seventh grandchild I was struck by the enormous amount of attention we shower upon newborns.
It starts after conception. The doctor visits, the tests, the medications, the advice. Babies are a big deal. Mothers and fathers revolve their lives around this miraculous new life. Big brothers (Nathan and Laura’s 5-year-old Tyson, I mean) like to sit next to mommy and touch her stomach. My other two daughters, Shannon and Kari, giddily buy baby clothes and wonder daily at what the little one’s name will be. The mother’s mother (Sandy) regularly checks up on her daughter’s health, and the daughter dutifully reveals her bouts with nausea.
But she glows. She literally glows. I could really see it in Laura’s relieved yet contented face in the hospital room after Luke Todd was born.
How marvelous were the doctors. How thoughtful and patient were the nurses. Yes, it struck me as wonderful how we cherish newborn babies.
I feel especially sad today that not all unborn children are seen as precious, but as I gazed upon Luke I thanked God that this one — my fifth grandson — is treated by everyone in the room as if he were the center of the universe.
They say that the birth of every baby is God telling us that the world should go on. That’s a terrific thought, isn’t it.
After that disappointing fast-pitch tournament, I wondered to myself why God couldn’t have thrown me a bone. Why couldn’t He have lifted that ground ball over the second baseman’s head and let those two runs score that would have given us a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning over that hot-shot Pennsylvania team?
I wondered if, perhaps, He was trying to tell me that my priorities had gotten out of whack — that it shouldn’t have mattered to me so much — that there are other things in life that are much more important.
Yeah, I think I got my answer on Sunday.