Leaving...for good.

Hello Becky,

It is Monday morning and I just finished reading the poem you wrote years ago about the train leaving the station. It was probably your dad heading towards Philadelphia and then to the airport heading back to Brazil. Poems that get memorized can be a problem especially if they get cemented into one's brain and do them harm by one's ruminating on the past, the broken, the way it used to be etc. I promise you that I will not try to memorize that poem you wrote from your broken heart. It would paralyze me no doubt.
It is never easy to say goodbye to the people and things we love the most--even things we have held to be foundational. Yesterday, at age 65 plus for example, I said goodbye to baseball. It was something I needed to come to grips with but still not easy. I needed to leave baseball emotionally for my own good and for the development of others younger than I. Soon I will leave it geographically too. I will help pitchers instead of pitching. I thought I was going to have to go in there myself and “save” the game in order for us to qualify for the playoffs. Fortunately, the game was “called” due to a time element that was decided upon prior to the start of the game. No new inning could be started after 12 noon. I would have tried to fix it. I would have gone in that game to try to fix it believing in my heart that I could somehow manage with all my past experience, savvy and one more curve ball or the famous knuckle ball that could still dance and mystify the batter. Thank God for established guidelines for the good of the game. I may wear a coaching uniform but never more a players baseball uniform. It is for the good of the game, and a great game. I remember the movie. Ha Ha!!!
Leaving mom and dad is never easy. Fathers and mothers often make it hard for their children to leave home as well. (Just you wait and see.) The leaving home geographically, financially and emotionally is one big adventure. Dad’s and old coaches can’t fix everything nor can loving moms nor should they think they have to. When will we ever learn that God designed it that way for the good of the game and for us too (with our partner in life) so that we will all live in dependency upon Him? God loves us and His “gracious love” is irresistible. I am super happy about that. And I am so confident that You find Him irresistible as well. You and God however are going to have to figure out the butterflies, the dolphins, the colors, the dreams and their interpretations however because they are completely foreign to me. So, I will pray that God will lead you and protect you and use you for His glory all along the way. And He will. Love you!
Dad