Family

I wanted to add something that is entirely unrelated to the Phlegm Monster and my Costco/Walgreens/Walmart stocker upper habits.

Last night I met my brother Chuck (One of my two favorite brothers, the other is Jim, and one day I'll post about Jim.) and his fiancé Mayra and her son's sister-in-law at Bank One Ballpark. Now it's Chase Field, as my good friend Roy, who works for Chase, was quick to point out when I called it BOB, but, well, it's engraved in stone the wrong way and to me it will always be BOB.

Anyway, I met them at 'Will Call' because Chuck works for the Tucson Sidewinders, a minor league team attached to the Diamondbacks, and his boss had called in free tickets for the four of us. Well, when I met them at the ballpark Chuck went to the G-I window and the lady told him that in order to look up the comped tickets, he would have to give her the name of the person who works for the Diamondbacks. They were referenced by the person who works for the team, then by the person the tickets were for. She couldn't look it up by his name, so he came back to us, a little hot. He stood there calling his people from the Sidewinders, trying to get a hold of someone who knew the lady's name. Of course he was fuming, as I or anyone else would be, but he said something that got me. When I term 'got me', I mean, I had a warm, fuzzy, odd moment of unity with another person I so seldom feel, if ever.

Let me background my family. We're family from a distance, and frankly, my mother held us together. I might not hear from any of my brothers for a year, but they would always call her on her birthday. If we're all living near by, maybe we get together for a holiday, and when my mother was fighting her cancer, my brothers Chuck and Jim, and my sister Mary, visited a couple times a year, including Thanksgiving. My brother Max would show up out of the blue, but I always felt that was for a spot inspection to make sure I was taking good care of our mother, not to drop in to say 'hello'.
When Mom died, we scattered, or I scattered, not really keeping track of anyone, perhaps because I was at ground Zero of the whole Mom illness and I feel guilty I didn't talk her into continuing chemo. I let their mother die, I let my mother die. I have dreams sometimes that my mother and I are on a road trip and we stop at a hotel. I make her comfortable in the room, settle her in, and then I go to buy a pack of cigarettes or something. When I return, the hotel isn't there, or I can't find the hotel, or I find I've driven a hundred miles away and can't remember how to get back to her. It's all guilt, and I feel like I let everyone down by not advising my mother, when she asked, to keep fighting. It's hard to call people you feel you've let down.

Anyway, back to the ballpark. I'm standing there with Mayra, her son's sister-in-law, and my fuming brother. Now, we as a people don't stomp around and yell, it is not the way of the Heeman, and he looks perfectly calm, but I get the subtlety. He's irate because the game just started and we're not in the ballpark yet. And then he said something that got me, that brought me something I haven't had in a long time, peace. "If Eric doesn't call me back with the name of the woman who called in the comp tickets, this is the last day I work for the Sidewinders. He's left me out here with my family, waiting for tickets. Unforgivable."

So, I don't care who Eric is, and seriously, I don't care whether or not we get tickets. I can enjoy my brother and everyone over a nice dinner, just hang out like people do. Of course, a minute later Eric called him back with the person's name, Chuck went back to the Will Call booth and got the tickets, and we enjoyed a great game. We beat the Dodgers 6-2. But the way he said 'my family' eased a tension I've felt for over two years, and really, the thirty-three years before that. Even before the Mom thing, I always felt disconnected from the older relatives (although, like me, Chuck will always be a bit juvenile, which endears him to me as one of my two favorites) and in that one moment I felt—accepted into the family.