No Sad Songs

by Frank Morelli

  But then, one solemn morning, I awoke to a quiet house. Gramps was cuddled up and expertly medicated in his room at the veteran’s hospital; Nick was on his customary loop to the library and then the coffee shop, where he’d cram any last minute legal jargon into his already teeming mind.

  I reached deep into the old shaving kit on this morning. I pulled out Dad’s ratty, disposable razor, which I hadn’t used in months. I figured that on this day, I could use all the help I could get. I shaved, showered, and squeezed myself into the gently-used suit I’d picked up at a thrift store along Main Street.

  I folded up the piece of notebook paper with the frayed spiral edges and tucked it inside the breast pocket of my jacket. I’d been bent over that page and chewing on my pencil for the majority of the previous night. I hadn’t slept, but something told me Sofia’s night had been much worse than mine. That thought kept me going. Sofia and I had only spoken one time on the phone over the few days prior, but she’d asked me to say a few words the last time we’d been together—at the hospital.

  I wanted to say “no.” Lord knows the fear locked up in my throat wouldn’t allow me to utter a word or I probably would have. I nodded instead, and then Sofia buried her face in my sweater and I held her so tightly I thought she would crumble.

  But she didn’t—and neither did I. I rose in the pulpit that morning and took the two steps up to the peak of the podium. I stood in front of the microphone, in front of a sea of black-clothed observers I’d never met and would never know, and I took a deep breath. I looked at Sofia’s chocolate eyes, rimmed in red and swirling in grief. They were dry, but tears seemed heaped just at the edges, ready to overflow. The thought of it brought the same, unmistakable sting to the backs of my pupils. I unfolded the wrinkled piece of loose leaf and cleared my throat.

  Then I touched on the words of Christina Rossetti.

  She wrote:

  When I am dead, my dearest

  Sing no sad songs for me

  Plant no roses at my head

  Nor shady Cypress tree.

  And I talked about the beauty of Lola Flores and that, even though I only knew her as a woman in a hospital bed, it was clear how much she valued life and how much she loved the one thing she could always count on—her daughter Sofia. I told of the only real conversation I’d ever had with Ms. Flores on a rainy evening when Sofia had left the room to fetch ice chips or broth or a nurse. She told me I reminded her of her brother, Javier, who was the first in her family to leave Mexico City and come to the United States to seek a better life. She said he was a good man. An honorable man. That he left his home but never truly left his family. Even so, she missed him, and her longing eventually turned to anger towards the big brother she felt had left her behind. She never had the chance to forgive him; but she would not allow the experience—nor any of her experiences—to escape her.

  She told me, “Gabe, do not mourn the past. That is the devil’s keenest trap. But don’t forget it either. Because it is not garbage. It is gold. You should treasure it, learn from it, celebrate it—in that order—and then use it to harness the present and adapt for the future.”

  And so, please—I beg you—sing no sad songs for me. Do not grimace or fret or lose a second of sleep wondering if I’ll make it without Mom and Dad. Because I’ve got Nick and Sofia and John to be what Rossetti called the “green grass above me.” Freaking John. An ever-present strip of brilliant, green sod—even through the coldest days of January. Rossetti would like my best friend. She most certainly would.

  And don’t drop your jaw in horror and run all the devilish possibilities of how my relationships with Gramps or Sofia or even my Uncle Nick could morph and twist and coagulate in any number of negative directions. I used to think I could control stuff like that. Now I know it’s not possible.

  No, for me, it’s all about taking the hardest moments as they come—dealing with them one by one—each instance a personalized preparation for the next impending challenge—and dwelling only long enough to remember the good without getting sullied by the bad.

  Or, as Rossetti would say, “And if thy wilt, remember. And if thy wilt, forget.”

  When I think about it that way, I realize that I didn’t break my promise to Dad after all. Maybe he’s smiling, watching over Gramps in his hospital room, and thinking “Ah, my son, Gabe. He may not have followed the blueprint, but he sure as hell gave it his best shot.”

  Maybe he’s even proud of me.

  Yes, I think he is.

  And as I watch my grandfather fade away a little more each day, I’ll refuse to see him with a string of saliva hanging from his lip, or with a clenched-fist raised to an invasive nurse. No. I’ll see him behind the wheel of his Cadillac; with the sugary remnants of vanilla ice cream trapped in his beard; with a tiny bundle of Gabe lifted high over his head; and with the soft gruffness of his voice as my tired eyes trail off to sleep.

  “Haply may I remember (Grandpa)

  And haply may I forget.”

  Haply may we all forget.

