That empty feeling ~ August 30, 2001

David Heiller

The empty feeling settled over me on Monday morning, August 27. I had been waiting for it to come, and when it hadn’t, I felt a bit puzzled and relieved. Bad feelings have a way of sneaking up on people.

Malika on her first day of 
kindergarten at Willow River.

I was lying in bed, trying to pry myself awake, when it finally hit, and I remembered that Mollie wasn’t upstairs. She wasn’t upstairs this morning, and she wouldn’t be upstairs tomorrow morning or the next.

We had taken her to Golden Valley the day before, in a car packed with boxes and bins, to her new home, a high school dormitory.

We were excited to see her room, to help her unpack, to meet her roommate, to look at the other kids filtering in. They all seemed to be equally excited and scared. I still remember those feelings from 30 years ago when I went away to college.

The parents looked the same way. Trying hard to be happy. Telling themselves, This is the right thing to do. We've thought this through. She’s ready for this. It will be good for her. And wondering if it was true.

Mollie heard about the Perpich Center for Arts Education last year. It is a high school that specializes in six areas: music, dance, literary arts, visual arts, media arts, theater. She wrote away for details. We went to an informational meeting with her. She met some teachers and students. She liked what she saw. We liked it too, but mostly because she did. The drive had to come from within her. She applied, did a vocal audition, and got accepted as a music student.

Malika on stage at the Perpich
Center For the Arts High School.

So I had a long time to prepare for that empty feeling. Sixteen years, to be exact. And I still wasn’t ready! The funny thing is, if you are ready for that, then your heart is a bit too hard.

The empty feeling will pass. I’ll adjust to it. Rational thought will rush in to fill the void. Cindy and I will watch Mollie grow and floun­der and flourish. Pick your adjective; she will probably experience it.

We’ll see her take many more steps like this. We have been watching those steps —and helping her when she stumbles—since 1985. At least I hope we get to see them.

Journeys come in all shapes and sizes. First day of school. First overnight. First trip to camp. First date. This is just another one, like it is for Mom and Dad.

So let me soak up the silence. That will help me get through it. No calling the dog to her room when she wakes up. No bickering with her brother. No marathon gab sessions with her girlfriends. No chatter about the movie she saw or about the boy she likes. No tears over mean words spoken at school. No bike rides down the gravel road. No quiet visits on the bench by the garden. No singing.

Dutch Jones told me a long time ago to enjoy my kids while I could, because they grow up too fast. I still remember that advice. I tried to keep it in mind. It still doesn't stop time from marching on. And we don’t want it to do that, because when you live in the past, you stop living.

The empty feeling will gradually fade away. I can feel it happening already. Then I’ll wait until the next one arrives, as it most certainly will.

The great debate ~ August 7, 2001

David Heiller

The Great Debate is never far from the surface at our house.

It’s a consequence of having two children two years apart.

Throw in the fact that they are of different gender and opposite personalities, and some powerful dramas can ensue.

Oh, those kids!

Negotiation is one aspect of The Great Debate. A typical Negotiation played out last Sunday afternoon in the kitchen.

“Noah, I’d like you to clean the porches,” I told my son, age 18. Just then my daughter walked into the house. I had to think fast. You can’t give one kid a job while the other looks on.

“Mollie, can you empty the dishwasher?” I asked my daughter, Malika, age 16. It wasn’t really a question, and she knew it.

Mollie started an immediate, barely audible protest. Noah’s radar went up.

“Mollie do you want to switch with me?” he asked her.

“OK,” Mollie replied, and the deal was done. Mollie whipped through the two porches, straightening shoes, sweeping the floor, giving the rugs the quickest of shakes. She worked like lightening, no doubt hoping to beat her brother.

Noah put away glasses, plates, silverware, and bowls with the efficiency of a Ford assembly line worker.

Not surprisingly, their two jobs ended at the same time. That is Newton’s Third Law of Teenage Physics: Two jobs given to teenage siblings will be completed by each person in the same amount of time, regardless of the degree of difficulty of each job.

Putting kids to work starts early.

Negotiations like this play out almost daily in our house. They are amazing to watch. I asked Mollie later why she negotiated. “I hate emptying the dishwasher,” she replied. How can you hate a job like that, I wondered to myself. Then I thought, It’s been a long time since you were a teenager, Dave.

