My ten-year-old nephew plays on several baseball teams and my husband and I go to as many games as we can. Since the sudden death of my father-in-law, we feel it’s even more important than ever for us to be there to cheer him on. PopPop and my nephew were extremely close and he was at every game, as he was at all my husband’s, then wearing the hat of coach (literally) as well as dad.
I am not able to see much of the action but my husband does an excellent job of play-by-play for me. When our nephew is at bat, I use binoculars and am able to see him a bit.
I have a nice pair of binoculars from my pre vision loss days, but when Dad died my mother-in-law suggested I try the various models Dad had in hopes one would offer me increased visibility. I found a pair that were about the same strength as mine, maybe a little improvement, and I took those. I loved the idea of watching my nephew play ball through “Dad’s eyes”.
Since last weekend’s games I had been unable to find them. We tore apart the car and couldn’t locate them. I was really, really disappointed. We received new chairs for Christmas and they came with lots of pockets and I had put the binoculars in one of the compartments and they must have fallen out.
Arriving at the fields this morning, we decided to look one more time in the car, but struck out once again. I suggested to my husband that we ask at the snack stand if someone had turned them in. While I got what we needed for the game today out of the car, my husband went to check if what we had lost had been found. He came back to the car, holding Dad’s binoculars. I could have cried I was so happy.
Some Good Samaritan found them and turned them in. They are very nice and whoever picked them up could have taken them as their own. But they did the right thing and turned them in, where they spent the last week in a locked building, at the complex that Dad spent so many hours, thirty years apart. I’d like to think he had a hand in getting them back to me.
The next time you find something that belongs to another, try to get it back to its owner. While it may be an object to you, to the loser it can be so much more. Other than him being at his spot along the fence again, I believe Dad would love nothing more than for me to use his lenses to watch his grandson play baseball.
But who am I kidding? He may not be at the fence, but he’s in every pitch, in every story. Just like his binoculars, when he’s lost to us, we can find him at the ball fields.
