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This item was written for the "15 for 15 Contest --- Starts June 6"
 contest where participants are given a photograph and can write about it for 15 minutes onlyToday's picture showed a football resting in the grass. To see the picture, visit the contest forum linked above. Look for "Past Image Prompts" beneath the current prompt photo, and click on "June 8" - Ball. It was just a ball, like any other ball; well, like any other football, to be exact. But to me, there will never be another like it. Uncle Jerry brought it as a gift for Andy and me the day he came home from the Army after the war. He also brought a new limp, exciting stories, lots of scars, a picture of the girl he loved, and everything he owned—along with that ball—crammed in a knapsack stuffed so full we thought it would burst open when he slung it off his shoulder to the ground to catch us in his outstretched arms. “I sure missed you guys,” he whispered as tears streamed down his face. “Let’s go find your Mom.” Inside, he brought out souvenirs from China and Korea for Mom and Jenny. He showed off his medals and his scars for Dad and told stories all evening. The next morning we tossed the football while waiting for breakfast. “Football is what I missed most in Korea,” Uncle Jerry said. “One of the guys had a ball and we’d throw it back and forth, sharing stories of home. It didn’t compare to being here, though.” As the years went by, Andy and I threw that football back and forth across the yard too many times to count. Uncle Jerry went back to Korea to find his girl but returned with a daughter instead. Rejected by her villagers for loving an American soldier, she had run away, leaving the baby with her aunt. Uncle Jerry left word for her to contact him, but didn’t have much hope she ever would. Between his jobs and caring for his daughter, Uncle Jerry didn’t have much time to spend tossing the football, but every time he did, it was something special. We’d talk about school, the future, and the past. There was a sadness in his eyes that lessened a little while tossing the ball. As Andy and I prepared to go off to college, Uncle Jerry returned to Korea once more, looking for his lost love. This time he found her and brought her home. Mom took Miko shopping and Uncle Jerry threw the football with us in the yard. The smile had returned to his face, and the glimmer or optimism to his eyes. “I finally feel complete,” he said as he caught the ball hurtling toward him and snapped it out to me. I let it fly toward Andy as he reminisced: “I left a piece of my heart in Korea, and now I have it back. Boys, someday you will understand what I’m saying.” As the ball impacted my chest I knew I’d remember the feel of it forever; the scent of the leather, the feel of the laces against my fingers, the bumpy surface of the pigskin ball as it slid from my hand into a spiraling pass, the sound it made when it impacted the receiver. Somewhere on a shelf in my parents’ garage there’s a football…when I visit them this summer I’m going to find it. Andy will be there and we will throw it across the yard as we did when we were kids. I wonder if he ever thinks about those times and remembers how much they meant. No matter where I go, it's like Uncle Jerry once said: "Nothing compares to tossing your own ball in your own yard, but far from home, any ball in any yard can be a comfort."
© Copyright 2008 justme (UN: debwrites at Writing.Com).
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