Chore Injustice is another part of The Great Debate. Each kid is always on the outlook for Chore Injustice.

It goes something like this:

“Noah, take out the trash and empty the compost bucket.”

“What?!?”

“You heard me.”

“What about Mollie?”

And all of a sudden they are grown up and help with 
really, really big chores, like cleaning out
 30+ years of debris from a hayloft.

“What about Mollie?”

“What does she have to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if I’ve got to do the trash and compost, what does Mollie have to do?”

“Worry about yourself, don’t worry about your sister.”

At this point Noah has to change his tactics, because I have been known to start adding jobs to kids who protest too much.

“I had to split wood for the sauna yesterday,” Noah says. He’s got a bigger strategy in mind.

“You always split wood for the sauna,” I answer. “That’s your job.”

“My point exactly,” Noah says with the finality of Bobby Fischer. “And what job does Mollie have?”

He is slowly and delicately backing me into a corner.

“She does the recyclables.”

“Recyclables!” Noah says with a snort. “That’s not a real job.”

“Fine, then you can do it.” Checkmate for me.

Then there is the Magnificent Excuse, another component of the Great Debate.

Mollie pulled one out last Sunday morning. She was practicing her vocal lessons up in her room, in preparation for singing in church this Sunday.

“It’s good to hear her practicing.” Cindy said. I agreed.

Mollie came downstairs. “Mollie, can you unload the dishwasher?” I asked. Mollie pulled out a trump card. Had she heard Cindy’s comment a few minutes earlier, even though she was blasting out a high C at 110 decibels?

“I can’t. I’m practicing my music,” she said like an aristocrat to the stable hand.

“Well, practice it while you unload the dishwasher,” I countered.

Malika has always been willing to take on the floors. 
Emptying the dishwasher, not so much.

“Dad, you know I can’t just stand and work and sing at the same time. That’s not how it works.”

“Well, what are you doing upstairs?” “I’m working on my scrapbook.”

“How come you can work a scrapbook and sing but you can’t put away dishes and sing?”

“Dad,” she said with a disbelieving chuckle and a shake of her head. She walked triumphantly back upstairs. She had me, and she knew it, and she knew I knew it. She has lived with me for 16 years. She knew I would not mind her singing upstairs instead of five feet away from me. (Remember that decibel level?) She knew I would like the fact that she was working on her scrapbook, which is the most ornate publication this side of a 12th century Bible. Most importantly, she knew her mother would be on her side. And as an added bonus, she was practicing for church.

Game, set, match.

Well, not quite. She did end up emptying the dishwasher a couple hours later.

The Great Debate. Playing in a household near you. It’s better than a four-star movie.

The garage gets a new look ~ August 13, 1992

David Heiller

The top floor of our garage has taken on a new appearance lately. My tool bench now has a shade-less lamp and the bottom part of a broken food processor on it. My work table is covered with an old bed sheet. On top of it is a silk flower arrangement, a rusty tea kettle, and three wooden bowls. Two old kitchen chairs are pulled up next to it, along with a 10-gallon milk can turned upside down with two toy tea cups on it.

Two old hats are sitting on a cooler. Two old blankets have been taken from a box and spread out on the floor. An old bathroom sink has been dragged to the middle of the room.

Malika and a "yeah-but" look.

All this is the work of a seven-year-old girl who has discovered a new playhouse. She led me up to it by the hand one day recently, so proudly that I had to check my anger like another old hat at the door.

MY garage, with boxes so old I don’t know what’s in them, with broken chairs that never got mended, with old hats that don’t work anymore, with blankets to cover the tomatoes, with electric motors and tackle boxes and jars of nails screwed into the rafters, MY garage has been invaded.

Sure, it is full of junk and clutter, like an old attic. But there was method to the madness. About once a year I look through things, re-stack boxes, sort the nails that have been thrown on the tool bench, clear a space on the floor. I didn’t need Mollie to rearrange things for me—that was my first peevish thought.

I suppose there was something deeper too. You could argue that a garage is a sacred place for a man, his “space”, a refuge even if it’s stiflingly hot in the summer and 40-below in the winter, an orderly place that only he controls, until his kids get hold of it.

But my scowls turned into wistful smiles in short time. Who can’t remember the clubhouses they had as kids? I had some beauties. And who didn^’t want to have a playhouse as a kid? I always used to envy those lucky kids who had a real playhouse, a separate little building where they could hang out and play pretend games. That’s what Malika had proudly made on her own.

