I am thirteen, a few inches shorter back then. My three cousins and I are a few paces short of a slow jog, striving to keep up with Dad who knows the bustling streets of Boston like the back of his hand. Almost as well as he knows me.
"That was a good idear, pahking the cah there," he says to us with a sideways glance. By this point in our lives, we are used to decoding our Dads and their heavy Boston accents. The accents sound like home, just like the noises on Yawkey Way that could only come with eighty-six years of built-up energy; Redsox Nation had been pulling for this moment for generations. A World Series. We took our seats.
I am so ready for this. A die-hard fan, I have spent the better part of the last week saying Hail Mary's and Our Fathers in my bathroom, hardly able to take a peek at the television screen that was broadcasting a feat that screamed divine miracle: the Sox, originally being down three games to none, had just won the American League pennant. I guess I didn't think that God had anything else to worry about in that moment. And then came the announcer's cry, every ounce of professionalism gone: "AND REDSOX NATION CAN REJOICE TONIGHT!" We are all children now. Jumping and hugging, a tangle of arms and legs. We can hear the neighborhood's collective cheering. It is a school night for Robbie and I, but for once, nobody cares.
Nearly a week later, I still have the same raw energy. But I also have pneumonia. "I will NOT be missing this game," I announced to my concerned mother earlier that day as she took my temperature for what seemed like the millionth time. If Curt Shilling could pitch with an injured ankle and a sock saturated with blood, then I could certainly brace the cold for my beloved team. And so, with a heavy dose of Tylenol in my system and two thick coats on my back, I brave the weather and my failing immune system to watch history unfold before my eyes.
Wow, there are so many families here, I thought. A toddler in her mother's arms. A grandfather with his arm around his grandson's shoulder, pointing out the various plays. Four generations of fans compose one family sitting behind us.
In true Rob Papapietro fashion, Dad has already made friends with at least five people in every direction. I love that about him. His easygoing nature, his smile that stretches from the park to his childhood home in the East Boston projects a few miles away. He and a fellow Bostonian are exchanging life stories in the eighth inning when he breaks away for a moment, watching my face grow increasingly pale. He knows I am slipping away.
The coughs start. Coughs that seem to rattle my bones. Not now, the Sox are making their comeback, I think to myself. But I have to go get warm somehow. Without a second thought, Dad takes me inside the stadium as we stand, father and daughter, in a spot that allows us to still hear every play.
The Sox win. In fact, they win four games straight. The title of "World Champions" belongs to them.
I think anyone who is a Sox fan will agree that the 2004 team had an unparalleled magic. The players meshed; they had handshakes and shaggy hair and a shared resolve. And the fans united too. From all different walks of life, the fans at Fenway that night had a common passion for the game and for their team.
It's funny though. Because Fenway is just a ballpark. It is just a century old building, with tens of thousands of seats and a giant Citgo sign. But it's so much more than that. It represents priceless memories for so many.
More specifically, it is a century of memories between children and their parents.
And I am no exception.
It's amazing what you remember when your parent is no longer with you, at least in the physical sense. The moments you remember when, at least in this life, you won't get any more "moments."
But this realization only makes those memories that much more vivid, like a dream that you never want to lose. I have never remembered Dad's strong hand so well as I held it in mine. Or the smell of peanuts. Or his deep brown eyes, eyes that are reflected in my own.
It is now, at twenty-one, eight more years of love and life under my belt, that I can lie in the back seat and smile, waves of joy seeping through all corners of my heart, remembering a night of unconditional love in the form of a team that gave me hope, and a father who I will always be infinitely proud to call my own.
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