Adam Dolgin reflects on how he lost the “love of his life.”
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Men don’t often like to talk about it, “the one that got away.” We all have our sad stories about our greatest loves, and how one moment they were here and the next they were gone, but it’s often too painful to rehash the past. But we have to be open about our feelings and talk about it, if only to give solace to the next guy that no matter how bad it gets, you will love again. But it is a lie.
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I remember it like it was yesterday. It seemed an ordinary day like any other. My girlfriend and I were spending a quiet day at home relaxing. It was a Saturday, June of 2005 I believe. Just a lazy day at home. I got up to go to the bathroom. I walked by the spare room as I walked down the hall, and something drew me to enter it. Something was different.
I called out to my girlfriend, “Jaimie, where’s all my stuff?”
“I packed it up,” she replied with a devilish smile on her face.
“Why?” I screamed.
“It was time,” she said.
At first I started to whine like a child. Then I started to sob like a baby.
“No! No! Please tell me no! What did I do to deserve this?”
“I needed my space,” she said. “I warned you this would happen if you waited too long.”
“But, I promised you I would do what I said I would do!” I exclaimed.
“It’s too late,” she said. “I had to do something. You weren’t going to.”
◊♦◊
All my hopes and dreams, gone. I started rifling through the boxes and the garbage bags filled with all my crap.
“I can’t find it! I can’t find it!” I exclaimed while freaking out.
“It’s gone,” she said.
“You threw out my baseball glove?”
She smirked. “I warned you.”
◊♦◊
It was a gift my grandmother gave to me when I was twelve. I spent every waking hour with it, working it in, and caring for it, and loving it, and it was gone? My grandmother died when I was thirteen. It was the last gift she ever gave me. And it was gone? I had that glove – that perfectly worked-in glove – for 19 years and my girlfriend just tossed it out like trash. I slept with it, I oiled it, I protected it, and it was gone! I used that glove to make shoestring catches, over-the-fence catches and sliding-catches for 19 years, and she just threw it away? I once made a guy who borrowed it go back and get it when he left it on a field after he broke his collar bone. He got it. He respected it. What was wrong with her? She threw it out so she could use the spare room in our apartment as a…. a… an art room!?
No!
I screamed at her. “You ruined my life!”
She just sat there in the doorway next to me, arms crossed, looking at her handiwork with a grin. “I warned you.”
I left after that. I couldn’t stand to look at her face ever again. The longest relationship of my life was over. 19 years. What woman could offer me that? My glove was warm and comforting and made me happy. My girlfriend was cold and vindictive and caused me more sadness than I will ever be able to express.
It’s still hard to talk about till this very day without tears welling up in my eyes. I went on to have other girlfriends, but I will never, ever be able to replace that Rawlings Eddie Murray glove my Grandmother bought for me so long ago. Never! Ever!
It was the love of my life.
◊♦◊
I know other dads and husbands can relate to my loss. What is your baseball glove story? How did you lose, or almost lose, the love of your life?
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Photo: flickr/Sean Winters
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Who would do such a thing? I can’t find words for this.
I hope you made up that. If that’s true it’s quite twisted. Of course if you made it up, that’s a little twisted too.
Why would she do that? Good riddance (not to your glove).