It’s good to have those pretend things, to create places of your own, to be able to play by yourself, using your imagination and a few old relics instead of expensive store-bought toys. which is what Mollie was doing.

Still, to protect my wounded pride, I asked Malika sternly about why she needed that room in the garage, when she had her own bedroom, equipped with all the luxuries of a modern girl.

Not ALL, she informed me in her best “yeah-but” response. “Yeah, but I don’t have a kitchen in there, and a fridge, so how could I play house in there without a kitchen or fridge or a sink? I like the garage better,” she said.

I told her that I hadn’t seen a fridge. “Uh huh, a pretend one. The blue cooler is the fridge.” She had it standing on end, just like a real fridge. How could I have missed it?

That little window up there, that is where the 
Garage Transformation took place.

Where’s the kitchen, I asked. “In that little corner by the tent stuff, that’s the kitchen, by the table. And my bed is in that little corner. But I don’t have a living room. Anyway, I do eat up there, Dad. Dad, can we eat up there sometime? I have bowls.”

It’s too hot there, I answered lamely. “Well, take all your clothes off, except your underwear,” she answered in a voice that said I had the silliest excuse ever dreamed up by a weak-minded father on a spur of the moment.

So that’s where we sit. My upstairs of the garage—my clubhouse!—is gone, transformed into something new and exciting. Look for me there: I’ll be sitting in my underwear eating at Mollie’s kitchen table.

‘Skirls’ just want to have fun—on vacation ~ July 31, 1986

David Heiller

The cabin looked great as we moved our load of supplies in for a week’s vacation on Trout Lake two weeks ago. Carpeting on the living room floor and in the bedrooms. A clean bathroom, nice shower, no slime on the floor. Two beds and a crib in the kids’ room, and a big bed in our room.

Cindy unpacked the food, putting enough for an army encampment into the refrigerator and cupboards. I tucked the clothes into the dressers, enough duds for an army encampment too, except for mine. I brought only three shirts, two pairs of shorts, and some socks. If I had packed the food, we would have had bread and water for a week. That’s why Cindy had let me pack only for myself.

The two kids took off running the minute they hit the cabin floor. There were no bookcases to dodge, no mountains of toys or televisions or stereos. Just pure floor space, a small gym to them for running and falling.

Noah and Malika ready for canoing

Everything looked perfect. I breathed a sigh of relief, the fear of a sight unseen cabin floating out the window into the Northwood’s air. We walked down to the lake. A nice spot for the canoe nestled in the birch and white cedars. A loon called from the other shore, a quarter mile across. The water felt cool, spring fed. Only trout and a few small perch make this lake home. But the fisherman in me, even with its bullhead heritage, felt the challenge calling. Vacation had begun.

There was no time to fish the first night, but the second evening, I caught two rainbow trout, just large enough to skin up for morning breakfast. But as I pulled the canoe into place Sunday evening, Cindy came quickly out to meet me.

“David, there’s an animal living in the cabin.”

My first thought was skunk. Thoughts raced back to our basement at home three summers ago, when I cornered one there. There is still a slight odor.

“What is it?”

Daddy and Noah and a rainy night
on our vacation with the skirl.

“I don’t know. I think it’s a squirrel.” Cindy answered. “But it’s living under the sink, and it’s making a lot of noise. I want you to do something about it, now.”

It was too late to do anything at that hour, and besides, I hadn’t seen this alleged intruder. Neither had Cindy. Maybe the Northwoods had been working its wild mystery on her. Maybe nothing more than the wind in the trees.

Monday morning our three-year-old son Noah came with important news, as I lay drowsing in bed at 7 a.m. “Daddy, there’s a skirl in the kitchen.”

“A what?”

“A skirl.”

“A squirrel?” I mumbled, turning over on my side, away from him. This was the first time in recent memory that I had slept till 7, and I thought I’d try for a record 7:30. Besides, a squirrel in the house? Rampant imaginations again. Half an hour later, Noah came back in.

“Daddy, come look at the skirl.”

I stumbled out of bed, grabbed my pajamas, and walked into the living room. A pine squirrel ran under my feet and behind the couch.

“What the he-” I said, suddenly awake. Cindy stood smiling at me. I told you so, she said without speaking.

