Dear Editor:

A couple days have passed since dad died and I’m sitting here in my father’s bedroom sobbing, the disbelief and heavy sadness weighed extra heavily today. I clinch the picture of my father tighter, close to me and at this point, I let the tears and nasal mucous drip to my cheek and onto the floor. I have wasted a box of Kleenex and the heaps of used tissues were all over my parent’s bedroom.

I gaze at the picture, all sorts of things running through my mind, the memories of our family, my mother, siblings and my father, of course, my father. The kind, caring and loving father that we all so love, and we will all miss …wait ”miss” I can’t fathom. Is this real? I can’t remember if this is real or not, or a really terrible, horrible dream – nightmare.

One memory of my father, he asked “Jukuwey kwis”, he smiled asking me to come over and hands me a baseball mitt. I replied, “Wel’alin” meaning thank you in Mi’kmaq. I was only young then, I couldn’t really play with the older boys but I knew eventually he would want me to play baseball.

My father loved to coach hardball, and I would still remember him saying, “This sport has a future, it can pay you to play”, he was referring to the Major League Baseball or “The Show”. He coached many kids around the neighborhood, not just Quamsipuk but throughout Eskasoni.

Dad was a coach, he loved coaching many things but his love was baseb ...