TERRY MOSHER
I was caught between two worlds. I blame my mother for that. She had the gall to get sick and die before I was old enough to explore the world on my own. She left us on May 21, 1953 and her leaving has impacted me since.
Yes, I will admit I have let it unnecessarily impact me. I could have – should have – moved on at some point. But I just couldn’t. It bothered me for me, but it also bothered me for her. Her death at a too-young age (48) could have been prevented if she had hung on for just a little longer. Advances in treating for a leaky heart valve would have enabled her to maybe live as long as her twin sister Betty, who made it to 98.
So as it evolved, I became caught between two worlds – all my friends and classmates and my promising future – for a 3,000-mile trip across the country where I uneasily settled in for a world that I wasn’t prepared for. It was a jolt that sent me veering onto a different life path then I had imagined before my mother died.
My older brothers and sister got the benefit of having mom around long enough to gain from her and to set out on the world that was intended for them without suffering a jolt that reverberated as it did for me for years.
I’ll never know what I would have been like or who I would have become if my mother had switched fates with her twin sister and lived 50 more years. A little over a year after my mother died, my father accepted a jog transfer out to the West Coast from our little village in New York State.
Would he have done that if his wife – my mother – was still living and healthy? Maybe not. Maybe my father would have gone into the electrical business his brother had established just six miles down the road from where we lived, or maybe he would have started his own electrical business as he did after retiring from his 37-year job with Mobil.
If that had happened and we stayed put in New York, I would have finished school with my classmates at the small school in our village in Portville. There is little doubt I would have benefited from that decision.
I was without question the best athlete in my class, and maybe in several classes above me. I was destined to be the starting quarterback on the school football team, a starting guard on the basketball team, probably as a freshman, and a starter on the baseball team, also likely as a starter.
My classroom work was a solid B and likely would have continued to be that, if not better because I would have lived in a positive environment and in my comfort zone.
I don’t think I would have been good enough to play beyond high school. Maybe in basketball and baseball, if I did. But it would have to have been in a small school somewhere close to home.
Since I grew to be almost six-foot-five with a troubled home life and very poor eating habits, it’s possible I may have grown another inch and been a college prospect. It would have been fun to try, at least.
My mother was the backbone of my early life, which belied her five-foot-two height. She was strong and determined to be there for her children of five, with me being the baby in the bunch.
Without her I drifted away from all my dreams, all my early life, and began what I refer to as my Dark Years, living with my dad, who was a gentle giant and a very good and decent man, but saddled with a stepmom who had no clue what to do with me. I was thrown aside like I was a piece of bad wood, and drifted alone as if I was a forgotten soul.
As a result I went from being someone to being no one.
Of course, I can look at it now as if I hadn’t been thrown aside like that, maybe I would not have become a sportswriter. Maybe this is what was meant – destined – for me all along.
I’ll find out, I guess, when I cross back and go home to the other side. In the meantime, you’ll have to put up with me and my wandering thoughts.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.