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by Stephen Muse, PhD

It’s June 17, 1990. My kids, 7 and 6 years old, have been talking about Father’s Day for a week and bringing me all sorts of little presents stapled and taped and wrapped in tissue and colored papers. Today they have a little basket of gifts for me. They are so excited, it surprises me. They have constructed wonderful little cards, creatively combining plants and beads and paper cut-outs to make all sorts of puzzles and games for me. I’ve got rocks and paper-clips, rubber bands and little designs on a string as well as a big cross with Scotch tape all over it. So many little love treasures!

After supper while playing catch, it’s evident that my son Gregory has made tremendous strides in throwing a baseball in only a couple of weeks. He has natural ability in his body and an excellent throwing arm, good aim and calculation of distance. His energy and enthusiasm are fun to watch. I like the sound of the pop when the ball falls into his glove—especially the long throws high in the air from far away. His newly negotiated movements to place himself in the right position under the ball, the energy of his face as he watches it, and that amazing point when contact is made that turns into a big smile of amazement on his face make me laugh.

A small sphere, flung into the emptiness across a chasm of air from the hand of a father, postmarked for the glove of a beloved son, contains a myriad of divine gifts cobbled together by an unseen beloved Father who has tossed us each into the sphere of life itself. Love and gratitude well up in my heart without words to express the mystery of these intersecting trajectories.

Inside the house a few minutes later, Claudia has made a delicious version of shrimp scampi, strawberries and fresh whipped cream for desert, and then we make the climb up three flights of stairs into the attic to watch the Father Clemens story. Our tiny little TV set is not part of life in the home except for a movie on the weekends. During the commercials I cringe a little inside as I see the kids’ eyes focusing with intense interest on the advertisements like some forbidden fruit. How do I protect their creativity, independence of thinking and capacity to form satisfying relationships with nature and with others and service to life? How do I prevent them from becoming little selfish consumers without capacity for wonder and respect for the incredible mystery and gift of daily life that becomes hidden behind the film of the artificial?

It’s 9 p.m. and I haven’t even thought of calling my own father until Claudia mentioned calling hers. I knew him as “Woody” and only saw him a few times after I was 4 years old. I was the one who initiated contact again in my late 20s. I have a picture of him with me, at around one year old, out on my desk along with one of my grandfather and me playing croquet in the backyard when I was around five or six. I got them out of the attic this week.

After years without acknowledging him on Father’s Day, it feels strange to start now. Yet looking at my father and my smiling baby face, I am glad for that picture, one of only a few that I have of us together. Memory of those years is locked away somewhere inside me. Like a strangely haunting melody heard far, far in the distance, it has begun to resonate in me emotionally. I want to catch the memory of love, lofted out across the empty space of decades by a father, aimed for the glove of his son’s heart. It was caught long, long ago and then dropped. Now I wonder if I can pick it up again.

Thirty-two years later it occurs to me that there is no way to teach my children to love others except by loving them. How can I teach my children to have empathy for others except by empathically responding to them? How can I teach them to have heart and bear suffering for those they love except by bearing the pain of loss in my own heart? How can a father love his children except by allowing the child within himself to be experienced in his life and loved as well?

Playing catch, whether in baseball or in love, is always a reciprocal relationship. Guess I’ll make that call after all. In love, unlike baseball, it’s never too late to catch the ball.

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