Grandma's Secret
I was a carefree, freckle-faced tomboy,
Under a baseball cap, and tanned from the sun.
But the first day of summer vacation brought rain,
And drenched the likelihood of a game-saving homerun.
'Roundabout noon, I climbed the attic stairs
Into the dusky twilit loft,
Where many an hour, I'd pass the time of day
Rummaging through family remnants that someone or other had tossed.
How I had previously overlooked this particular carton,
I didn't understand.
It was a cardboard box wrapped in age-stained paper,
And secured with a brittled rubber band.
I carefully rolled away the frayed elastic,
As it fell and curled feebly aside.
I lifted the lid and folded back the packing,
And was astonished at what lay inside.
A few sienna-browned photographs were scattered about,
Each an image of my grandmother's youth
In pigtails that stole out from under a ball cap,
And a uniform indicative of a female Babe Ruth.
Beneath those photos lay that moth-eaten uniform,
Embroidered with the number twenty-seven,
And a yellowed newspaper clipping entitled,
“If God is a woman; there will be baseball in heaven.”
But what caught my eye and caused my breath to catch,
What I was so incredibly in awe of,
Was the unmistakable, sweat-stained, dust-caked leather
Of a Neatsfoot oil-soaked glove.
The palm was dark chocolate and lined with creases,
The padding had long since worn thin.
On the face of the thumb, above the “Rawlings” patch,
The faint initials “SB” were burned in.
Had my grandmother shared my deep-rooted passion…
And the sweet old woman had never once let on
That she’d ever hit an extra-inning homerun,
Or left ducks out on the proverbial pond?
I had often come home coated with infield dirt,
And my grandma had scolded me with gentle kid-gloves…
But that dear old lady had just thrown me a curve
The likes of which legends are made of!
She had undoubtedly known the “agony of defeat,”
And had, at least once, "doubled down the left field line."
She HAD always counseled me that "Winning was just for the moment,
But sportsmanship lasted a lifetime."
I lovingly ran my fingers over the aged glove leather,
Its laces crumbling and falling apart.
Tears welled in my eyes and slid down my cheek,
And a sob rose from the depths of my heart.
I ran three blocks and down around the corner,
Then slowed reflectively at my grandparent's drive.
When grandpa opened the screen door, I wrapped my arms around him
And whispered, “Oh, how I wish grandma was still alive!”
* de - may 2003
