I had life figured out by the time I was seventeen. My future was planned, crystal clear and meant to be.
I was the starting second baseman on my high school team and had already received interest from several colleges and even one professional team. I was going to play baseball forever. I had to. Because the kid who roamed the halls of my high school and drove his truck around town wasn’t me. Not the real me, anyway. No, the real me was the guy on the ball field. It was the only place where I ever really felt I belonged.
School was an irritant. Most high school seniors try to stretch out that last year as far as they can, enjoying every moment. Not me. I wanted to get out. I had a life to start living.
Not that high school was hard, mind you. I had the prototypical jock schedule of classes—math, history, English, and four study halls. Brutal. On day my English teacher decided I needed to do something besides sit around all day, so she pulled some strings and got me a job writing a weekly column for the local newspaper. Write about anything, she said. Just make it good.
Oh. Joy.
I obliged, partly because I had to but mostly because she was my favorite teacher. Every Tuesday evening, I would sit down with a pad of paper and write between innings of the Braves games on television. It was busy work, nothing else. Just something to pass the time.
Then everything fell apart.
I blew out my shoulder three weeks later. Trips to doctors and specialists resulted in a shared consensus that though I could kinda/sorta play baseball again, I’d never play the way I had.
It’s tough being seventeen and knowing that every dream you’d ever had was gone. Tough knowing that your entire life lay in front of you, but it wasn’t going to be the life you wanted. Tough.
Too tough.
So one night I got into my truck, drove into the mountains, and found the highest rock I could so I could jump off.
Almost did it, too. I got to two-and-a-half on my count to three when a voice popped into my head and said, “You’re not really afraid of dying, are you?”
No. Not at all.
“Then you’re afraid of living.”
Whether that voice was God’s or my own still escapes me. But I sat for a long while on that rock, thinking. Then I got back into my truck, drove home, and wrote my column. Really wrote. About how things sometimes don’t turn out the way they’re supposed to and how sometimes life can be more night than day. About how, in the end, we all just have to keep on.
That was the night I learned to strip myself bare on the page, to risk exposing fears and worries and doubts. To quit pretending I was someone I wasn’t. It was the biggest act of courage I’d ever displayed.
Three days later, a letter was sent to the high school with my name on the front. Thank you, it said. “I’m having a really tough time right now, and a few days ago I thought I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was going to end it. Then I read your article and, well, I’m still here. So thank you. You rescued me.”
It wasn’t signed, and there was no return address on the envelope. I didn’t know who sent it, but I did know this: God didn’t want me to play baseball. He wanted me to write.
At the mall, a month later. I was picking up my girlfriend from work and decided to walk down to the bookstore. Approaching me was a teenage girl in jeans and a leather jacket. I nodded as she passed, and then she called my name.
“Allison,” she said. “My name’s Allison. I’m the one who wrote you that letter.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. So I asked if she was all right, to which she replied she was, to which I replied that it was nice to meet her. I was so shy, so backward, so unnerved, that I simply nodded again and walked away.
I have had many bad moments in my life. That one? Top three.
I never saw Allison again. I do, however, still spend many a day wishing that I would have. Just once more. Just to say I’m was sorry for not saying more. To tell her to keep hanging in there and she’s not alone.
And to tell her she rescued me, too.
***
This post is part of the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival: Future hosted by my friend Peter Pollock. To check out more posts on this topic, please visit his website, PeterPollock.com
Excellent post, as yours always are, Billy.
I went to see “The Adjustment Bureau” this weekend. I wish the screenwriters had used a scenario like your description of coming across Allison to explain what brought the two main characters together after so many years. The film offers opportunity for some interesting conversations about fate/destiny, choice, free will, and God’s role in our lives.
This is wonderful. I hope somehow these words make it back to Allison, but even if they don’t, the ripples are obvious and sparkling with the divine. Oh how much we don’t see and don’t know — the real impact we have on the lives that brush up against ours. I think God orchestrates it that way most of the time, but when we do glimpse, the fireworks explode and the cymbals clash and we know that nothing is ever nothing and God is everywhere. Moments later the curtain drops, and the music returns to the regular soundtrack of everyday life. But we’ve seen. We’ve seen, and everything is made new.
Thanks for sharing this story. And thanks for the reminder that even shattered dreams are gifts.
Love, Jeanne
Wondered about that dedication. Now I know. Fabulous post, Billy.
