All-Star perspective...

Last night I watched the MLB All-Star game but only the last few innings. Since the 1999 All-Star game when Ted Williams was rolled out on the field at Fenway Park, the game hasn't been of interest. As a Red Sox fan, that was THE pinnacle of All-Star game history. I sat there as a 27-year-old man with tears in my eyes watching "the greatest hitter who ever lived" sitting in a wheelchair surrounded by all the games great players (past & present) doting over him as if he were a newborn baby. And it was in Fenway where he called home for 19 seasons.
And I had just been in that same park just 2 months prior watching my last game with my dad. I also remember how I treated my dad. His Alzheimer's was really progressing fast and his aching knees kept him plodding along at a snails pace. And as an excited Sox fan who couldn't wait to get in and see Pedro Martinez pitch for the first time, I was less than loving to my 62 year old dad. After all he was slowing me down. The walk alone from the train to the stadium cost us batting practice and just getting to our seats cost me watching any warm up pitches. My dad wasn't even a baseball fan but he insisted on coming. And I wasn't happy about it. What a jerk. Not him, me. I took what was a memory of a lifetime and made it all about me. I never thought of the pain and struggle my dad had to go through just to go see a ball game with his son. My poor step-mom must have bit her tongue 50 times to stop from telling off this 27-year-old punk whining about how inconvenient this was all becoming. We never attended a sporting event again and he passed away several years later.
Can you tell I regret how I acted? Maybe that has put things like All-Star games in a different light for me. When they get put in perspective to what should really be important it's hard to ever look at them the same.

If you can relate to this and want to share a comment, please feel free to do so. It doesn't require you to fill out anything and can be done anonymously. I do hope this story helps save you from one day making a similar mistake. One thing my dad told me was "learn from the mistakes of others because you don't have time to make them all yourself.'