“Wanna have a catch?”
I have never understood people who say they have no regrets. To me, it’s like saying you’ve never made mistakes. Indeed, Dr. Noam Shapancer has gone so far as to say, “One could argue that having no regrets is a sign of having not lived fully. Regret is a common human emotion. If you haven’t experienced it, you lack experience; if you haven’t hit that note, you haven’t played all the keys.”
My regrets have been strange friends to me: as long as I learn from them, leaving them in the past and letting them go, they bring the sweet aroma of wisdom for today. If I obsess over them, allowing them to create sadness and anxiety, they stink up the place. So, I shake hands with them, thank them, and move on, all the better for having had a chat with them.
Maybe that’s one reason Randy Long’s note on that bucket of baseballs touched so many of us: like him, we feel that pain of regret for what is gone and likely never will be again.
Mr. Long’s wife took a picture and sent it to his grandson, Ethan Anderson, who tweeted it.
Here’s the note:
“Hope someone can use some of these baseballs in the batting cages. I found them cleaning my garage. I pitched them to my son and grandson for countless rounds. My son is now 46 y/o and my grandson is 23 y/o. I am 72 and what I won’t give to pitch a couple of buckets to them. They have both moved away. If you are a father cherish these times. You won’t believe how quickly they will be gone.
God bless
P.S. Give them a hug and tell them you love them every chance you get.”
Ethan must have had some regret for not spending more time with his grandad.
He said he was touched by how many people have reached out to him. “I’ve had a lot of kids younger than me telling me they’ll cherish the times they have in the cages with their dads or grandads,” he said. “How they won’t take it for granted anymore.”
The good news is, Anderson is meeting up with his grandad. “I get to go back and visit every now and then, just didn’t realize that he missed hitting in the cages, I guess,” he said.
It’s those ” I just didn’t realize it” memories that pull at our heartstrings, causing regrets.
We didn’t realize what we were missing, or how much those throw-away moments meant to someone we loved.
But, then, hopefully, we can make course corrections. Like Ethan Anderson, we may be able to double back and do something that mattered to someone we love.
But maybe we can’t. Even when we aren’t able to make up for something that’s slipped through our fingers into eternity, we can still make better decisions today that will affect the people we love in more positive ways. A painful memory can redirect us, helping us avoid repeating a particular behavior.
I recall being so busy “doing the Lord’s work,” that as I was driving across town, I looked at a baseball field and suddenly realized I was missing my son’s ball game. It was a wake-up call for me, a regret I didn’t want to carry. At that moment, I changed my path, choosing what for me was more important: showing up for my son, spending hours with him, tossing the baseball or football, just talking.
Do you remember the final scene in the classic movie, Field of Dreams? The “heaven” that is baseball brings father and son back together. Ray Kinsella (Kevin Kostner) regrets not spending more time with his dad, John Kinsella (Dwier Brown), who wanted to play catch with Ray. Ray calls out across the ballfield at dusk: “Hey Dad, wanna have a catch?”
And John turns around and answers, “I’d like that.”
Just the other day, my grandson sneaked up to my study, even though he knew he was supposed to leave PopPop alone.
“PopPop, wanna play catch?” he whispered.
“I’d like that,” I said.
And closing my books, I grabbed a baseball glove and followed him to the front yard.