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Page 26 the valley star June 28, 2012
ROB’SPACE by Rob Phraner
phrantrain@gmail.com
Live like you were dyin’
I’ll never forget
watching Tug Mc-
Graw hold high the
Philadelphia Enquirer
newspaper as he
rode in the victory parade.
It said “You
Rob Phraner
Gotta Believe!” a phrase McGraw coined
that seemed to push the Phillies to victory
over the Kansas City Royals in the
1980 World Series. The parade slowly
rode through the chilly streets of Philly
with McGraw as the centerpiece next to
Mike Schmidt. He was a tremendous relief
pitcher and team comedian, cheerleader
and competitor.
McGraw became a baseball announcer
after his playing career was over. Everything
was going well for him until he had
a sudden change in health. He began to
have severe headaches in 2003 and by
the time the brain tumor was discovered,
Tug, all of 59 years old, was told by doctors
he had three weeks to live. Three
weeks.
He lived nine months, pouring his time
into his family, into a legacy dedicated to
curing brain cancer, and even to reconciling
a hidden part of his past he had
buried safely away for years. McGraw
had a wife and kids, but he also had another
son from a previous relationship
when he was very young, a son he ignored
all of his life.
The boys’ mother was Elizabeth
D’Agostino. She didn't tell her son about
his famous father, in part because she
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wanted to move past that particular part
of her life, too. But young Timmy found
his birth certificate, and made the most
shocking discovery of his life. Timmy’s
favorite baseball player, the World Series
hero Tug McGraw, was also his father!
Tim changed his name from Tim Trimble
to Tim McGraw.
Tim found Tug when
he was an older teenager,
but there was nothing there. Tim
had his own dreams and didn’t have
time to dwell in the past. There were no
warm feelings, no immediate connection,
and no real future. After that first meeting,
they drifted apart. But once more, as
an adult, Tim reached out to Tug again.
And the second time, the attraction took.
A bond formed. Father and son, as
strange as it must have seemed to them,
became close.
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And then when news came that time
was running out, they became closer
still. In the end, Tug McGraw even died
at Tim McGraw's Nashville home.
In 2004 Tim's song, "Live Like You Were
Dying," stayed on top of the charts for
10 weeks, breaking a record that had
stood for 30 years, and was named the
top country song of the year by Billboard
magazine. It was the story of a man who
got the news that he was dying - a man
made a decision of how he would live
with the time he had left. Some of the
lyrics read:
He said "I was finally the husband,
that most the time I wasn’t.
An' I became a friend
a friend would like to have.
And all of a sudden goin' fishin’,
wasn’t such an imposition,
and I went three times
that year I lost my Dad.
Well, I finally read the Good Book,
and I took a good long hard look,
at what I'd do if I could
do it all again,”
and then:
"I went sky diving,
I went rocky mountain climbing,
I went two point seven seconds
on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
And I loved deeper
and I spoke sweeter,
and I gave forgiveness
I'd been denying."
An' he said: "Some day,
I hope you get the chance,
to live like you were dyin'."
At the end of the day, at the end of a life,
relationships are the most important
thing a man has. Especially with his
kids, and particularly a father with his
sons. We should live like we are dyin’.
Every Father’s Day, I remember January
10, 2009. It was a Saturday night and
the Pittsburg Steelers were playing in an
AFC playoff game. I was sitting there
and the thought came to me to call my
dad. I almost didn’t; the kids were running
around and I was distracted, and
getting a little tired. But I called and we
had a good talk, probably over twenty
minutes. He mentioned an article he
read in the sports section of the paper
and said he would send it to me. We
hung up, and I didn’t realize that would
be the last time I would ever talk to him.
The next morning, as I was getting ready
for church, my dad went outside and
was shoveling a fresh layer of snow from
his sidewalk in the Pocono, Pennsylvania
mountains. At age 70, without warning,
he died instantly of a massive heart
attack, right by his front door.
I miss him. I also miss the grandfather I
barely got to know. He died in the house
I grew up in, suddenly and tragically,
when I was a little boy. We never know
our time. But for those reading this,
your time has not yet come. You can tell
your kids you love them, read them a
story from the Bible to them, go out to
lunch with them, or a movie, or possibly,
reconcile with them, like Tim and Tug
McGraw. Live like you were dyin’.