Today's Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

[Guest guest]

Never, Never Give Up

It was a very exciting day for us - the championship Little

League game of the season. Two teams would be battling it out

one more time for the championship. We were the only team all

season to beat this " Paint Shop " team, and they were determined

to win tonight's game.

We were a baseball family. Ben, my husband, had coached

the Little League team for the past two years, but he had lost

his battle to cancer two months earlier. Dying at the age of

forty-three after a courageous struggle, he had left me and our

two children, , ten, and Lara, six.

He had coached while undergoing massive doses of

chemotherapy and many stays in the hospital, along with daily

trips to the hospital for tests. Despite being tired, worried

and worn down, he had continued to coach.

How he delighted in 's accomplishments playing

baseball, and how proud he would have been today of this team

and , the team leader and starting pitcher.

Ben was an English teacher by profession and had enjoyed

coaching soccer and baseball for years. He taught the teams how

to play the game and about good sportsmanship, fair play and

physical fitness. He also taught his family and a caring

community how to fight a terrible disease with faith, hope,

courage and dignity. He gave us all the courage to hope when

all hope was lost.

An avid reader, Ben jotted down quotes on index cards and

left them here or there around the house. One quote he loved

was by Winston Churchill during World War II: " Never, never,

never, never give up. " It seemed so appropriate for Ben, as

those were the words he lived by, fighting this disease for one-

and-a-half years, up to his very last breath. Upon his death,

we had those words inscribed on his tombstone. Those special

words became a message to my children and me upon every visit to

his grave. They were not something to be shared - they were

just for us. Our secret message to each other from Dad.

The game was close, and felt the pressure.

Because parents, family and friends on both teams had

helped care for our children at a moment's notice during our

nightmare and had felt much anguish upon Ben's death, every

person at that field missed Ben that evening.

One enthusiastic father, whose son was new to the team, and

who had not known our family circumstances over the past year,

came to the game with twenty-five paper cups on which he had

written different baseball expressions: " Get a base hit, " " Catch

that fly ball, " " Pop-Up, " " Bunt. " What fun it would be for each

player to read a message on his cup after quenching his thirst.

The score was close; it was a nerve-wracking game. In the

fourth inning, pulled a cup out randomly for his drink of

water. Suddenly he ran from the bench over to me with the cup.

Written on his cup were the words, " Never, never give up. " The

news spread fast. Ben was there, even if in spirit only.

Needless to say, we won the game, and the cup now sits on a

shelf next to Ben's picture to greet anyone who walks in our

back door.

by Diane Novinski

Reprinted by permission of Diane Novinski © 1998, from A

Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark

Victor Hansen, Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff.