What Happened, Bernardsville?

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What happened?

Why don’t I live here anymore?

We go. We seem to follow life around. It tugs us. Seems random sometimes, inexplicable, one big misunderstanding or grand plan we’re not in on, or at least not told about.

These were my thoughts less than an hour ago as I drove through my old hometown, Bernardsville, New Jersey, which as looking as gorgeous as it can at times, in early July, with the grass green on lawns and houses looking like idyllic places many people would want to live in pretty much forever.

As little as little towns can be, as mesmerizing and quiet as romantic poets could describe, this was the town where my three kids – who are now out of college and on their own – were little people, where they Trick or Treated, where they went to kindergarten, where they played T-ball and started their soccer and swimming and lacrosse and basketball and football careers, the area where they started and finished high school and drove away from to go off to college, leaving me where I was, wondering what was happening.

That was them. That was me. That was us, our family, Central New Jerseyans, a family of five, alive, me doing splash dives at the Bernardsville Swimming Pool, the best local town pool anywhere in North, South, or Central America.

What happened?

I thought about this question again. I kept driving around, having returned here – a rarity – for a couple of days for the wedding of a daughter of friends we made when we lived here. They’re still here.

Some seven years ago – it felt like seventeen to me today – we moved away. Did we really live here?

One afternoon, some seven years ago, I got in my car, closed the door, strapped on my seat belt, and left my life. Said goodbye to Bernardsville.

Gone.

Back then, it was so emotional and precarious that I didn’t even think about thinking about it. After 23 years in Bernardsville, I put your car in reverse, backed out of my driveway – the one I shoveled every winter and slipped and fell on about 12 times because it’s slanted – maneuvered to D for drive, tapped my foot on the pedal, and off I went.

To another life.

To North Carolina.

Not knowing what would happen. I wondered what had happened. Wishing it hadn’t happened.

There wasn’t time to look back. Needed a job. Unemployment focuses your mind. All else kind of doesn’t matter much. Food was needed.

The new life in North Carolina turned out great after a bunch of doors closed, after a whole lot of probing interview questions: Why did you move here? Where did you used to work? Why did you leave?

Today, I steered my car to one of my favorite places in Bernardsville, the Little League Baseball Park. It looked the same as the first time I saw it 20 years ago: perfect. If you tried to convince me there’s a better-looking Little League baseball park anywhere in the world, I would never believe you.

Don’t even try. My mind is made up.

A snack shack, home run fences, scoreboards mounted in centerfield. Green grass. Trees offering shade, a sumptuous scoop of simplicity.

Today, the park was empty, I suppose, because of the holiday weekend. It was just me and my memories, amid the afternoon quiet, almost loneliness, and my recollections of watching my son, my only son, swing the bat, crack home runs, and throw a deceptive change-up.

We spent hours and hours in the batting cages, I throwing, he refining his hand-eye coordination. One day, I remember he was around eight as the rain poured; we stayed in the cages, me throwing, him swinging, and I wish right now I could bring back that exact situation.

I knew then one day he would be gone, no longer playing baseball, and I was right. It’s a little sad to reflect on this now. Sadness is a part of everyone’s life.

The kid could really hit the baseball. Later on in high school, one coach compared his all-around skill set and style of hitting, fielding, and running to Freddy Lynn of the Boston Red Sox, the only major leaguer to win the MVP and Rookie of the Year the same year.

It was a good comparison.

That was a long time ago.

A good time it was, though.

Watching him hit, chase down a line drive in center field. So beyond explaining. My idea of what’s beautiful was seeing that.

If there is a Heaven, I believe it is that Little League baseball park and all the free feelings everyone who went there experienced, the kids, siblings, parents, umpires, and the snack shack guy. He gave up ice cream sandwiches.

What happened?

Time didn’t stop. That’s what happened. The Little League season ended, then another one, then high school and college, and moving out of the house and away from home, then me living in North Carolina and my son in New York City.

We communicate often.

He’s doing well.

I love him.

I’m glad he got to grow up in that town and play in that park, which is the most perfect Little League baseball park in America or anywhere else in the world. Sometimes, reiterating the same thing is the right thing to do. This is one of those times.

What happened?

I got older. My son got older. We all got older.

Back then, I used to write articles for the Bernardsville News, the local newspaper, about the Little League Opening Day parade, which was, yes, the most perfect Opening Day parade of any in the world: the Lugnuts and Batcrazies and Whatever Whatevers. Repeatedly and without inhibition, I would write about the Little League games, something about some interesting kid doing something interesting like jacking a home run or striking out 10 kids, or eating candy.

At the Opening Day Parade, one memory is especially vivid. It’s of the Home Run Derby event. Kyle Kirst, a father of five boys in the league, would grab the microphone and entertain hundreds of people. He would comment on the kids as they swung for the fences.

When his son Conner came to the plate, he told us Conner had not been good about cleaning his laundry, which had nothing to do with the Home Run Derby, which made it fantastic. There was no one, is no one, and never will be anyone as entertaining, friendly, and lovable as Kyle Kirst.

Of all of my treasured memories of living in Bernardsville, knowing and talking with and being amused by the incomparable Kyle Kirst is one of my fondest memories. What a human being Kyle was.

A few years after that Home Run Derby, Kyle suddenly died.

His death broke Bernardsville, Basking Ridge, Bedminster, and Summit, and parents and kids. A shattering death for so many.

Everyone – and I mean everyone – adored Kyle Kirst. The biggest wake I’ve ever seen; the biggest funeral I’ve ever seen. The same is true for everyone who attended these events. None of us will ever go to a bigger wake and funeral.

I drove by the Kirst house today and thought about Kyle and his boys and wished so much he could have seen them become star lacrosse players through high school and college. It doesn’t seem fair that he didn’t see that, but maybe he did. I believe he did.