The Impossible Dream

Jackie Robinson Stealing Home, May 18, 1952

I wrote last week about the unusually unfriendly (for our league) rivalry between my oldest girl’s softball team, which went into the playoffs with a 0-16 record, and another cut-throat team, whose record was 16-0. We played them tonight in the play-offs.

The other team had assumed they were going to beat us and advance to the championship game. Before the game, they commented that this was their practice game for the next one. Our team had a little bit of hope, as our last game against them had been quite close.

There was no score through the second inning. With two outs on us, we suddenly scored four runs. We held them at 4-0 until the fifth inning, when they scored two runs. My toddler fell asleep on my lap and I was unable to move, clap, or yell. I was so emotional I knew I was going to cry at the end of the game.

The head ump said the second one didn’t count. At the top of the sixth, he changed his mind and gave it back to them; we scored no runs. At the bottom of the sixth, they scored one more run. It was 4-3, 2 outs, with a girl on third base and no more steals allowed. We got the last out of the game and I did burst into tears of happiness.

There were a few tears shed on the other side as well, tears of disappointment. There was great rejoicing on our side. We had finally won a game and were advancing to the championship game – one that many had crossed off their calendars.

I have written in the past about how failures must be celebrated. In this case, our success here was made even sweeter by the bitter taste of failure that had preceded it. The coach of the team we will be playing next week was cheering us on as the underdogs. It doesn’t even matter who wins that game – we proved that anyone can be a winner, with persistence.

Sirach Chapter 11 (NAB):
“11
One may toil and struggle and drive, and fall short all the more.
12
Another goes his way a weakling and a failure, with little strength and great misery-- Yet the eyes of the LORD look favorably upon him; he raises him free of the vile dust,
13
Lifts up his head and exalts him to the amazement of the many.”

In Celebration of Small Failures: A Gardening Disaster

Hosta Leaves

I do love the new “Small Successes” forum that I have discovered on Faith and Family Live. Although I shared my own successes for last week, I have slipped into a series of small failures that are really just plain annoying and energy-draining. If failure is more common than success, why don’t I see more of it on the Catholic blogs I read?

I have discussed this with some of my personal blog friends, who publicly admit to having the frailties and weaknesses common to the human race. We find it annoying that so many bloggers are constantly putting up pictures of perfectly finished sewing projects. I know, because I sew as well, that on the way to that perfect finish there were seams that had to be ripped out, possibly even accompanied by some mild cursing.

One of my major muscle-building outdoor projects this spring has been working on my driveway, the one thing in the front of my house that really could use some improvement. It has not been repaved in a few years; grass was growing through the cracks throughout the middle, and the edges are crumbling away.

On one side I had a dozen Hosta bordering the edge, but so much grass had grown around them that my husband mowed over them the first mow of the season. When I had to mow the week approaching my son’s First Communion, I realized how very difficult it was to mow around them. I weeded around them, creating a nicer border garden, but the Hosta grew back a little straggly looking. I put down Preen weed control to prevent grass from coming back there.

On the other side, the grass had grown several inches over the edge of the driveway. (I’m probably scaring you now into thinking I have a Desperate Landscape. Really, I promise, the driveway is the only thing that looks this way!) I used a shovel to cut back to what I thought was the real edge, and painstakingly removed all the grass. I used all the dirt and grass I had removed to fill in a huge hole that the kids had made in the back lawn.

When I was done, I looked at what I had done with horror. Surely all the neighbors passing by were laughing at me. The edge I had trimmed started off narrow at the top of my driveway and widened to almost ten edges at the bottom of the driveway! Then I got sick and had to leave it that way for a week.

[On a side note, I lost my voice for the greater part of the week and was unable to yell at my kids. I made the slightly ironic discovery that people in the house will actually listen to me when I am whispering!]

In the meantime, I killed the weeds with vinegar. Yesterday I got out the crack filler. I checked the weather to make sure it was not supposed to rain in the next 24 hours. Then I got down on my hands and knees and painstakingly filled in the multitude of cracks that ran through the driveway. When the stuff stopped squeezing through the applicator tip, I opened it up and dumped the rest of it into a slightly large hole. Over the hole I placed a bench so that no one would step on it while it cured.

But, alas, it rained this morning! Although the majority of the filled cracks had solidified, the stuff in the hole was bleeding down the driveway. When the sun came out, most of the messy stuff evaporated away, but the filled hole is so soft I wonder if it will ever harden.

I got out the yardstick and, carefully measuring this time, removed an even twelve inches of grass in a strip running all along that edge, to match the other side. Then I took some Hosta from another area of the yard, divided it into twelve roots, and planted it every yard, also matching the other side. Now the only difference between the two sides is that the one side has Hosta their normal height, and the other side has Hosta that were dwarfed due to having been run over by the mower that one time.

I showered, made dinner, and rushed the kids to my son’s baseball pictures, only to find out that they had been rescheduled without a telephone call to me. On the way home, I suddenly discovered I had the full service of my voice back and hate to admit I did not use it well.

On the way to our successes, we have many small failures. If we can learn from our mistakes, that is one small success in itself.

Other Women: Envy or Inspiration?

“I’ve always believed that one woman’s success can only help another woman’s success.”
Gloria Vanderbilt