  23

  ELYSIAN FIELDS

  No matter how long I play this game, no matter how many times I hear the trademark ping of aluminum collide with rawhide, I’m convinced baseball is not a sport meant to take place in March in places like Philadelphia. I mean, isn’t that why God created freaking spring training and Clearwater, Florida and giant mesh bags filled with grapefruits? Isn’t that why a human hand reacts with such disdain to the sting of a long throw from centerfield caught in the center of the palm?

  But today is somehow different. Cold, yes. But different.

  Today, instead of pressing my poor butt cheeks against a metal bench and praying I’ll win my personal battle against frostbite on the unmentionable parts of my body, I take two steps off the grass and feel my spikes crunch through the frozen, orange clay of the infield. Today, I force my heart down out of my throat and take a few suppressed breaths and watch the steam spout out of my mouth and nostrils. Today, I watch Coach Foley swing the fungo and direct ground balls through the infield grass and out to second base. Today, I open my hips just like Dad taught me and pivot towards the hole close to first base. I squeeze the ball in my forehand, set my feet like I’ve practiced since the days of my training sessions with Carter, and I fire it over to Billy Barfield, our first baseman. See today, I’m just an anxious, nervous, ready-to-puke, butterflies-in-my-stomach kind of player. Because today, like no other day in the history of the sport, the lineup card that hangs in the Schuylkill High locker room looks something like this:

  Clint MacGlinchy – SS

  Foster Cunningham – CF

  Richie Johnston – 3B

  Billy Barfield – 1B

  Brent Holidell – LF

  Jerry Skinner – C

  Khan Phiathep – RF

  GABE LOSCUDA – 2B

  Bradley Beyring – P

  Yes, you read that correctly: a freaking starter!

  Even I have to stand here at my position for a moment and let it all sink in. I breathe in the cold, crystalline air. Let it burn my lungs as Coach shoots a grounder over to Johnston at third and he completes the play with a bullet across the diamond. I reach down and scoop up a handful of loose gravel, put a few pebbles in my back pocket for the memories, and rough up the palms of my hands with the rest of it. I stare off into the stands, filled with Schuylkill High students of every shape, size, color, and social standing. And then I see a pair of stragglers walking in through the front gates of the ball field. They are different from the crowd, because it’s not every day you see the Asian Michael Jackson and Johnny Rotten’s long lost niece stroll in to watch a high school baseball game—even if it’s the season opener and the famous Gabriel “Freaking” LoScuda is creating magic at second base.

  I tip my cap to them as I hear “LoScuda!” ring out in Coach’s gruff voice. Then the trademark PING! And I’m half out of my shoes and my legs are all tangled up on each other, and then the ball takes a short hop a few feet i
n front of my glove … and then it’s past me and into the outfield. Freaking booted. I look over to the stands where John and Sofia are about to take a seat in the third row. Sofia nudges John with her elbow and points in my direction. There’s a fat, caterpillar-shaped smirk on her mouth, while John pulls a tiny golf pencil out of his pocket and makes a quick tic mark on his clipboard. Sheesh, some things never change.

  “One more!” I shout to Coach. And this time I keep my eyes away from the stands, away from the pebbles on the infield, away from anything other than the white globe that skitters towards me through the yellow grass. I charge it, get my legs wide and low to the ground, and caress the ball in my glove as if it were the most fragile egg on the planet. Then I pivot, drop to one knee, and fire a strike to second base, where Clint McGlinchy swipes the corner of the bag and fires a laser to first to complete a sweet double play. “Atta-boy, LoScuda!” Coach shouts, and at that moment all of the butterflies lift away. I glance over to the stands and see Sofia with two thumbs in the air and John scribbling notes on the clipboard—but he’s smiling, so I know that must mean I’m ready.

  I trot off the field, grab my bat, and head to the cage along the third base line for a few practice swings. As I squeeze a helmet onto my huge melon, I notice Sofia and John make their way from the stands—which is cool because they know they’re the only ones with the power to keep me from thinking too much. Without them I’m liable to turn into a freaking basket case before they even play the “Star-Spangled Banner.” They’re special like that. Kind of like the poet John Donne, who will forever be famous for writing, “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

  It’s easy to forget that point when you’re wiping dribble from an old man’s lip, or watching a family member drown in a bottle of whiskey, or sitting alone on a witness stand hoping to salvage what’s left of a life you barely own. But when you have a smooth-dancing pseudo-pop star and a sexy, tattooed nightmare as your closest friends, the continental divide doesn’t seem so divided anymore.

