Goodnight, Little Leaguer … and Good Bye

In sports, the ultimate quest is for that happy ending — whether it is the end of a game or a championship season. There is always that desire to reach the end zone, to touch home plate, to sit completely fulfilled and be able to walk away a winner.

But life keeps going. It keeps going until that inevitable unhappy ending.

During my Dad's last days, a hospital chaplain asked me my age. I replied 31 and she smiled and shook her head and replied," That's so young." I sarcastically replied, "Well, thank you." But I knew what she meant before she said, "It's just so young to lose your father."

And I think it is. I think 59 is far too young for my Dad to leave us all. But my little sister is only 23. And my friend the pro fighter was even younger when he lost his father. And the beautiful girl who works across the office from me was younger than I when she lost her mother not that long ago.

Death is that unhappy ending that we sadly cannot control. It will plague us all at one time or another.

As my Dad's time fell upon us, my mind wandered.

You think about a lot of things. You think about your family and your friends, you see what genuine good truly is and what the worst of the worst really can be. You think about being in love and being alone. You think about priorities, what really matters. You think about living life and, of course, death. You think about all the lessons and the memories and the good times and the bad times.

For much of my life, my Dad and I didn't exactly see eye to eye. He had a quick temper and a sharp tongue. Quite frankly, he was a hardass most of the time.

As I got older, he softened in many of his ways. He seemed more than anything just to want to be around those that he loved most.

Looking back, through both the ups and downs of our relationship as father and son, his lessons and his ways shaped me.

In his final days, he hardly resembled the man he had been for all of my life. That's why, ultimately, my Mom and I agreed that we wanted a closed casket at the funeral. I wanted people to remember him for how he really was.