When I pulled into my driveway this evening, I had to be careful to avoid getting in the way of a softball. The man next door was outside with his daughter again. The little girl is around 8 or 9 years old and he was throwing balls high into the air for her to practice catching fly balls.
“Great catch!” I called to her as she got to a difficult ball just in time. Then I asked her dad — jokingly — if she’s going to be a softball star.
“She already is,” he said as he beamed with pride. “She plays on the community team and they’ve been winning tournaments. They won in Tuscaloosa next weekend. If they win one more, they go to the state tournament.”
I don’t know this family well, but we always wave and say hello. They’re originally from somewhere in Latin America and the parents’ accented English is sometimes difficult for me to understand.
This evening, though, I didn’t have any trouble understanding. He was a loving father whose pride in his little girl was unmistakable. His love for his daughter transcended our language gap.
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
Economic Man needs no heart, because love and God are dead
How do we start over and give ourselves parenting we needed?
Stop using children as pawns to promote adult political agendas
Without peaceful breakup plan, U.S. faces violent, angry collapse
We live in Reverse World, where black is white and good is evil
Spending all of life in politics leaves many out of touch with real people
My love of ‘fur friends’ stems from the callousness I saw in my father
Finding joy brings more happiness than the empty pursuit of pleasure