Dang, that’s good.
Funny how people we help often end up helping us in return, without even knowing…
Thanks for the dedication and the book.
Dreams of the future, may not always come true. We plan and then life happens! God knows our future, and He knew yours from the beginning. You are a blessing to many so keep up the excellent work.
Billy, wow. This is going to be a favorite post of mine. Thank you for sharing this place – I would never have guessed, and somehow, it puts so much of your other writing into perspective.
beautiful. I love a good baseball story when it’s about much more than baseball.
Isn’t it interesting how God prepares us beforehand for something new to enter our lives. Isn’t it interesting how God uses every last drop of our sweat to satisfy the thirst of others ….and in the end our very own.
Blessing to you! Keep up the great work. God is in action in you. Beautiful.
This meant a lot to me this morning, Billy. I’ve been doing “second tier” writing for a while now, writing off my “second tier,” not my best stuff, not the stuff I really wish to write and can. I’ve put too many filters on. So I’ve taken a month off from blogging to give myself some space to regain my footing.
Your post here today resonates. I am reminded that the two most rewarding writing experiences I’ve had sprang from desperate situations thrown at me. And wouldn’t you know it, those are the experiences about which I long to write? So why have I put a filter on? Well, I’m still listening for the answer to that. But your post has given me an important insight. Thanks.
Certainly I wish for you that you had seen Allison again – to make peace with your connection to her life. But I wonder if we can suggest that your work in Allison’s life had already been done? That you were God’s instrument in *her* life, needed simply to touch her at a single desperate time. You did it – you did what God needed you to do, through your courage of laying it on the line openly and honestly.
I love your writing – love it the same way I love Froot Loops and, well, snow days. 🙂 Fancy that.
So cool how God works things out when we don’t realize it. I hope she stumbles across your blog and sees how she helped you as well.
We may never know who our words may touch. You know at least one. No, two. Your words touch me. Beautiful
Awesome post, definitely post of the day (among a lot of good ones too).
I came here through Twitter where it said, “Why I dedicated Snow Days to Allison.” I don’t know you well enough. I thought Allison was your wife. That presumption made the story so much better because it added a twist at the end. Perfect setup.
Thanks for writing.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
*Snow Day
Wow. This post met me right where I’m at. See, I’m the mother of a 17 year old senior baseball player. He is a PO. We are 7 games in and he’s pitched one inning. Two strikeouts and a ground out. I watch him trying to hurry this year by, ready to get out into the world, but having no idea what his dreams are anymore. He’s been overlooked in baseball, not as a person, they love him as a kid, but don’t encourage him on the ball field. So due to emotional injuries, I’m watching his baseball dream die a slow, painful death. I get really scared of where that leaves him, what he thinks about, what he hopes for now. We encourage all of his talents (and God has blessed him mightily as a guitarist), so that isn’t the problem. It’s the death of something he wanted so badly. It has left him empty. But I know that God has plans to prosper him, so I will cling to that promise and wait. I pray my son will look for what God wants for him and find happiness soon.
Amazing…we never know what impact our words and actions will have on another…thanks for this!
So often the death of one of our dreams turns out to be Life for another one! There have been many people along the way who have touched my life and, without knowing it, nudged me on to keep trying.
We never know who our actions may influence in this life. To be able, at the end of our days here on earth, to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful, servant”, for me, is a life well lived.
I pray that I’m able to hear that.
I think you’ve heard it, Billy, and probably will hear it many more times as you continue to write your heart.
Thanks for making this day better for one reader/writer.
Billy, I loved this post. Thank you for being so honest. This kind of honesty changes lives. I’m sure Allison was not the only one who was deeply touched by your words.
God bless!
Kudos to your English teacher who sent you on the way to the page — God’s instrument.
You have such style in your writing. Lovely post.
Wow-that was powerful.
it is so true that you never know which of your words will be the words someone else remembers forever.
Thanks again Billy for another great thought provoking post.
Hi, Billy,
Somehow I missed this story and so glad that Marilyn (As Good a Day as Any) directed me this way today. This is the stuff of life–the stuff we rarely hear about; how words encourage and make a difference.
I’m glad you learned how to bare your heart on the page that day. We all benefit.
That saying, “The good is the enemy of the best,” came to mind when I read this. I loved reading the story of the impact of your words on Allison. I pray that she went on to be so glad that she turned back from despair. What power words have to change the course of a life.