About two weeks ago, I received this email from one of our readers named Amanda.
Hi, my name is Amanda Clarke and I am a teenager living in New Jersey. I realize that this is a huge request, but I really want to make my dad’s Father’s Day special. He loves the Mets more than anything, and has been following them ever since he was a boy.
My dad and my grandpa both made us the Mets loving family that we are, attending games every year and repping our blue and orange gear daily. My grandpa passed away in November, and we haven’t attended a game since.
I know it makes my dad nostalgic to think of buying tickets, or even driving down to New York to see them play. And I know that tickets to a game would be the best present he could ask for, even though he would never ask.
If possible, I would love to surprise my dad with Mets tickets this year for Fathers Day. I understand that this might be impossible. It might be too much to ask for, but since I love my dad, I wanted to try.
Thank you, Amanda @Manderz1220
As soon as I read her note, I immediately knew I wanted to help her.
Her note reminded me of the good times I used to have with my dad before he passed away. We were almost always at odds with each other, but the only real good memories were when me and him would go to Met games together at Shea. His favorite Mets were Darryl Strawberry, Jesse Orosco and Gary Carter. We became estranged when with only one semester away from my degree, I quit college and enlisted in the Navy. Despite being a Navy man himself, he didn’t want that for me and his dream was for me to get that degree. I knew he’d talk me out of it, so I didn’t tell him what I had done until two days before they would pick me up.
On a cold and wintry Monday morning, a black sedan pulled in front of our house at 5:30 AM. It came to take me to Fort Hamilton where I’d be indoctrinated, sworn in, and sent off to boot camp. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house that morning and while my mom made a great breakfast, none of us touched our food, it was so surreal. I finally got up and hugged them all, and told them I had to go. The biggest hug came from my dad who stuck something in my pocket and whispered to me not to open it until I got to boot camp. I grabbed my bag, and took off down the stairs and shot out the door and into the waiting car – it was still pitch black outside and freezing cold. As soon as the car was far enough away from my house, I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the envelope and opened it. Inside I found two crisp $100 dollar bills and a note that just said, “Please don’t be a hero and come back home unharmed. I’ll always be proud of you.”
Back to Amanda…
I started looking up prices for tickets to the game and it wasn’t too long before seeing this wasn’t looking so good at my end financially. The Mets sure knew what they were doing with that dynamic pricing – the prices were all so steep. I thought I would try and reach out to one of our ticket partners to see if they would help, and wouldn’t you know it, I got lucky. After reading Amanda’s note they were only too willing to help.
To make a long story short, I’m happy to say that I sent Amanda a pair of tickets for Sunday’s game. Last night she me wrote me back – happier than ever – to tell me she received them. She said her and her father would “have a blast on Sunday” and that she was very grateful.
I smiled when I got her email, and at that same moment I wished my own dad a very Happy Father’s Day. I told him how much I missed him and how I wish we hadn’t run out of time so soon.
You know, I did end up getting that degree years later… I knew it would make him happy.
I wish all of you dads out there a very Happy Father’s Day.
