"Ball"

This was our first baseball weekend without Daniel.  Sammy rejoined his team 2 weeks ago for practices, but this weekend was his first official tournament back playing with his team.

Oh my word did I miss Daniel's presence.  The packing, entertaining, extra cheering, countless hours of playing Stack the States or President vs. Aliens on his iPad, dozens of cups of ice, french fries, more ice, water, lollipops...lots of lollipops...I missed it all, BIG.

It was so easy today.

Daniel always made buddies with the umpires, because he liked to call strikes and the way he said it was loud and emphatic.  Well, his brother pitches so of course he liked to call strikes!  I missed the conversations through the fence with the umpires.

I missed hearing him say "Ba" (Sam) followed by "homerun" as he would come up to bat.

I missed chasing him around the ballfields and sidewalks and grass between games.

I missed everything about him being there.

Oh that smile.  That precious, precious smile.

Today we went to the ballfields early and stayed late. We were there for about 10.5 hours to be exact. Sammy's team made it all the way to the championship and we got to watch Sam pitch for the win.  They did win 11-1.  Last year, when Sammy's team would win one of these tourneys they always took the team photo behind home plate.  Once they had just the team, sometimes the boys would say "Daniel, Daniel" and he would run in and join them.  He loved being a part of the championship photos.

He just loved baseball.

Tonight I missed him being a part of that too.  But I am so thankful for baseball teams and boys who embraced our little buddy and loved on him in this special way.  It touched my heart then.  And it especially touches it now.

We miss you Daniel.  But I am thankful for the hundreds of games you went to and cheered your brothers on.  These are good memories.  Good, good memories.