It’s one of those days when nothing happens, nothing but life.
My daughter’s volleyball season is ended. It is freshman year and her first high school year is through.
Six days rest, and basketball is next week. She may play, or she may focus on volleyball alone. She’s a freshman. She’s growing up. I give her the respect and dignity to decide. It is her choice, her life, and I let her know I love her.
I went to the gym with my youngest son. I am coaching his team this year, and so we go to the gym to practice. He is excited.
A friend from church is at the front desk. Her husband leads our Knights of Columbus, and she shares news I did not know.
A friend to us has passed, seventy-six. He wasn’t at Mass on Sunday. I thought nothing of it, but another did, and a wellness check on Monday, they found him sitting in his chair, an open book—that’s the way he went.
He was one of the purest people I’ve ever met, retired librarian for our town, always involved in Church events, our local museum, senior center activities; and when not at these, reading as he loved to do. He was our council recorder, and whenever someone had a question, he always knew where to find the answer.
I seek to see a blessing in the news—that he went the way he’d have wanted to go: an open book, reading in his chair.
When I saw the way he lived, I told my wife—had I never met her—I could have seen myself in the life he came to lead.
My son doesn’t know who we’re speaking of. He is still excited, and still ready to play; and so we go.
We practice layups. We practice catching, setting feet, and shooting. We play around, and a couple older kids (to my son) ask if we’d like to play two-on-two.
We do.
We go on a tear and the big kids are taken wholly off guard as my son cuts and drives and shoots and I do my best to break, feeling my heart and the age of forty thinking I can still play full-go, full-time.
There are a couple middle school girls watching. My son’s ruined the older kids’ intent of winning favor. They’re smiling and watching the little kid ball out (I tell him after, and he blushes as most boys do in discovery that they are noticed by a girl).
Sometimes it goes that way.
Up about thirty, we lose in the end on a “next point wins,” and everyone leaves happy as we go from the gym to meet his brother and sister at Confirmation Class at church.
I meet my older kids in their class, walking in quiet and sitting beside them in same, as my youngest shoots hoops in the dark and parking lot outside.
They are learning of the Holy Spirit.
It is always there, sometimes more overt in sign for our discerning than others.
We leave.
I ask a favor of my daughter.
“Next Knights meeting, could you cook some chocolate chip cookies for us?”
She agrees and asks why. I tell them of Michael Good.
My youngest son begins to cry and my daughter doesn’t know why. She hasn’t put the name with the face, not quite yet.
“Why are you crying?” my daughter asks.
“Because he always made us chocolate chip cookies whenever we would help,” my son answers.
My son and I both have memories of turkey carvings at the senior center—for hours—and my son would play and snack on cookies the whole time that Michael brought, for every event, to offer and share with all of us.
Last Knight’s meeting, he did something he’d never done before. He brought ziplocks and made sure I went home with a full bag to share with my family.
Maybe he knew.
I’d asked him too to be the sponsor to my oldest children as they went through the sacrament of Confirmation. He was one of the most devout and consistent Catholics I’ve ever known.
He didn’t tell me “no.”
He simply answered, “We’ll see.”
Maybe he knew.
My son’s tears come. My son’s tears go. My daughter, knowing now of who I speak, is sad—and quiet, in kind of way she gets from me.
Home, we watch the World Series. The Blue Jays beat the Dodgers. They lead the series 3-2; and my oldest son is ecstatic. A friend from growing up coaches on the team, and for the post-season, he is a Blue Jays fan.
When spring ball begins, he’ll root for the Orioles again.
I go to bed. I say my prayers.
My children are growing up. A friend of mine has died. A friend of mine is a game away from winning a World Series.
It is one of those days when nothing happens, nothing but life.