13 Baseball Sundays with Sienna: a sad week

1981 - a Little League field somewhere in Framingham, Ma 
"Someday you'll round those bases, John. Just not today. Now lets get some ice cream, kids." Mrs. Thomson to John Thomson and myself after a Little League game.

May 5, 2012, in a Brooklyn apartment
Sienna is down for her early morning nap as I try to arrange her schedule to make "dash" part of the Mets game. It is also as good as time to talk about the events of the past week.

Sunday, April 30, just past brunch in Prospect Park
 I knew why John was calling, which is why I didn't answer the phone. I admit there are times when I am very human, most likely cowardly, and not wanting to face such awful news. So I let the phone go to voicemail.

Sure, I was hanging out with Danielle and Sienna in Prospect Park watching Jason and Emily's son play Little League baseball. One of those ridiculously beautiful New York days where the weather forecast calls for rain, it stays sunny all day, and a pre-game brunch takes the event from wonderful to I'll-remember-this-day.

Turns out there would be other reasons to remember the day.

John is my oldest friend in the world. I met him when I was six years old, or maybe five, the exact date lost to lore, though the specifics that we were playing in the dirt with big digger trucks part of the narrative. We grew up a mere four houses away from each other, in a time when you could turn to your parent, tell them you were walking down the street and nobody would worry that you would not get there. The narrative includes Johnathan Maynard school, Brophy school, Farley Middle School, Framingham South High School, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a business together, he and his wife being Sienna's Godparents, and a million other events and incidents.

Framingham - 1981
John and I had been excited when we were put on the same Little League team. Though not as excited as our parents - the same team meant an easier car pooling situation, which is the holy grail of suburban parenting.

Mrs. Thomson and my mother were a strange match. Mrs. Thomson a first generation Catholic woman from Scotland who had come to the United States at 24, and my mother a second generation Jewish woman. Mrs. Thomson was probably 5 or 6 years older than my mother, which I'm sure bothered my mother - though I would never know why.

Over the years I would discover that they both had adventurous streaks that manifested itself in travel, defending their children, and a stubborn streak. What was most important was that John and I were friends and that everyone was comfortable when the kids were playing together.

And in this case car pooling.

Since it was a week night game Mrs. Thomson was driving. Which meant she was watching when John was at bat.

Brooklyn - 2012
I still ignored the phone call though. Other than turning to Danielle and saying, "Damn, it's John."

During our childhood, I ended up a pseudo-extension of John's family. His younger brother Rob, his younger sister Jenny, his father John and his mother Jan. Which is why I didn't pick up the phone. His mother had Alzheimer's disease and four years early had been hit by a car.

She hadn't been expected to survive the accident. Danielle and I went up to visit with the family as they waited in the hospital with Mrs. Thomson. What the Doctor's did not account for was that Mrs. Thomson was a first generation Scottish woman - part of the generation that had been forged in various tragedies and automatically would not quit. Ever.

The Doctor's had to sedate her because Mrs. Thomson instinctively tried to rip the tubes from her body as she lay on the bed.

No, Mrs. Thomson never got better. The Alzheimer's had made everything awful, the accident sped everything up.

1981 Framingham
John was already about five inches taller than me at age 8. A wonderfully gawky age where he was all flailing limbs. Naturally he was awful at baseball.

Natural selection is a funny thing. John became quite a great soccer playing - both parents being from Scotland is merely a coincidence, I'm sure - a snow boarder, and yes, even a softball player.

At 8 he was awful though. He had not gotten the ball on the bat the entire season. Now, these days he would get a trophy for such an effort - in 1981 he got picked on by teammates. Hey, we were 8, what do you want? It had passed the point of mockery though; we didn't even joke about it anymore.

He was Casey at Bat sans all the success.

It was late in the game with two outs when John came to bat. Someone was on somewhere. It didn't matter, a strike out was on its way.

The father (father's pitched) tossed the ball in, John took a mighty swing and yes, he made contact. The aluminum bat made a noise unlike anything we had ever heard before.
 
2012 Brooklyn
My phone buzzed as a text message from John arrived. "I have bad news."

I still didn't want to call. Danielle, Jason and Emily all encouraged me to call. It wasn't surprising news, it was just too real. That was actually a Mrs. Thomson specialty - taking something that was raw and too real for me and making offering solace and wisdom.

She did it for me when I was twelve years old and my mother had died from cancer. A few weeks after the funeral John and I got into a fist fight. I mostly likely started the fight as I was furious with the world. Mrs. Thomson came out of nowhere to break up the fight.

I was crying, I was furious and Mrs. Thomson was understanding. I am not sure exactly what she said, I do remember the points she made. That I had a right to be upset, but there would be no fighting and that no matter what I would be welcome at their house whenever I wanted.

No questions asked. That is what you do.

1981 - Little League
John was rounding second base when the ball finally landed. It was like someone had put a jet rocket on the ball before launching it into the air. It was a little league TOWERING SHOT - all caps, no doubt about it, our entire team jumping up accordingly.

Unfortunately John had hit the ball almost straight up.

As John later graduated with an Engineering degree I am sure he could explain the physics of the ball. At eight years old, all we knew is that the ball nestled easily into the shortstop's glove - the only time all year John would make contact.

He was crestfallen as we made the way back to the car. Mrs. Thomson was left to pick up the pieces of an "almost" like moment. She put her arm around her son and did some parenting.

"Someday you'll round those bases, John. Just not today. Now lets get some ice cream, kids."

She looked at me and added, "and don't tell you Mother, Wayne."

My mother never would have believed that Mrs. Thomson of all people a) suggested the ice cream, and b) was willing to risk the ruining of dinner. So I kept it to myself.

Framingham until now...
Over the years Mrs. Thomson always made sure to have John ask me whether I have a place for various Holidays. Just knowing the offer was there made a huge difference. Of all the people of the people outside of my family who made promises when my mother died Mrs. Thomson was the only one who kept any of them.

When she had moved to Framingham with her husband they had made turned various friends into family for the children - for her I was another friend who was now family. To her there wasn't a reason to do it, other than that is what you do.

I finally called John back and he gave me the "official" news. He called it bittersweet and I certainly understood - there is a point where you don't recognize your parent and it certainly isn't the shell that you are visiting in the hospital. I had understood it from 25 years before. Like Mrs. Thomson had been there for me, I would be there for John and the rest of the Thomson clan - because that is just what you do.
 
Today
I can hear Sienna in her bedroom making noise. I've told her stories about Mrs. Thomson in the past. I've told her the difference Mrs. Thomson made in Daddy's life. I've told her that the reason Daddy plays so well with Sienna is because Mrs. Thomson reinforced how family is so important and that you can make your family where ever you are. That on top of everything spending time with your children - and other people's children so they know they are important and loved can be the thing a parent can do.

I'll tell Sienna again and again because these things are important. Mrs. Thomson would have liked the family time together. She also would have laughed that Sienna looks exactly like her Daddy. Today though - we're running the bases.

Wayne