In An Alternate Universe

After the Giants beat the Braves, my mother was very emotional. She said she cried for fifteen minutes because she wished my brother could see this year's Giants. Today as I drove through the gray weather picking up lunch in San Ramon, I imagined the alternate universe that I often do, the one where my brother never got cancer, and never left this world.

In this alternate universe, we were getting ready to go watch the game at his old house in Concord. He is wearing a Giants hat and hoodie, cuddled up in his old chair next to the window. His two daughters are cuddled up in Lincecum jerseys on his lap and they are watching the pre-game show. He knew baseball inside-out, a passion I see in his daughters as well. Fall was always his favorite season, and what better would it be with the Giants still playing in October.

Instead, my husband and I have watched and listened and covered our eyes and curled up in fetal position, and celebrated in our own living room with our baby upstairs asleep. This year, we watched them play as a team I have never seen before...they played like young boys that were truly chasing dreams and would play if they weren't getting paid.

I always loved baseball for the great metaphor of life that it is. That you can train, and prepare, and invest, and light candles, but life is still so much out of your control, and an impossible number of circumstances lead up to one's destiny. My brother had done everything he could to stack himself up against those circumstances and there was nothing that could have prepared him for his outcome. I know we are not in that alternate universe, but I know my brother is here in spirit, celebrating this outcome for "our boys." Maybe I'll go visit his brick tomorrow at AT&T Park.

Miss you, Brother. Humm Baby.