Endings and Beginnings

The end of an era. New beginnings. As I reflect on the last three weeks, this is the theme that emerges. On August 30th I had the opportunity to see a baseball game in “The House that Ruth Built.” You don’t have to be a New York Yankees fan or even a baseball fan to appreciate Yankee Stadium. Since 1923, this ballpark in the Bronx has served as the home field for many of the game’s greatest players. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Yogi Berra are just a few of the players to suit up in Yankee pinstripes and take the field in this venerable old stadium. After this season, the Yankees will move across the street to a shiny new park with better sight lines and greater fan amenities and the old Yankee Stadium will be no more. A special thanks is due to my wife for allowing me to leave her at home 30-weeks pregnant and travel to New York to drink a beer in this Cathedral of Baseball.

Saturday, September 6th marked a new beginning at Groves Stadium in Winston-Salem. You may have seen in the news that Wake Forest unveiled the new Deacon Tower at its home opener against Ole Miss. The new tower replaces the old press box, built in 1965, with state of the art media rooms, luxury suites, and club seats. The new structure has changed the public face of Wake Forest Game Day from this:

To this:

Although this was surely a momentous event in the history of Wake Forest Sports, I am much more excited about another “beginning” that took place. On Saturday, my girls attended their first football game. This was surely the first of many fall football Saturdays for our family in Groves Stadium. For those that missed the game (or really just don’t care), Wake won the game on a 41 yard field goal with only three ticks left on the clock. And though the girls didn’t actually see much of the game, I am pretty sure that I heard two small, yet distinctive, “Go Deacs!” as the ball sailed through the uprights.

Sadly, in the midst of these two exciting occasions, my Grandma Nance went to be with the Lord. She will surely be missed by all that knew her. For those not lucky enough to know her, I only wish I could better express the greatness of this woman. She was the quintessential grandmother. From homemade soups and freshly baked cookies to warm embraces and words of wisdom, she always had something to share. She was the kind of grandma that seems to only exist today on TV. Actually, the kind of grandma that existed on TV twenty years ago. She was a woman who would make her own pie crusts and clip coupons to save a dollar but regularly shared her baked goods and the bounty from her garden with the homebound. She was a woman that spent a lifetime caring for and loving on her family. She was the personification of the Sunday morning sermon encouraging you to live life so that others see Christ in you.

Although she will be dearly missed, her spirit will live on. It lives on in the people that knew her. It lives in her children and grandchildren who for so many years enjoyed a living picture of what it means to love your family and your neighbors. Though our lives will never be the same, Grandma would not want us to mourn for her. She taught us that her reward is in Heaven. And I imagine that when she got there, Grandpa met her at the front gates with a big hug and kiss. And once she “got settled,” she surely visited with her parents, brothers, sisters, and even a son-in-law that went before her. And if I know Grandma, this took place around a table of home-cooking; the likes of which we will likely not see until we again fellowship at her table.