Excerpt: The Glove

This is something I posted a while back, and have slightly reworked it. Some version of this, be it partial or in whole, will find its way into the final draft of 7 Days: 

I sometimes go weeks at a time without missing my father. I missed my father today for the first time in a while. Seems silly, the reason: a glove. I bought a new softball glove because my current glove is nearing the end of its career. And as much as any glove advertises that it's pre-broken-in, it's nowhere close. I've taken to conditioning the glove with oil and a shaping ball, wrapping it overnight with rubber bands around the ball in the pocket, and attempting to play catch with myself to loosen it up. I didn't have that problem when I got my last glove.



I was 15 when my father was tired of seeing me play with a rickety glove, and he got me a pre-season gift. He spent more on the glove than he'd have spent on anything he bought for himself. But he didn't stop at getting me the glove. He oiled it. He shaped it. The caught with it. He thoroughly broke it in for weeks. When he handed me the glove to begin my season of play, it felt like a part of my hand. It was the greatest glove ever. 



I knew he'd broken it in for me, but all these years I didn't understand the work he put into it. It's not like you have to stay up with the glove all night and make sure it eats right—I do understand that it's just a glove. But to my father, it was a reason for his daughter to stop ditching school; for her to find something she loved and could be good at to focus on; for her to find friends whose interests involved getting to the ballpark, not stealing cars from the parking lot of them. To my father, it was more than just a glove, and so it became to me.



Missing him started out because I didn't want to break my new glove in. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right (meaning: I wasn't sure if I was doing it the way he would have done it). I had questions about how the rubber bands should go over the glove; where do I put the ball in the pocket to shape it right; how long do I leave it banded up; and how long do I have to catch with it before it feels like part of my hand?

And just as quick as it begun, I stopped missing him because I didn't know what to do. I’m a resourceful girl. The bands go on like this, the ball goes there in the pocket, band it up over night for a week and catch with it until it feels like a part of my hand. I got it.

And now I miss him because I can't thank him for all of that. I’m sure I thanked him for the glove when I was a kid. And I’m sure I thanked him again later in life when he came to my games and someone brought a new glove and I boasted about how my father broke mine in for me all those years ago. But as I’m breaking in this new glove, I realize that breaking in the glove isn’t what I need to thank him for. I never thanked him for giving me softball. 


It's not that I’ve done anything great with softball in my life; I’m an average player with a few great highlights. It's more that I love the game. I love playing it. I love being a part of a team. I love winning and giving everything I have to play my best. And even when we lose the game, I love that the end of the game is just that: the end. I always have the choice to enjoy myself on the field either way, win or lose. This is something I try to take into the rest of my life.

I wish I could thank my father for giving me that glove again; and even before that, for giving me a game that would become so much a part of my life. So much that I’d learn everything I need to know in life by learning how to play it. My father always doubted himself as being a "good father" to me. But there are no doubts in my mind. Without even trying—by just being himself—he showed me, taught me, loved me. Through the last day of his life.