Nate

The Red Sox beat the Yankees last night in their first match-up of the year. Nate would have loved it--it was a helluva game. I wrote this last autumn, nearly one year after Nate died.

Jimmy Dugan didn’t know what he was talking about.

Just in case you’re not a baseball movie junkie, Jimmy Dugan was Tom Hanks’ character in A League of Their Own—the new manager of the all-girls Rockford Peaches team. The one who said those immortal words, “There’s no crying in baseball.” Sorry, Jimmy, there’s plenty of crying in baseball, and I’m not talking about that 9^th inning we-never-saw-that-one-coming loss. There are a lot of tears in baseball, especially at this time of the year.

Baseball used to make me happy. The memories of a cool spring Opening Day, the crack of a bat, walking into the park at the home plate entrance, standing at the top of the stairs for just a moment to take it all in—the requisite ritual for my friends and me, no matter which ballpark we walk into. The warm summer evenings, beer, peanuts, the cheering crowds. Charge! Then, the thrill of the playoffs. Oooh yeah, that was the best time of all. I loved baseball and everything about it.

Now, baseball makes me sad.

I got to see my favorite team win the Series last year, but Nate didn’t. Nate was my nephew and this is his story. He always told it best.

Before all of this, I didn’t know Nate well. Our family had been estranged. The last time we’d spent any significant time together was more than 10 years earlier where our conversations tended to focus on how funny it was to say things like “goose poop”. He was a funny kid.

When Nate was just 19 his headaches got so bad he couldn’t stand to have overhead lights on. He came home from the University of Colorado, where he’d just started his sophomore year. He came home to go to the Emergency Department at University Hospital.

The doctor who took care of him that night, Dr. Dana Jennings, feared the worst. His neurological exam had been abnormal and while she continued to check him out and wait for some tests to come back, she tried to figure out what to say to this kid who was scared and hurting. Dana is the kind of doctor who cares about more than just the medical problem and she became a friend to Nate.

During their conversation, Nate commented that he wished there were a TV in the room. When Dana asked why, Nate told her it was because the Boston Red Sox were playing. Dana mentioned that she had a friend on the team and Nate perked up. Who, he wanted to know? Even though his pain was evident in his voice, there was also excitement. A friendship—actually several friendships—were born that evening.

Dana’s friend was Kevin Millar, the Red Sox first baseman, and one of Nate’s favorites. Nate requested a baseball story and Dana told him of Kevin’s early days as a player while they waited for the MRI results. When the worst was confirmed—a mass on his brain (and soon after, a diagnosis of stage four leukemia)—Dana contacted Kevin. Over the course of months, Nate and Kevin became friends. They kept in touch by email and Kevin sent Nate Red Sox shirts, and a signed picture (that Nate kept by his bedside). As their friendship grew, Nate went through rounds of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant in the winter, and long, long days of recovery. Kevin always encouraged Nate to keep fighting—a hero encouraging another hero.

In June last year, while Nate was in remission, one of his greatest dreams came true. The Red Sox came to Denver to play the Rockies. Nate was going to meet one of his heros. Nate and Dana went to a game; they ate hotdogs and drank beer. Nate met Kevin Millar and the picture of their meeting is one of my favorites. Nate was on Cloud 9. His friendship with Kevin gave him immeasurable joy.

Two months later, Nate’s health took a bad turn. August came and Nate relapsed, returning to the hospital where doctors performed a second stem cell transplant. The Red Sox continued to give Nate a reason to cheer—they were headed towards the playoffs. Though sick as a dog, Nate had them on TV at every opportunity. While Nate grew increasingly sicker, the Red Sox advanced. The excitement and tension were palatable.

I mentioned earlier that our family had been estranged. With Nate’s illness, the rift lost its significance. I was getting to know my nephew again. But what does a 40 year old woman say to a 20 year old kid? “Goose poop,” while extremely funny to a ten-year old, doesn’t make for good conversation when that ten-year old is now 20, a Columbine survivor, and coping with a medical crisis. What do you talk about all those hours in the hospital?

