The news a couple of nights ago told a story about a New York firefighter who died on 9/11/01, and left behind a wife and two very young children.  The four of them had been together that morning - at the fire station - visiting with dad shortly before he began his day.  When he kissed them all good-bye, no one knew it was for the last time.  Their oldest child - a boy - will be throwing out the first pitch today with his father’s baseball hero, Ken Griffey, Jr., who has, over the past six years, become a friend to the family.  As I watched the pictures of the boy - who is somewhere between the ages of 8 and 10 - throw a baseball around in his backyard as he prepared for his big moment on the mound, I couldn’t help but think, “Look at him - he’s lived much longer without his father than he lived with him.”  I also thought, thankfully, that he looked to me to be old enough when his dad died to remember him after he was gone.  I don’t know how long one lives after the loss of a loved one before one truly moves on.  How long before you stop seeing them out of the corner of your eye, smelling their presence in familiar places, or looking at articles of clothing and stopping yourself? I’m guessing the answer is never - that that special someone is with you, one way or another, for the rest of your life.

People say it’s very, very hard to hit a baseball - one of the hardest things to do in sports.  Maybe it is.  But it seems pretty small when it’s compared to running into a burning building and up the stairs, and not knowing - really not knowing - if you’ll come back out.  As I watched that child on the news, and looked at pictures of him draped around the shoulders of Ken Griffey, I thought to myself, I hope he thinks good things about his dad when he least expects to - and remembers what a good man he was when he needed to be.

Posted by Charlie Baker in Uncategorized