Thoughts and Prayers for John

Before stamping became my passion a little over 5 years ago I would have to say my passion was fastpitch softball. For those of you who knew me before stamping this comes as no surprise. I received word this past Monday that my Junior Olympic Manager/Coach had passed away. This man recruited me to play for his brand new team during my high school years...yes, I counted the years since the first time I met John and it has been 19 years! Time sure does fly by.

John was a talker. He approached me after one of my high school games and I had no desire to chat about the triple I hit during the game and the catches I made playing centerfield. I just wanted to head to the locker room, change and go out with my friends. I introduced him to my father and they got to talking. Which as many of you know, Dad can talk too! Turns out he wanted me to play for him on a traveling team that would require weekends away and 2 nights of games during the week. Little did I know then how much of an impact John would have on my life. He was one of the kindest men I had ever met. He had a heart of gold and would do anything for anyone. Over the next 4 years, I saw John more than I saw most of my family members. My Dad ended up coaching the team with him and we all seem to be road warriors traveling weekend to weekend.

After my time playing for the Damascus Flames and high school graduation I started to coach softball. I can't remember if it was my days as a high school coach or as a college coach when I saw John come over the hill in an umpire's uniform. I about died laughing. I couldn't believe my Dad and I would be coaching the team and he was the umpire. We soon learned that John had a difficult time calling balls and strikes and we kidded him about that relentlessly. Then next time he had one of our games he was the baseline umpire. A job that suited him much better than behind the plate.

Over the years I have seen him at games, events for my father-in-laws Junior Olympic team...yes, its a twisted family. We all are involved. But I had not seen my team mates in at least 12 years. Last time I saw most was at our pitching coaches funeral. Monday night was a complete walk down memory lane as the Original Damascus Flames players and coaches started to fill the funeral home. In this great time of sadness was such complete happiness. We all shared stories and caught up on everyone's lives. John would have been so proud to see all of the players/coaches again. What an impact one person can have on another persons life and I wasn't the only one.

Thanks for letting me share a little snapshot into my life. I usually try to keep this more of a stamping blog but today just called for a trip down memory lane. To all my Flames teammates, you all are the greatest group of people and I'm so glad we were able to re-connect.