"Mom, do you think they play baseball in heaven?"
I was in the kitchen stirring macaroni into a pot of boiling water when my ten-year old son burst through the back door and asked me this question, his chocolate brown eyes illuminated with such seriousness that it brought tears to my eyes. I tossed the wooden spoon into the sink and cupped his sweaty face between my hands.
"Of course they play baseball in heaven," I answered. "Every time you hear a crack of lightning, that's the sound of the bat smacking the baseball. The thunder is the roar of the crowd cheering when an angel hits a home run. Matt, honey, are you worried about Grandpa? Because if you are, don't be. He's just a little tired right now from the flu he had last week."
That was the middle of May, when lilacs were filling the back yard with sweet promises of long, summer days active with softball practice and Indians games, swimming lessons, and bicycle rides through the valley. Matt's birthday present, an official Major League pitcher's glove, was hiding in the back of my bedroom closet. His eleventh birthday was May 31. The party had to be canceled.
I thought that Matt had caught the flu from his grandpa. The two were inseparable; Matt's dad had died when Matt was five. Every evening after dinner when had the flu; Matt rode his bike the five blocks to Grandpa's house, where the two of them sat side-by-side on the couch in front of the TV, cheering on the Indians. So when Matt began running a temperature, I kept him home from school, made cherry Knox Blocks to soothe his sore throat, and read to him from his favorite Harry Potter book I selfishly indulged my son with my complete attention and assurance that he would soon be well.
"You couldn't have known, Ann," Ted Harvey, our family doctor, said, as we watched the nurses lift Matt from the gurney onto the hospital bed. "Sometimes symptoms act so much like the common flu that even we doctors find it difficult to diagnose leukemia."
A lab technician placed a band-aid in the crook of Matt's right arm. An IV pumped medication into his left arm to help bring down the temperature. Outside, a late spring storm was looming. Matt had his face turned toward the window, watching the lightning flash across the sky. Inside the nucleus of whirling thoughts going through my head, I heard him ask again, "Mom, do you think they play baseball in heaven?"
It was then I realized that by some enigmatic force, my son had known he was dying when he asked me this same question two weeks earlier. I walked out into the hallway and let my tears break free.
*
The air is crisp with the scent of freshly mowed grass. I watch as Mrs. Williams sweeps the fallen maple leaves from her front walk. Five-year-old Christy Jamison is riding her new purple scooter up and down the Jamison's driveway. Peggy and Rick Mullins, who live next door to the Jamison's', are meticulously painting the white trim on their front porch a buttery yellow. Their little girl, Miranda, sits in her stroller, her little blond head propped up with the mint green afghan I crocheted for her last winter.
Miranda has cerebral palsy. A year ago I wondered how Peggy and Rick lived with the knowledge that their child could die. Now, I know. Every night I fell asleep begging God to give me one more day with Matt. I worshipped every morning Matt woke to see the sun climbing through his window. In August, when my little boy whispered in my ear that he was "tired of being stuck with needles and just wanted to go play baseball," I prayed for strength to let him go.
*
"Be honest with me," I told Dr. Peterson, Matt's oncologist. "Is the chemo helping? What more can be done?" Dr. Peterson sat down on the stool in front of my chair and took my hands in his. "Ann, Matt's illness is much more advanced than I first thought it was. I'm sorry, we've done all we can."
"Then, I'm taking Matt home," I said firmly, and walked out of Dr. Peterson's office. At home Matt could lie in his own bed and listen to the echo of the train whistle in the night air. He could look at the posters he painstakingly hung on his bedroom walls. At home, Matt could finally have his birthday party.
On September 15, Matt's buddies gathered round his bed, watching the Indians' game and eating vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge cake. They helped Matt unwrap his baseball glove and, after they passed it around and inspected it, Danny gently placed the glove on Matt's right hand. "Catch!" Justin shouted from the doorway. Around the room, four gloved hands waved in the air. Matt kept a close eye on ball as it went from one boy to another, ready to catch the ball when Steve turned and eased it into Matt's glove. Matt smiled and called out as loudly as he could, "Out." The guys stayed a while longer, comparing notes on baseball scores, the new girl at school, and which teacher was the strictest. "See ya man," they called to Matt as they left. No promises, no gloomy goodbyes. Matt was right: his friends were "the coolest buds a guy could ever have."
In the corner of Matt's room sits the cherry wood Boston rocker I lulled him to sleep in when he was a baby. When he grew older, Matt sat in my lap in this chair and listened as I read Goodnight, Moon repeatedly to him until he fell asleep. For the last two weeks in September, the Boston rocker served as my bed.
The rhythm of raindrops woke me. I was listening to the sound of the thunder as it rumbled through the distant sky when I suddenly felt an overwhelming odd sense of peace. I looked over at Matt, tucked underneath a cloud of blankets with his pitcher's mitt at his side. I walked over and sat down on the bed next to Matt, waiting. When the lightning finally came, I leaned over, wrapped my boy within my trembling arms, and kissed his cheek.
"Sounds like you hit a home run, sweetie," I whispered to him through my tears. "Yes, I believe you hit a home run."