My mother and a left-hand batter's box
EDITOR’S NOTE: I originally posted this for Mother’s Day 2023. I’ve since gained a few subscribers so I hope you enjoy the repost.
Happy Mother’s Day.
My mother taught me to bat when I was a kid.
I actually have no first-hand remembrance of this. However, I do just about everything right-handed except swing a bat. And, since my mother was a true lefty, it makes sense.
Our swings, however, were totally different. I can remember my mother playing city-league softball for Fayette Sportswear, and later Lanier Clothes, where she worked much of her life. I remember her swing resembled something like a hammer toss at the Highland Games. It started low and finished high.
For some reason, when I trotted out there at the age of 6 to play in our coach-pitch league back in my hometown of Fayette, I plopped into the left-hand batter’s box. Maybe it was simply because I was on that side of the diamond and it was the closest one. But I would like to think it was because, at some point prior, my mom picked up a bat and tried to teach me how to swing.
She did everything else.
Barbara Smith graduated from Winfield High School. In her high school yearbook, she listed her life goal as “to live until I die.”
She met a rounder from Fayette named Jerry Griffin. They dated on and off for almost a decade before getting married underneath a cedar tree at the Griffin homestead on the banks of the Luxapalila River in Fayette County.
She sewed. She made production consistently as a line worker and did well enough to become a supervisor after a few years.
She came home, cooked, cleaned house, got things ready for the next day and went to bed. She followed that routine for most of her life.
We had very little money when I was growing up and I did not realize until much later how much she sacrificed to make sure I went to school presentable or to make sure I had a couple of extra dollars for a field trip or a school project.
I was an only child. I should have reveled in the attention I received from my mother. She loved to tell everyone at the plant that I made the All-A honor roll in elementary school, made the Little League All-Star team, enrolled at the University of Alabama and later graduated, got a job with my name in the newspaper every day. I’m sure the other ladies at the plant just rolled their eyes, but my mother didn’t care.
When I was 12, a friend from school invited me to a church revival service. I connected and got involved with the church’s youth ministry, which amounted to about six kids ages 12-18. My mother supported me, but didn’t attend. Years later, she and my father would find church again and start attending elsewhere.
About a month after I started attending church, I remember sitting on the back pew (of course) as the pastor began to go through the church’s weekly announcements.
He pulled out a letter from my mother. It said, in part, “Thank you for taking an interest in my son and his spiritual development. He is my life.”
I always felt guilty telling my mother about some of my accomplishments. It always felt like I was bragging, and that didn’t seem right.
She would later find out stuff that I had not told her and scold me for not telling. I now wish I had told her more.
She battled cancer for the last several years of her life. In 2004, I was awarded a fellowship to spend a month in Washington, D.C., for a work-related project. During the time I was there, her health deteriorated rapidly.
By the time I came home, she practically didn’t recognize me. If she did, she believed I was much younger.
But, there was this one evening. She was under heavy medication to keep her comfortable and was sleeping almost all the time. She got out of bed and came into the kitchen for a glass of water. She saw me in the living room. She said “Come in here and tell me all about your trip to Washington.”
So I did. I told her about the project and the sightseeing. I told her about Ronald Reagan dying while I was there and seeing the procession to the Capitol rotunda.
She loved it, and fell into a restful sleep. When she woke, she didn’t remember the conversation. She died less than two weeks later.
You can believe what you want. I believe God gave both of us that 30 minutes. What a blessing.
It’s softball season again. When I step into that lefty batter’s box I always think about her.
Great tribute to your mom!