Baseball. You talk about baseball. I was a longtime Sox fan, we both adored the sport, and we spent hours talking about it, strategizing and making predictions. We talked about our favorite baseball movies, players, and games. Baseball made us both happy.

In early October, Nate was rushed to ICU with pneumonia. He was so sick. We all took turns spending time with him. He was surrounded by family, a maze of cords and machines, and a growing group of high school and college friends waiting for news. He was not breathing on his own, but was relying on a ventilator. Doctors warned that it was time to plan for the worst; Nate was not expected to make it. The leukemia was too aggressive and he was too weak to fight. The day they removed his tubes, we all braced ourselves. I walked into his eerily quiet ICU room 30 minutes later and he was sitting up in bed—weak but awake—and his first question for me was, “Did they win?” It was all I could do to keep from crying to see Nate alive and conscious—and yes, of course they’d won!

Those next few days were a nightmarish blur. Nate was told his prognosis—he had wondered why there were so many friends and family around—and decided that even if he had a 5% chance to fight, he would. There was talk about Do Not Resuscitate orders and other things no 20 year old (or their parents) should ever have to face. Nate was brave and faced these decisions head-on. I knew before that he was my hero but every moment he fought reinforced it.

In the meantime, the Red Sox and the Yankees were facing off in the last round of the playoffs. Nate was moved to a room with a TV and nearly all the talk—when it wasn’t about leukemia and treatments, and pills, and tests—was about baseball. Nate’s best friend, one of the strongest and loyal people I’ve ever met, was a die-hard Cardinals fan. The time Aaron showed up in his childhood Cardinal’s jacket, now about four sizes too small, was pretty funny by all accounts.

Then the phone call came. It was just before Game 6; Kevin Millar called and left a voicemail for Nate saying that he was walking in to Yankee Stadium and that the next time they would talk, it would be as the Red Sox were walking into the World Series. He told Nate they were going to win it for him. And they did.

Nate was so sick, so incredibly sick, and that phone call sent him soaring. He told everyone who walked into the room, some people more than once, I think. He couldn’t believe that Kevin—his friend—Kevin Millar, the Red Sox first baseman, had called him and that they were going to win it for him. That day, those few wonderful hours, are among my favorite memories of Nate. Though he was weak, and the leukemia was winning, this gave him so much joy. One of the last times I saw him was the day after the Sox clinched their World Series spot. I walked into his room as a doctor was finishing a biopsy. Nate was drugged up and laying on one side. As I walked in, he rolled over with a big grin said, “Heeeeeey! They won!” They sure did.

The last time I saw him was on a Saturday afternoon. He didn’t feel well and was trying to sleep. I was in a hurry to get out of town on a business trip and left so he could rest and I could pack. My last message to Nate after a quick “See you later, sweetie” as he fought to stay awake, was a big “GO SOX!” on the message board he could read from his bed.

Nate only got to see two of the Sox’s World Series games before he died, on his 21^st birthday on October 26, 2004. Nate went into a coma the day before, quietly and peacefully, and never awoke.

Kevin Millar, by taking time to make a phone call and be a friend, did so much for my nephew. He gave him joy and hope at a time when both were in short supply. He made not just one person happy, but dozens. Even lifelong Cardinals fans started rooting for the Red Sox (if even just for one game) when they heard the story.

No crying in baseball? I don’t think so, Jimmy Dugan. The playoffs are sad for me this year (and even sadder now that the Red Sox have been eliminated). Who am I kidding? They’re really sad. I miss talking about it with Nate. I still gather memorable plays to talk about with him (Can you believe Damon grounded to Cano!? Why’d the let Cora bat while Olerud sat on the bench?) On Sunday, for the first time in a long time, I thought, “I should go to the hospital and watch the game with Nate today” and then I remembered.

Yeah, there is crying in baseball. Anyone who tells you otherwise didn’t know Nate. They don’t know the story of Nate and his friend Kevin Millar and what happened the year the Red Sox won the World Series and the world lost Nate.