I ran to the refrigerator, grabbed the broom from off the wall, and started for the couch.

“Oh no you don’t,” Cindy said, intercepting me and the broom. “You can’t smoosh the squirrel. Noah’s been playing with it for the last half hour.”

“You can’t smoosh the skirl,” Noah repeated, a look of reproach in his eyes.

They had me. I put the broom back.

The squirrel must have been watching this important interchange from under the couch. From that point on, he became another guest in the cabin. We didn’t have to pay for him with money, only in food. He had a regular route under the table where we ate, with long stops under Mollie’s high chair. The squirrel must have had the same instincts as our dog, who spends a lot of time under the high chair at home during meals.

Noah playing Pine-Skirl hide-and-seek 

Mollie seemed to have a special rapport with the squirrel. Her 13-month vocabulary goes over our head, but the squirrel didn’t seem to mind. Mollie would walk bowlegged up to the squirrel, which would sit on its haunches and wait for her. She would stop two feet away, and call out “N-umpf? N-umpf?” The squirrel perked its ears forward. “Ah giggliea, la goolia a dda, N-umpf?”

Then Mollie would take another step, and the squirrel would dash under the couch where a hide and seek game would follow. The squirrel would pop up between the cushions, so Mollie would take the cushions off. By then the squirrel was peeking at her from under the couch. Mollie would spot it there, but while she was bent over looking, it would reappear on the back of the couch, almost quicker than the adult eye, and especially quicker than the toddler’s eye.

We found the hole where the pine squirrel entered, under the sink. That first morning I told a young man who worked at the resort. He looked at me and smiled. I told him again two days later, as the squirrel was settling in with us. He said, “I don’t know what to do about it.” I told the owner on the last night, before we left. By this time the squirrel was a part of our family, and all thoughts of smooshing it had disappeared. The owner, an elderly lady who had lost her husband only two weeks earlier, said, “We’ll have to do something about that, I guess,” in a weary voice.

It’s my bet the squirrel doesn’t have much to worry about. He made our vacation more exciting. He left a good impression on the kids, and even I learned to restrain myself when a squirrel sits under the table while we eat. I hope the next family that moves in for a week has a couple of little kids, and that the broom stays in the corner next to the refrigerator.

Raiders of the Lost Underwear ~ July 14, 1994

David Heiller

Mollie’s room wasn’t pretty. Three friends had just left from a sleep-over. Clothes and books and toys lay everywhere. Everywhere except where they should be.

It was time, I decided, to Clean The Room.

If the room is too messy for Monopoly, that is
not a problem, just go to the living room.

Clean The Room time is capitalized because it is like an adventure movie. You never know what you’ll find: the Ark of the Covenant, a few mummies.

There’s no one place to start when you clean a room like Mollie’s. You could almost grab a grain shovel and start digging. We began at The Bookshelf, one of many main characters in this movie. It was sagging with books and barrettes and other odds and ends that people set there late at night when they are too tired to put them where they belong.

We made a pile of Noah’s books, a pile Mollie wanted to keep, a pile she wanted to give to cousin Grace, even a pile for Mrs. Ribich, her teacher from last year (yes, we found two school books). These piles were then taken to their new destinations.

Then it was The Cupboards. Their doors haven’t been opened in several months, thanks to the doll houses and chairs piled against them. In the cupboard there were bins and buckets that were supposed to hold all the things on the floor. A bin for cooking utensils and pretend food like plastic eggs (fried and scrambled!). A basket of agates.

There was the Barbie bucket, full of voluptuous dolls, and a basket for her Kirsten doll. Mollie picked a bare-chested Barbie off the floor. “Remember when Nate played with this one?” she said with a laugh. It had teeth marks on its most prominent parts, where a dog had gnawed. Or maybe Nate had done that.

There were writing utensils, two baskets’ worth. Mollie can never find a pencil. Now I know why. They are all in her cupboard. There must have been 50 pencils, 30 markers, and 500 crayons. She could start an office supply store.

Grandma and The Doll House.
You can't see all the little tiny pieces, 
ah yes, but you will FEEL them if you step on them.

There was the bin for doll house pieces. Little vases and flowers, beds and dressers, rugs and picture frames, even a little toilet. All under two inches tall, and all very dangerous. Try stepping on one in the middle of the night.

