The Answer Is Love

Each morning with my orange juice and vitamins, I think about how my father used to say life was the great riddle—more puzzling than any sphinx. He'd sit on our front porch, baseball glove broken in perfect, calling out answers to life's mysteries that only made sense to him.

"The secret," he'd say, "isn't in the hitting. It's in who's there when you miss."

Now my own grandson pulls on my thinning hair, wondering why Grandpa's is different from his. I smile, thinking how the stubborn set of his jaw matches his mother's at that age. And mine before that.

"You know," I tell him, "this hair means I've been playing the game a long time." I show him the old baseball, scuffed from generations of backyard catches. "See this mark? Your great-uncle hit a foul right into Mom's garden. This blue stain? That's from when I tried to teach your daddy to catch, and he forgot to let go."

The boy laughs, that pure sound that makes everything seem possible again. We toss the ball back and forth, his throws wild and enthusiastic, mine gentle and practiced. The orange sunset paints our backyard in gold, and I remember my father's voice across fifty years.

"Grandpa," he asks, "what's the riddle's answer?"

I tousle his hair—so thick, so full of tomorrow—and realize what I've learned after all these vitamins and sunsets and seasons. The sphinx asked, "What walks on four legs, then two, then three?" But the real question is: Who walks beside you?

The answer, I've discovered, isn't in the perfect swing or the longest hit. It's in who celebrates when you connect, who sits with you when you strike out, who carries your name forward like a torch they'll someday pass.

"My boy," I say, squeezing his shoulder, "the answer is love. It always was."

The sphinx would be proud.