Reoccurring 7's

It seems that everywhere I go the number 7 is there, everywhere. There's a reason for this of course. It's a reminder, a reminder that he's always here. For those of you that aren't close to me that are reading this I should probably first give you a little bit of background. Please bear with me, I know it's long.

First I'll start with what is likely to be the most sad part of my first blog of many to come. On New Years Day of 2009 Paul Proulx Sr. lost his long and hard battle with cancer. His family, me included, was filled with sadness, but also with a sense of relief. Of course with death you always see sadness, but this relief came because his suffering was finally over. Although he was gone, he no longer had to deal with the pain that he went through for so long. No one deserves to have to go through that, not only my Uncle who was honestly one of the greatest men that I've had the privilege of knowing, no one. My dad was with him for the last minutes of his life, which is how it was supposed to be. That's how God wanted it and I'm sure that that's how my Uncle wanted it too. I admire my dad for having as much strength as he does. I can imagine that being there wasn't easy for him, but he was strong.

Growing up I wasn't as close to my Uncle Paul as I should have been, that is quite clear now. I couldn't see the support and pride that he had in me at the time, but now I know that he was one of the people that had always been the most proud of me in everything that I had done. I hope he still is. My dad told me after he died that every time that my Uncle would see my name or a picture of me in the paper he would make a point to show or tell my dad. There was one other thing that he always told him as well, this is the one thing that has stuck with me and showed me how truly proud he was/is of me. He told my dad to make sure he took care of me and reminded him that he had "Precious Cargo" with him.

Still to this day I remember the day that I saw him for the last time. It was December 26th of 2008 and I had been lucky enough to pick his name for our secret Santa on my dad's side of the family in his last Christmas with us. We visited him, bringing him the perfect present for him. Scratch tickets! He had always loved them and I know that even if he didn't scratch all of them he tried like hell. This day also marked his 53rd birthday, so I'm sure he had a lot of other scratch tickets to scratch as well. Despite how sick he was you could see that he was still the loving and joking Uncle Paul that we had all learned to love. I remember leaving him that day, wondering if it would be the last time I would see him. I went to say goodbye, grabbed his hand, hugged him, and told him I loved him. He didn't let go of my hand. He held my hand tight, probably tighter than he should have been able to, and I knew that this was his way of saying goodbye to me for he could barely speak. As I walked out of that room I knew that I had seen him for the last time.

My Uncle's favorite number was always the number 7, and through him I have grown to love this number as well. Some of you may even know that I have started to wear that number 7 on the back of my baseball jersey at Gordon College, that is without a doubt for him. Those of you that have watched me pitch in recent years may recall the ritual I do before every game behind the mound as well. I scratch the number 7 into the ground with my toe in tribute to him and then I take my cap off and say a few words to myself. Recently, I have also written something inside my hats to look at every time I do this, but that's for me to know and for you to wonder about.

One of the requirements at Gordon College, as it is a Christian school, is to take an Old Testament class. Yes, it is dreadful at times but that's not my focus right now. I was reading through Genesis for my quiz tomorrow,terrible I know, and I couldn't help but notice all of the number 7's. Noah brings 7 clean animals for sacrifice in addition to the 2 of each kind on the ark. In my version of the bible (NAB), the number 7 is also referred to in Genesis 31 and Genesis 33 briefly. Right now I can't think of all of the other places around my life that I've seen the number lately, but they are everywhere. They're reoccurring 7's.

Thank you to those of you who took the time out of your day to read this. Know that I don't seek anything from this, I'm just simply speaking my mind.

-Eric Proulx