For most of the last 10 years or so, my Mother's Day weekends have been spent at various baseball fields shuffling between three different kids' tournaments and games. This year was different. My boys are now 20, 18, and 14 years old and I have only one ball player left standing in my family.
So it was that I woke up on Mother's Day weekend this year to a very quiet house. By 10:30 am my 18 and 20 year old "boys" were still asleep and my 14 year old was in Delaware with my husband at a tournament. I decided to go for a run and about half way through passed by the neighborhood t-ball field where all three of my children each played their very first games. There are no dugouts at this particular field so I watched a team of kiddos sitting, standing, lying down, and doing head stands (as you do, of course) along the 1st baseline while five or six parents tried to corral them into a straight line to await their turn at bat.
With my second son set to graduate high school in a few weeks, I've been a little emotional lately. I mean I suppose it depends on how you define "a little" actually. I'm not sure how one would exactly classify the emotional health of a woman who stops running dead in her tracks at the t-ball field and stands on the sidewalk with tears running down her face.
Realizing that the more I stood there wiping my nose and face the closer I was to commencing into a full-on wail, I decided that perhaps I should be on my way. And for the rest of my miles, I ran along having a conversation in my head with myself . . . the self that I was about 15 years ago as I sat at that very field watching a five year old swing at the tee while I held a three year old in my lap and grew a baby in my belly. I wish I could sit down next to her today. I'd make sure she had enough saltines and ginger ale and a bag to puke in if things got bad. Then I'd tell her a few things that she doesn't realize about her next 15 years.
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