As a little girl my father loved to play catch with me. I wasn't very good at it but he would play anyway. He was always telling me " keep your eye on the ball" as I would not be able to catch even the easiest of throws.
As I got older, we didn't play catch as much. If I had a problem and would go to my father and ask for his advice, he would try to make a joke with me and say " keep your eye on the ball". We would both laugh because usually that advice did not apply to the problem, but he would just try to make me smile.
My father became ill in 1995 when I was 23. There weren't any more conversations, as he
was paralyzed from having a stroke. He could not speak; he could only mouth words which were sometimes hard to understand. I seemed to be pretty good at reading his lips after a while, even better than the nurses that were caring for him.
During one of our last conversations, I was telling him about a problem I was having with my then boyfriend. Once again, I could read his lips, "Keep your eye on the ball" he said, we both chuckled. That was the last time I saw my father before he passed away.
Sometimes now, all those years later when I get in a stressful situation I just tell myself "keep your eye on the ball."
0 comments
Post a Comment