Going home to split up the estate

DIXON, Ill. -- From the NFL Scouting Combine on Sunday night, I drove home to Illinois to be with my six siblings and a few of the in-laws to make a major sweep through my mother's house. She had died Oct. 26. The time had come to get the house on the market.

Dear Reader: Please excuse what might seem to be unrelated thoughts, and thoughts that might not have a lot to do with football. I'm free-writing this entry because, well, selfishly, I need to.

I finished the purchase of my parents' car, a 1998 Contour for my son, Pete, now 17, to drive. My sister Joan, the only one of the seven children to stay in Dixon -- her husband, Dean, is chief of the Dixon City Fire Department -- executed my parents' will. We did the title. I took the car to a mechanic to check out once more before hitting the road.

Those details were the business end of the trip.

The rest was pure emotion, a rush of memories that had to be held back, or at least in check, by an intellectual levy.

The smallest elements provoked the greatest internal response.

In our German-Catholic family, Christmas was a huge deal -- not so much the commercial aspect, but the sense of togetherness. My parents always dwarfed the living room with a real tree that was between 8 and 9 feet tall. My father decorated it carefully. Dozens of the ornaments initially were my Grandmother Mueller's. On Monday afternoon, two of my sisters spread the ornaments out on the dining room table. We held a draft (youngest to oldest, pick one, oldest got two and then back down to the youngest). I guess that's a football reference.

I hadn't seen some of the ornaments since the last Christmas before I graduated college, December 1983, and the memories overtook me. I just wanted three -- one for each of my children. I was afforded many more, and stored them in one of the tins in which my mother used to store her honey-lemon Christmas cookies. I took my favorite ornament; it was still there with the third pick. A gold bell in a round cage that I see as silver, though my sisters tell me it's light purple. Either way, it was always the one ornament I made sure to hang on the tree when I was a little boy.

I didn't really want much. I really didn't want anything. I got more than I could ever ask for by just being John and Elizabeth's son.

My younger sister, Lucy, had pulled some things aside for me while I was still at the combine. Dad was a Nabisco salesman, so I received one of the Premium Saltines metal tins from 1969. Holds four tubes of crackers. She also pulled me one of their original copper beer mugs, the kind that sweat on a humid summer day. I was given my parents' Baseball Encyclopedia.

I had been advised by a friend to take a few things to have to share with my children, to let them in on family traditions even in a family that is now broken by divorce.

I wanted my brothers and sisters to take what they wanted. The item would mean more to me knowing it meant something special to one of them.

I felt this overwhelming sense of joy in belonging to such a solid group of people, almost like I wasn't good enough, the only divorced one, the one whose career always seems to get them best of him in terms of scheduling conflicts.

The car was ready this afternoon. I walked the mile-plus through downtown, across the Peoria Avenue bridge and past the castle-like Dixon High School. The car was good, my mom's mechanic said. "Your mom just didn't drive it enough. Get it on the highway. Drive the hell out of it."

From his shop, I drove west and turned back north on Fourth Avenue. I made my way into Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens on the north end of town. I had driven out there spontaneously at 1 Central Time Monday morning, after I had sat with my brothers and sisters. A blanket of thick, white snow covered the ground. I feverishly dug through the snow in search of the gravesite, which I had not seen since my mother's burial in October. I had not seen the two flat markers side by side.

Today, I dug them out. The first word I saw that told me I was in the right place was "Oct. 26," the date of Mom's death. As soon as I scraped the snow and ice off her name, the tears streamed from behind what I had thought was an iron curtain. In effect, it was a paper veil. When I opened my eyes, I saw one of my tears fall onto my mother's marker. I found it by spotting the slightly raised grave that had yet to settle and flatten into the established topography.

I dropped to my knees in the snow and wept. I could not stop.

"Oh, Mom, I miss you so much. I just hope you and Dad are together."

I said a "Hail Mary" for her and asked the Blessed Mother to please speak to God on her behalf.

I thought I was composed.

Then I dug out Dad's marker, and the tears flowed once again. I thanked God through my tears that these two people, hard-working, loving, willing to work to overcome their shortcomings, are my parents. I was on my knees, with one hand resting on each marker.

"God, thank you for letting me be their son."

As a divorced man, I know I'll never rest beside the mother of my children.

In the morning, I'll drive back to Cincinnati. I love and adore my three children. No one has six finer siblings and better in-laws. I am proud to have worked now for 14 years for The Cincinnati Enquirer. I love my job and know I am fortunate to have the opportunity to be an NFL team beat writer. I want to do more in the communities I call my own. I have my health and a second chance at life.

I will be leaving one place where I grew up knowing I was the richest kid in town.

I'm coming back to another place where I know I am the richest man around.