Strike!
Out!
As I waited for the last two outs, the ones that seemed
inevitable, I remembered watching the Red Sox win the World Series in 2007.
They weren’t in Boston, but I was. I watched the game on a tiny TV pulled over
Henry’s bed. I took pictures of him in his fleece Red Sox hat, with his Red Sox
bear, and a Red Sox cookie from my friend Erika on his chest. I watched because
as a Red Sox fan, I felt like I should.
In 2007, I stopped being a Red Sox fan. It wasn’t so much
that I disliked them, didn’t transfer my allegiance to another team, I just saw
them as roadblock. When the Red Sox were in town my dad couldn’t come in to
visit or bring me dinner. People would tell me to get out of the hospital for a
while, but I wasn’t willing to go as far as my parents and there were no rooms
to be had. I watched the Red Sox out of habit and some tie to my normal life,
but mostly I just wanted them to go away.
After that, I mostly ignored them. I didn’t care, associated
them with those hard months in Boston with Henry. Brian’s not a fan of sports
at all and we had cheap cable and didn’t get most of the games, so it was easy to
not watch.
This season, it wasn’t until the World Series that I started
watching again, and I thought maybe I could start doing this again, enjoy the
Red Sox again. But during that last inning, I remembered the baby who “watched”
with me last time. He should be six. Would he be a fan? I can see him with a
ball cap with that familiar B on it. Would he have begged to stay up to watch
the game? Would I have let him, remembering where he was the last time he
watched?
I jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon late this year, but maybe this is
another little piece of my life I’ve reclaiming. Little things.
Postscript: Shortly after I saw the last out and watched the players jumping and hugging, I started thinking about the parade, the inevitable "rolling rally." In all likelihood, I figured, it would be Saturday. And it is. I'm supposed to go to Boston on Saturday for the grieving families day I always go to at Children's. So once again, I'm thinking about routes and traffic and how to navigate the city around that team.