  I smile and step into the batter’s box as John and Sofia find a secret perch behind a neighbor’s privacy fence and adjacent to the batting cage—a good place to hide from the watchful eyes of Coach Foley, who is absolute in his desire to keep his players separated from the fans, or what he calls “the riff-raff.”

  “Fifty-percent aint gonna cut it, Meat,” John says from over my shoulder. The first pitch rings off my bat and sails on a line over the L-shaped pitching screen. I glance back at John. His eyes are wide and Sofia has this look of contentment on her face—even though I’m pretty sure she basically hates anything even resembling a sport.

  “If I keep doing that,” I say, “Coach won’t care if I field a damn thing all day.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” John says. “Lucky swing.” But then I rip another liner off the left-side netting of the cage. And then another. And then two more.

  “The kid’s alright,” Sofia says in the voice of some old-timey, Knute Rockne kind of coach from the forties or fifties. “Don’t know how he’ll run with that enormous head of his, but, hey, the kid’s alright.”

  “Hey,” I say between swings, “this enormous head of mine is where I get my power. I’m like Samson, with the hair and all.”

  “Yeah?” John says. “If we cut it off, will that weaken the sound of your stupid voice?”

  “You mean the hair?”

  “No,” he says, “the head.”

  “Man, you play way too many video games.” I say. Then I smash another liner, this time directly off the L-screen. It wobbles back and forth a few times and I let that sink in a little before I look back at John and Sofia.

  “You’re ready,” John says, and I notice his pencil is packed away in his pocket and the clipboard hangs loosely at his side.

  “Yeah,” Sofia says, “you might just not make a complete ass of yourself out there. I’m impressed.”

  I feel my face get all hot and I grab the brim of the helmet and pretend to adjust it on my head so nobody—especially Sofia—notices the red splotches rise on my cheeks. I step out of the cage and drop my bat against the fence. Then I prepare to step onto the field for my first time as a starter on the Schuylkill High School Varsity Baseball team. Man, I like the sound of that. Dad would have appreciated it, too.

  I grab my glove off the bench and start to take my first step over the chalk line, but then I stop. I look over my shoulder at Sofia and John—my sister islands. We’re all floating on the tide together, striving to form the world’s most impenetrable archipelago.

  “Thanks,” I mouth to them, and they understand perfectly. Neither of them feel the need to say a word in return—well, except for John.

  “Gabe,” I hear him shout over the crowd as I trot out to second base, “Can I get a ride home?”

  “Christ,” I mutter. But then I turn and tip my cap to him—one of those famously esoteric baseball signs that means “sure, buddy, I’ll meet you at the Trans-Am, you driver’s-licenseless bastard!”

  About Alzheimer’s and Dementia

  The Alzheimer’s Association estimates almost a quarter of a million people will be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia in the next year alone. Currently, more than five million people are living with Alzheimer’s and, by 2050, this number could grow to over sixteen million. Alzheimer’s disease is actually the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. But it’s the only cause of death among the top ten in the United States that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed. In fact, one out of every three seniors dies with some form Alzheimer’s or dementia.

  What many fail to recognize is how their family members (the caretakers) may also have their lives derailed by the disease. Right now, more than fifteen million Americans provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer’s or other dementias.

  It is my hope that young readers will finish No Sad Songs with a new respect for what it takes to be a caregiver, and an understanding of how intertwined these duties become in the lives of people fighting on the front lines of a growing health dilemma that is rapidly approaching epidemic levels. And I want them to be inspired to become champions in the fight against this terrible disease so that future generations will never have to watch their loved ones disappear right before their eyes.

  Alzheimer’s Association. “2017 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures.”

  Alzheimer’s & Dementia 13.4 (2017): 325-373.

  FRANK MORELLI has been a teacher, a coach, a bagel builder, a stock boy, a pretzel salesman, a bus driver, a postal employee, a JC Penney model (see: clerk), an actual clerk (like in the movie of the same name), a camp counselor, a roving sports reporter, and a nuclear physicist (okay, that’s not true). At heart, he’s a writer, and that’s all he’s ever been. His fiction and essays have appeared in more than thirty publications, including The Saturday Evening Post, Cobalt Review, Philadelphia Stories, Jersey Devil Press, and Indiana Voice Journal. His sports-themed column, Peanuts & Crackerjacks, appears monthly at Change Seven Magazine.

  A Philadelphia native, Frank now lives near Greensboro, NC in a tiny house under the trees with his best friend and muse, their obnoxious alley cats, and two hundred pounds worth of dog.

  Connect with Frank at www.frankmorelliwrites.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter @frankmoewriter.