My Favorite Baseball Hat

My Favorite Baseball Hat
By Robert Watson

From outside my bedroom window, I heard the faint sounds of kids laughing and an ice cream truck slowly making its way up the street. I knew I should have been outside playing with my friends - it was the best day out of the whole summer - but I couldn't for the life of me force myself off my bed.

I sighed and slowly moved my fingers back and forth over the soft ridge of the baseball cap. My favorite baseball cap. My father's baseball cap.

I felt my eyes begin to swell up. No, I wouldn't start crying again. I had already cried for over two whole days. My eyes were dry; there was no more tears left to spill. I was twelve years old, I told myself. I should be able to cope with this. But it was hard.

I guess it all started about a year ago when he started being really nice to me. I should have realized something was wrong then, but I didn't. He came home from work one Friday evening and told me that we were going to go to a Phillies game, just the two of us, father and son. He even let me wear his lucky baseball cap. The Phillies won that day. We arrived home late, both happy and exhausted.

A month later, my parents got me exactly what I had asked for on my birthday. They had never gotten me everything on my birthday list before, but I didn't stop to ask myself why they did that year. The same went for Christmas. I got exactly what I had asked for.

My mind abruptly drifted back into reality. I realized now that I was becoming angry. I was becoming angry because my parents kept a secret hidden away from me for almost a whole year without telling me. How could they do that? How could they lie to their only son? Did they not know that it would only make things worse when the time came for him to pass away?

I stopped myself. How could I think such thoughts? Here I was, lying on my bed, blaming my parents for something when I shouldn't be blaming anybody at all. They were only doing what they thought was best for me. They cared about me and that's why they didn't want me to know. Not until it was almost time.

I thought back to when my mother had finally told me the news. To me, it seemed like half a year ago, but yet only about three weeks had passed since she finally revealed the secret that the two of them had been hiding for so long.

There was a knock on the bedroom door.

"Honey, can I come in?" my mother asked softly from the hallway.

"Sure mom," I answered while absentmindedly flipping through my Sports Illustrated magazine.

She came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. I knew that we were going to have a discussion because she always did that when she wanted to have a long talk with me. I closed my magazine and lay it aside.

"Look honey. This isn't going to be easy for me to explain, but I'm going to try my best," she sighed and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I -- no, I mean we, your father and I, we've been keeping a secret away from you. I couldn't bear to tell you before because I know this will be a hard thing for you to handle."

I looked at her intently. I knew something was wrong and I wanted to know what it was. I nodded to let her know that I was listening and for her to keep going.

"Your father isn’t well. He hasn't been well for a long time. Have you ever wondered why he always seems so pale? Have you ever wondered why he started shaving his head a few months ago? Honey, it's not because he has a simple sickness that's going to go away." She clasped my hands into her hands. They were cold and trembling.

"James, your father has cancer. He's had cancer for almost a year now. The doctor's thought that they could make it go away. They thought they could make it go away forever. But, they can’t. They’ve done all they can now and they're only giving him a few more weeks to live." She was crying now, the tears steadily rolling down her cheeks. "He's going to be in the hospital until he passes away."

I, too, was crying openly now, and I flung myself into my mother's arms. I couldn't stop shaking. She started to rock me back and forth, just like she used to do when I was younger.

"We're going to go to the hospital every day Jimmy. Do you hear me?" She whispered the question into my ear while stroking her fingers through my hair. "We're going to visit him every day and we're going to make sure that he dies happy."

I opened my eyes. I had almost fallen asleep. My mom was standing in the doorway looking down at me with sad eyes. I noticed that she had been crying, and I couldn't help but to start crying again, too. She came over to my bed to kiss me, and I let her.

A few minutes later, she got up silently and left. I looked down and saw that I was still holding onto the baseball cap. I had to do something to take my mind off of all of the events that had occurred recently. I pulled the hat on over my head and slowly plodded down the stairs. I was going to go play a game of baseball with my friends. It was time to move on, which was what he would have wanted me to do.