ENJOY IT!

My dad, who was sitting in the stands, stood up and yelled this to me from the stands in the middle of a baseball game I was playing. I was 14, pitching, the bases were loaded and I had already walked in a run. Amongst the crowd were other parents saying things like “throw strikes”, “come on”, “get it down,” and probably other things I didn’t want to hear under their breath. It was a nightmare. How can I possibly “enjoy” bases loaded, nobody out, and my inability to throw a strike. The end of this situation was not going to be good and to make it worse my dad was showing how much he didn’t know about baseball by yelling, “enjoy it”?

Sheesh.

In my 20s and early 30s while living and studying in New York City I would joke about this story with my friends. We’d talk about how it was a very Connecticut/parenty thing to say, reflecting that more than likely, if he’d been a parent from the city, he’d have said something a wee bit more direct like, “throw the ball over the freakin’ plate” or “get your head out of your ass and throw strikes!” We were pretty cynical in those days and thought our parents, while lovable, were kind of silly.

But later, those words meant something different to me. When I was a parent, coach and a fan I watched my son go through tough situations in games and sat there feeling his pain but thinking the same thing my dad probably did which was, what do I want him to get out of this? It was one of those realizations you have, sooner or later, you walk in their shoes and see things you never saw before.

Wanting your kids to develop resiliency in the face of difficulty is a deep wish for parents. We want them to know that when things get tough, you can still grow and overcome. You can hold onto hope. That retaining faith and an attitude of joy even in the face of obstacles is incredibly valuable.

Even so, I think I still had a touch of the “I’m smarter then he was” in me when I told my son this story and said something like, “hey, be thankful I don’t do that to you!”

It was only later, years later, after my dad had passed, when my son sent me a draft of a tattoo he eventually got, and suggested I get it too, that I realized he’d understood my dad and his message better than I did. On the drawing was a picture of a sailboat (my dad loved sailing) and underneath it were the words, “Enjoy It!”