Finally we had a bin for everything, including the odds and ends basket. If it doesn’t go in any of the others, toss it in that one. That’s when the cleaning got fun. Everything on the floor had a destination. All the hiding places were discovered. A cardboard Avon box, a shoebox, the basket of stuffed animals. All were emptied and sorted of their old undies and stinky socks and tiny toilets.

It took about an hour and a half to do all this, and yes, it was fun. Fun finding a place for everything. Fun talking to my daughter, and hearing her say how much she appreciated my help. Like the next morning, when she was playing with her re-discovered dolls. “Thanks to you I’ve found most of my things, except for some of Kirsten’s dresses,” she said. “I can look for them later.”

It was fun seeing the floor of her room again, and not worrying about tip-toeing through it like a mine field. Fun vacuuming up all those sesame seeds that leaked out of the frog that Grandma Heiller made.

Unfortunately the vacuum cleaner didn’t work, which I didn’t discover until I was half done vacuuming. That explained why all those sesame seeds were still there.

I’ll clean it later. Like Mollie said, there’s always a “later” when you clean a room.

Keep the gas tank filled – the baby’s on it’s way ~ June 27, 1985

David Heiller

1:12 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: The light is on over the bed. Cindy is sitting bent over slightly at the edge. Her face is tight. She’s looking at her watch.

“Five minutes apart, 45 seconds long,” she says in a breathless way. “The contractions.”

“Huh?” I mumble, feeling very cozy under the blankets of this cool dark morning.

“Let’s go, Dave,” she says. “I think this is it.” Suddenly, very suddenly, I’m awake.

4:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve just dropped Noah off with a friend in Rutledge. So far, so good, with our Plan. Suitcase is packed, dog and cat fed. We even had time for a quick sauna before leaving. We are on our way to the hospital in Duluth.

Cindy spies the gas gauge. Less than a quarter of a tank. “Do I have to take care of everything?” she asks.

“This is the first time in two weeks I didn’t get gas,” I say in a weak voice. So much for that part of the Plan. “Why, just today, I pulled into the Deep Rock, but I didn’t have any checks with me. Besides, you’re a week early, you know.”

Somehow, blaming Mother Nature is a watery excuse, and Cindy doesn’t bother to answer it.

4:45 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’re just picked up a friend in Moose Lake. Diane was with us for Noah’s birth, and will be labor assistant again. She sits in the back seat, rubbing Cindy’s shoulders and talking softly. Diane gave birth to all six of her children at home. Plus she’s helped quite a few others into the world. Her presence calms my butterflies somewhat. Still, as we approach the Carlton exit on 1-35, my stomach feels like Cindy’s. A combination of two cups of tea, a glass of orange juice, and a near-empty tank, all having their effect.

I pull over at a truck stop, fill the tank, and go to the bathroom. Suddenly things seem much better, for me at least.

8:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been here for three hours. Contractions are down to three minutes apart, lasting a minute and a half Cindy is dilated to six centimeters. The doctor comes in for the first time. He’s been out of town all weekend, and a nurse finally got hold of him. Cindy’s face lights up when she sees him. It’s a look I haven’t seen before, the look of a woman about to try a natural birth, after a Caesarean Section, looking at the doctor she has trusted to help her.

“You’re processing well,” he says. “The baby is still posterior. It’s still got some rotating to do, but it’s moving down nicely into the birth canal. It looks good.”

The doctor gives Cindy’s hand a squeeze and heads for the door. “I’m going to make my rounds now, and go to my office across the street.” He looks at me, reads my eyes. “I won’t be more than three minutes away. Don’t worry.”

9:20 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: Cindy is lying on the delivery table, trying not to push. We’ve been waiting for the doctor for 15 minutes. Cindy is dilated 10 centimeters and can hardly hold back as the contractions sweep over her. The intercom is calling for the doctor at a steady interval. A nurse calls his office. Nobody says anything. We hardly look at one another. I glance at Diane as we knead Cindy’s back. “Where is he?” my look says. “We’ve got lots of time,” her look answers.

10:23 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: We’ve been pushing for 40 minutes. I say “we.” Any husband who has sat by his wife’s side at a birth knows what I mean. Cindy’s arms and legs feel like ironwood when she pushes. Deep breath, face contorts into a grimace. Knuckles turn white at her side, feet and legs strain against the stirrups.

