Dear Future Lady Ram,
As you grow up you really don’t think that you actually will. You spend years waiting for the day when you can finally make decisions on your own. You get mad at your parents because they treat you like a little kid, and you focus on what decisions you can make. The decisions you think are huge now are the same decisions you laugh about and find the most irrelevant in the future.
Little league and middle school softball teams, meeting new friends, getting new uniforms and leaving behind the uniforms I once thought I would never grow out of. I am saying all of this because I am sure your life went about the same way: always looking ahead to the next season, or the next sport, with only a few days off here and there.
Nevertheless, you know that you cannot do that anymore, because unless you are the Derek Jeter of softball, this will be your last team. Therefore, I want to tell you a few things about that jersey on your back and the number.
As you wear my jersey, and play on my diamond, I want you to think about all of those before you and all of those who will come after you. Think about the little girls who are just now learning to play the game that we have both grown to love. Think about the number you are wearing and those that have worn it before you. Because, within that time that I let slip away, I was also claiming it all as my own.
You will miss the bus rides to away games, listening to music and sitting in the same seat next to your teammates. You will miss the group you went with to eat before every game. You will miss the heart-to-heart conversations each of you had coming home from the road games. You will miss the trips you took for tournaments when you had to stay in a hotel with your team. But most of all you will miss your teammates, their parents, their grandparents, their siblings and everyone who helped you along the way. You will miss the family you created from it all and regret that you are now leaving it behind.
That jersey and that number; it was once all mine. Just as it represents your successes and your losses, it represents mine. I got hits, I struck out, I had great catches and I let some get way. I smiled in that jersey when I was about to start my first varsity game, and I cried like a baby in that jersey when I walked off the field after my very last game.
That jersey is not just a jersey — it is a legacy, and every legacy has its own story. I got awards and was noticed because of my number. Now, as I watch from the stands, you should know that I am expecting a lot from you. I am expecting you to play better than I ever did, because even I did not do our jersey justice.
