Rosy Glow – Getting Emotional

By

Andrew DeMarco

I have noticed that as I have gotten older it seems I have become more emotional or some might say sentimental. Things that would never move me when I was younger seem to affect me much more now than even a few years ago. For instance whenever I see or read a story about a good deed, like a town coming together to help a child who is sick or some child who gives up his or her allowance for an elderly person who needs it. I can barely watch Steve Hartman’s “On the Road” segment on the news or even Yankee Hope Week, I get moved in ways I never did before. I don’t mean all weepy and sobbing and in need of a handkerchief like John Boehner, I get what some would say is misty. I can’t explain it but I know I never felt like this before.

This all really started to hit home during the Papal visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. a week ago. Now for those of you who don’t know me I am not a very religious person. I guess I got my fill of religion having attended all those parochial schools when I was younger. It started out as just another Papal visit. To me the big visit always was and will be Pope Paul’s visit in 1965, after all it was really historic in that he was the first Pope to visit the U.S. But as Pope Francis made his rounds I found that maybe this one was different too. This pope seems to have a way of connecting with people much the same way as Pope John Paul II did and I find it amazing how people react to him.

There were two incidents in particular that drove me to becoming misty. The first was when the Pope visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral and as he made his way down the aisle he stopped in the very front of the church to meet with a young girl who was in a wheelchair. He then gave her a kiss and blessed her and the look of awe on that young girls face said it all. Once again, I got that misty feeling. My thoughts were what is it about this man and this office that can so move so many people?  The second incident was during Pope Francis’ visit to Ground Zero. Seeing all the members of the various religions gathered at that site just got me thinking, Imams, Rabbis, Lamas and many others all gathered together, but the clincher came near the end of that memorial when a youth choir sang one of my favorite songs “Let There be Peace on Earth.” That was all it took and I had another misty moment.

There was still another event during that week that started me down that misty road and that was the passing of Yogi Berra. It is kind of funny to be mentioning Yogi Berra in the same story as the pope, but only the pope could have knocked Yogi’s passing from the newspaper headlines and lead story on the network news. You see Yogi’s passing hit home a bit especially since I grew up a Yankee fan and there was no one who was more a Yankee when I was growing up than Yogi Berra. Sure there was Mantle, but Yogi was still the Yankee. Like all the other great Yankees back then this man was a part of my youth and I guess a part of my youth died also I am sure the same can be said of all Yankee fans as well and I got, you guessed it misty.

It was when all the tributes to Yogi started to pour in that it started with me again. One story told by Michael Kay about Yogi, did the trick and it is written below:

When Phil Rizzuto became ill toward the end of his life, he was put in an assisted living facility, which was about 30 minutes away from where Yogi lived. And every single day, because teammates were important to him, he would drive there, and he would play cards with Phil. And then when Phil would start to fall asleep, Yogi would hold his hand and when Phil would finally go to sleep, that’s when Yogi would leave. Every day. That’s what teammates meant to him.

So after one hell of a misty week, it finally hit me why I have become this way and it was something I should have realized much sooner. I have become more emotional because I am older. I have seen more of the good and bad in life then when I was younger and have come to appreciate the good much more. I would also like to think that I have become wiser and this wisdom allows me to see things differently than when I was younger. So as we inch toward that “on deck circle” I am sure we will all have our moments. One thing that is certain is that these emotional moments are not bad, and they do leave me with a good feeling, one that says everything is fine. That feeling leads to another and when the mist clears that feeling is one that Cousin Bob would call that ….. Rosy Glow.