The doctor checks Cindy again. No progress. The baby is about two inches from crowning, and not coming any further. The doctor can see its head. He shows me. “Oh, it’s a girl, she’s got brown hair,” I say. A few short laughs.

But there is no humor in the room. The baby, he or she, is stuck. It happened two years ago too, only that time there were forceps and an ambulance, and just enough doubts to make us try again.

‘I’ll let you push for another half hour, but to be quite honest, I don’t think it’ll go,” the doctor says. Cindy is exhausted. The pain is almost too much, since she has held off from any pain killer. “It’s your decision.”

I look at Cindy. “It’s your decision, Cindy,” I say. “No, it’s our decision,” she answers.

“That’s right,” the doctor says, looking at me. I’ve seen enough pain for a year in the last hour. “Let’s get it over with,” I tell Cindy.

She nods a reply.

11:58 a.m. Tuesday, June 18: I pet Cindy’s hair, sitting by her head in the operating room. A sheet separates Cindy’s head and me from the rest of her body. It could be a mile away for Cindy too. She can’t feel a thing from the chest down. Her eyes are clear of pain for the first time all morning, as she smiles at me.

Our nurse catches my eye, and lifts her chin with a come-here, motion. “You ready for this?” she asks. “Stand up.”

Malika Lynette, June, 1985.

And there it is, not it—he or she, this purple tiny baby thing that gets rushed to the warming table in the corner. A tiny voice cracks, a single cry that could split a log of oak. The newest, most anxious and pleading and happy-to-be-here sound, that has made moms and dads cry since memory itself.

“You’ve got a little girl,” the doctor says.

“A little girl, we’ve got a little girl,” Cindy and I both say as our cheeks touch, our tears touch. For a handful of seconds, time has stopped. And a new life has begun.

Taking her out to the ball game ~ June 4, 1992

David Heiller

How do you define baseball? If you are a six-year-old girl, it’s by the length of the licorice, and the taste of the pop, and Kirby Puckett’s first grand slam.

I took Malika to her first game last Friday. Before the game, I tried to engage her in Baseball Talk (BT). This is the second most boring language in the world (behind the mating noise of a three-toed ground sloth). You say things like, “Wow, Puckett has seven hits in his last 12 at bats.” And your friend answers, “But Lieus can’t hit worth beans with men in scoring position.” Boring.

Fortunately Baseball Talk on Friday was tempered by Kid Talk (KT), which has all the logic of a computer that just fell off a desk. It almost makes sense. Here are some samples of our dialogue, which I jotted down on the back of my scorecard.

Daddy~Daughter Dynamic Duo

BT: Larkin is playing right field.

KT: Who’s Larkin?

BT: You know, Gene Larkin.

KT: Who’s Larkin? What’s a Larkin, Dad?

KT: I see Kirby—the guy cleaning the area out there (around the pitcher’s mound).

BT: No, that’s the groundskeeper.

KT: How many more minutes (till the game starts)?

BT: Twenty

KT: You already said 20.

BT: No, I said 30.

KT: Oh.

KT: I want pudding.

BT: Where’s pudding?

KT: That guy’s holding it.

BT: That’s not pudding. That’s beer.

KT: Oh.

KT: I’m hungry.

BT: (Silence.)

KT: I’m hungry.

BT: (Silence.)

KT: I’m hungry.

BT: (Silence.)

KT: I’M HUNGRY.

She talked about a zillion other things too. She admired in a loud voice a woman’s earrings, which were shaped like little baseballs. (Now THERE’S a good birthday present for Cindy.) She checked out ladies’ purses, and told me (in a loud voice) every time she saw one she liked, or one that resembled her own 47 purses.

Noah and Malika working
 on their Twins imitations

She ogled a baby across the aisle, a kid all of one month old, who was passed between Mom and Dad while they ate pretzels and drank beer.

In between talking, Malika ate. It was a miracle. Her stomach normally holds half a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, max. But at the game, where food prices are inflated as much as the stadium, she consumed a can of orange soda, three strips of button candy on paper, 67 peanuts, and a licorice rope two feet long.

She finished it all by the fifth inning. “I want a hot dog,” she said. Sure, for another $3, I thought. I put my foot down (on a carpet of peanut shells) and said no. But not until I’d bought myself a glass of “pudding” for $3.25.

