We wanted to create a day to remember.
For our dad’s 60th birthday, my brother and I gifted him with “the first pitch” of a baseball game at our local minor league baseball team.
We didn't come up with this idea on our own.
Almost a year in advance, I shared with some folks that my brother and I wanted to plan something out of the ordinary for our dad’s birthday. I'll be honest. I didn't expect a response. Two days later I received an email from my friend, Bob Janis-Dillon, with a list of potential parties. [Some day I'll have to tell you the story about a very pregnant me stopping Bob's head from hitting a corner ledge as he fainted. Maybe he felt indebted to me? I doubt it. I think this is just Bob. Everyone needs a friend like Bob.]
Every idea on Bob's list had potential. However, one was a clear winner: throwing the first pitch.
My dad is a baseball lover, having served as second baseman on the Kentucky state championship team in high school.
On his 60th birthday that January, our Dad opened his card that read: "Guess what you'll be doing in July: throwing the first pitch!"
"How cool!" he glowed. He was delighted!
Soon his siblings and neighbors and co-workers had heard, and they weren’t going to miss it. So, my brother and I saved enough money to rent out a club box to host a party afterward.
Once summer arrived and the game was in sight, my dad began practicing. After supper each night, he went outside on our street to practice his pitch with a neighbor. He seemed uncharacteristically nervous.
What I didn’t know was that my dad had a secret.
What I know now is that he had noticed a difference in his eye-hand coordination and his spacial recognition. Something a trained architect would notice.
What we didn't know was his first pitch was also the first sign.
Good story. Good storytelling. I love the short sentence quips. I love the "Bob" digression. The play with the words know and don't know. The reader gets drawn into that as well, either knowing or not knowing the meaning of the last sentence. I really like this.
"What I didn't now what that my dad had a secret." Oh, yes. Our secrets. His secret. The disclosing. The revealing.