Opening Day

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS PIECE IS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR IN THE BERGEN RECORD

Today is Opening Day for the 2015 Yankee season. The temperature will be in the mid 60's, the sun shining. So why am I melancholy?

For what seemed destined to last forever, the first ball and strike meant an afternoon at the park with my children. At 11 AM on each Opening Day, I would wait in my car outside my children's school. While the rest of the universe was tethered to their desks and to their everyday routines, for my son and daughter there was freedom from their bonds and joy on their faces. As they raced across the lawn, away from the mundane, running where they should have walked, my heart silently melted.

As they grew older, clarity of purpose and unfettered emotion gave way to the realities of everyday existence. But the tradition remained, an annual pilgrimage that continued for well over 20 years. As certain as the flowers blooming in spring, as welcome as the first hint of daylight at night's end.

This year is different. The days of wine and roses are gone, the romance of Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pettite and Williams replaced with the pedestrian and the unfamiliar. But, worse than that loss of connection, is the realization that children do not stay young forever and the unbridled love that once accompanied this day is impossible to replicate in a world replete with responsibilities and schedules, deadlines and concerns, health issues and uncertainties.

And so, even as I sit in my office on this first day of the 2015 season, I know there are no smiling faces waiting outside my door eager to head off to the next installment of a never ending dream. And that loss, unlike any the team may suffer in the coming months, is something that indeed makes the beginning of this season one that is bittersweet..