We did manage to talk a little baseball, thanks to the idol of every kid who plays catch in Minnesota, Kirby Puckett. Kirby came through. He moved from groundskeeper to hero when he came up with the bases loaded in the fourth inning, and lined a homerun over the right-centerfield fence. We stood and roared with 26,000 other fans. Malika gave me a high-five and hollered, “A grand slam!” I didn’t even know she knew what a grand slam was, but she yelled it. I heard her. There’s hope for her yet.

We didn’t quit clapping until Kirby stepped out of the third base dugout and tipped his cap. A true hero, for the umpeenth time. Then at the top of the fifth, the crowd rose again as Kirby ran out to center field. The scoreboard announced that it was his first grand slam in the majors. It showed a replay, then a close-up of Kirby, who modestly doffed his cap again, and gave it a short swirl to the crowd.

My spine tingled. It was a special moment, one I’ll remember for a long time. Malika won’t. But I’m glad she was there with me to share it.

The Twins ended up winning, 17-5. But they could have LOST 17-5 and Mollie wouldn’t have known the difference. She had her food and her questions and her purses and earrings and her Kirby and her Dad. What more to baseball is there?

When we were leaving, she showed a new dance step to anyone who cared to watch, something between the Radio City Rocketts and some Nazi Storm Troopers. Then she tiptoed down the sidewalk, missing every crack for two blocks in honor of her mother’s back.

In the car, she made the predictable announcement: “I don’t feel so good.” Stomach hurt? “Uh-huh.” But no disasters would end this adventure. The car rolled northward through the night, and the dash light soon wrapped a sleeping girl in its warm, green glow.

The next morning, I asked Mollie what she thought of the game. “I just loved it,” she said dramatically.

“What’d you love about it?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “The Twins won. I want to go to another game next time.” Sounds good to me.

Just a game of catch ~ May 17, 2001

by David Heiller

Noah came out of the house on Sunday evening carrying a baseball and two gloves, and I was reminded once again why spring is my favorite season.

David and the kids.

I got up from weeding the garden and walked over. He tossed me my glove. It was flat and soft and to my vivid imagination, almost eager for my touch. We walked to our favorite spot for playing catch, he at one end of the driveway and me at the other.

We tossed the ball back and forth. I said to keep it high so I could see it against the sky. My right eye is still healing from a cornea transplant, and I can’t see very well from it yet.

We talked about a lot of things, both trivial and profound. It’s funny how doing a familiar activity like playing catch can unplug the conversational sink. It isn’t always that easy getting a 17-year-old boy—or a 47-year-old man—to do that. But give a guy a ball and glove and he will sing like a canary.

She's just his daughter.

And on all kinds of subjects. Simple things like the Twins game. Or important stuff, like one of life’s struggles. They all seem to carry equal weight during a game of catch and they all somehow seem to be more manageable from the effort.

When Noah and I were done, Mollie met me by the deck with her glove. “My turn,” she said, and we had a repeat performance.

When the kids were smaller, we used to play catch before the bus would come. The house was hectic with getting up and dressed and eating breakfast, but there usually seemed to be about five minutes before the school bus would come in the morning, and we would get in a few throws.

Sometimes I wouldn’t get a taker when I asked for this game of catch. In fact, the kids would go through streaks where they seemed to take pleasure in saying no to my request, like I was an idiot for asking. They were too cool. But ask I did, every morning, and sooner or later, maybe just to shut me up, they would relent and grab their gloves.

That’s why seeing Noah walk out with the gloves on Sunday night felt so good. The tables had been turned. He was asking me to play catch, and I tried very hard not to run to him when I saw what he was holding. Be cool, Dad, it’s just a game of catch.

He's just his son.

Just a game of catch. In a sense, that’s right. It hardly warrants a column in the newspaper.

On the other hand, a game of catch is your childhood, your best friend, your brother. It’s your kids, your dad, your neighbors. It’s spring, a fresh breeze, new life. It’s the freedom of summer just around the corner. It’s blackbirds on the highline wires, and kids going to the beach, and baseball games that you wish would never end. It’s Mom and apple pie and the Fourth of July and the World Series.

It’s a part of us all. Strip away Einstein’s brilliant layers, and I bet you’ll find a game of catch.

That pretty girl over there is just your daughter, that handsome young man your son.

That book on the shelf is just the Bible. That woman with the golden smile is just your wife.

And it’s just a game of catch.