Day 3 of honoring Jay comes from our 3rd child and 3rd son, Jon. Jon is our resident tease and procrastinator. In fact, I'm posting this late in the day because Jon somehow lost track of time this morning(!) and then spent the afternoon golfing with my dad and Mike!
I hope you enjoy!
I have a lot of fond memories with Dad. He coached my Little
League Baseball team for all 5 of the years I played. I remember getting
dressed in my navy blue uniform, putting on my gray hat, and climbing in the
minivan with my bat bag. Dad would drive me (and my brothers when they were
playing) to the field for the game. At home, even though my mom hated baseball
by the middle of July, we could talk about which teams were playing well, which
players we had to look out for, and how close our team was to making the
playoffs. The best Little League memory I had was when we won the championship,
with Dad standing in front of the dugout celebrating along with me.
Love of
baseball is still something that I share with Dad. Last year we went to a Red
Sox game together at Fenway Park. Since there are a lot of us kids, it’s pretty
rare that I get any alone time with either of my parents, so it was really nice
to be able to hang out with Dad.
If you ask
anyone, they might tell you that I have a small(or large) teasing streak and I
know that I get part of it from my dad. He can sometimes be very annoying. For
example, if you told him that your school is doing a can drive, he may answer
by asking you, “A fan jive?” Then, when you repeat yourself, he’ll answer be
asking “A van hive?” He’ll keep going until you tell him that you know that he
knows what you were trying to say. He got a girl at my youth group in a conversation at
least five times before I interrupted her and said “He knows what you said,
this is what he does.”
It’s actually really funny if he’s not doing it to you.
The best
thing that my Dad has given us kids is his faith. He has taught us all so much
about the Church and has helped us all along in our personal journeys in faith.
He’s always more than happy to talk about any aspect of the faith at any time
and in almost any situation. The easiest way to get him going is to mention
Pope John Paul II. He could go on for hours about Pope JPII. In fact, sometimes
you just need to mention Poland in general and he’ll find a way to bring up
JPII. I’ve mentioned soccer before and he’s tied it into JPII because he was a
goalie when he was a teenager. (The only reason I know that fact is because he
brought it up.)
If you
haven’t noticed yet, Dad is awesome. He works really hard and yet he always
makes time for his family. We all love him a lot and the reasons I wrote about
above are only a scant few of them.
I love you Dad!
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| Jon on the all star team |
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| Jon is holding the sign on the left:) |
