Baseball in Heaven

We had only been home from our vacation in Seattle less than a week before my son asked us to babysit our two grandchildren here in Little Rock. We always love going over to their house and playing with the children for a few hours. I keep encouraging our son to have a date with his wife every week.

On this particular fall evening, nine-year-old Caitlyn (as she typically does) already had an agenda for playtime. We would light candles, sit in her room, and think about someone who had died. It seems that, since Caitlyn has been attending a private Christian Episcopal school, she has enjoyed playing "church." She often has her prayer book, reads various and sundry prayers to her brother, and preaches. On this night, since Episcopalians pray for the dead, she wanted to ask questions to someone who was no longer on earth. We decided upon her mother's grandmother as a possibility. Caitlyn, Charlie (her four-year-old brother) and I sat in the candle-lit room, took a flashlight to shine in our faces, and asked her deceased great-grandmother a question. I asked, "Are you happy where you are?" She then passed the flashlight to Charlie. He was thoughtful for a few seconds and then asked, "Do you play baseball in heaven?"

Caitlyn and I laughed for a moment but then assured Charlie that he had posed a good question. My mind immediately went to my grandmother, who raised me from junior high school through high school. I used to love the stories she told me about her childhood during the time I lived with her, especially about her love for baseball. Since she had two older brothers, Bud and Dell, she loved to play baseball with them on warm summer Southern evenings. Unfortunately though, since she was a girl, she was responsible for rocking her baby sister, Elise, every night to sleep and always had to miss the game she loved the most. I can still hear her mimicking her mother's voice, "Ethel, Ethel, come inside and rock the baby."

My grandmother has been gone for almost thirty years now, but I am now wondering also (along with Charlie), "Are you playing baseball in heaven?" Somehow, I think she is. I know she deserves to be.