That One Time I...

Kept A Promise To God After A Nightmare Of A Journey

My relationship with God is a complicated one. I believe in Him, but I can’t stand His followers. I own a Kindle copy of The Bible, yet it’s been years since I’ve opened it. A few days ago, I thought of this awkward relationship when I passed by the church I attended as a child, the same one Sensei still attends on Sunday. 

A transplanted Midwestern friend dragged me to a bowling alley when I was seventeen, and after rolling a 165 in my third game with house equipment I thought I could become a pro with practice. I soon bought my first ball, a Columbia Yellow Dot that I could trust with my life, and off I went on an unexpected adventure of working a part time job to afford better equipment, lane rentals, adult league and semipro tournament fees.

At twenty one, I was at my peak. Weight training with Sensei’s brother allowed me to develop one of the hardest shots you’d ever see on the lanes. It was like being a baseball pitcher with a 101 mph fastball and pinpoint control, and I had no shortage of onlookers whenever I bowled. I loved the attention, and I also had every reason to believe the best was yet to come. 

I had just missed posting a 190 average for the just concluded Winter season due to a hockey injury in March, but I didn’t care. I started the summer season with a 207 average and I already had the rest of my life planned out just like anyone on the edge of full adulthood. I’d post a 200 average for the next two winter seasons and then I’d give the regional PBA tournaments a go. 

Everything was going to plan until I felt a pop and then a searing pain radiating from my hand and wrist during that fateful fifth week of the summer season.

***

I incurred the original injury while playing hockey, and doctors had diagnosed it as a bad sprain that would heal in six to eight weeks with proper rest. When the reinjury happened and every time I advised them afterward that I wasn’t getting any better, those same doctors insisted it was only a sprain. Not only was I in some degree of pain whenever I bowled, but I couldn’t use my fingers to apply lift to the ball to generate the revolutions necessary to carry a strike. Every ten pin that defied me wasn’t just an annoyance. It was a harsh reminder that my major league “fastball” was gone.

It wasn’t until I visited an orthopedic surgeon on my own dime a year later that I learned the horrific truth about that hockey injury. It was far worse than a sprain. I had torn ligaments in my wrist and hand, dislocated a couple of bones in my wrist, and had also suffered nerve damage when it was reinjured. Too much time had passed by the time the surgeon examined my arm, and sadly there was nothing he or anyone else could do for me. I was damaged goods from that point on.

I tried everything from using a lighter ball to working on my stance and delivery to compensate for my injury. I walked away from the sport for a season and a half, and when the pain returned I tried to bowl left handed for a full season. No matter what I did, the best I could do was a low to mid 180 average, just shy of the threshold needed for the pro tour. 

And yet, I was too stubborn and proud to quit when I should have.

***

By the time my eighth and final season after my reinjury arrived, I was twenty nine and worried that either my arm or my liver wouldn’t make it to forty. For the last two partial seasons I used alcohol — I’d down a mudslide before warmups and then a strawberry daiquiri during the first half of the first game — to numb the pain in my arm so it could last the three game session. Once I sobered up, which was usually during the final game, the pain would return with a vengeance. I’d be miserable the rest of the evening and the following morning, and yet I’d still average in the mid 180s while legally drunk. 

So where does “Sky Daddy” fit into the picture? Midway through that final season, two members of my team couldn’t show up for a match against the best team in the league. I knew I’d have to play the game of my life if we had a prayer of not getting swept, and after I downed my mudslide I said a silent prayer. 

I didn’t ask God to let me bowl well. I asked Him to let me show everyone one last time what I was capable of, and that I’d quit at the end of the season if He allowed it.

I started off the game with a strike, and then another. Four more followed and then everyone on the other team as well as the bowlers on the lanes besides our pair started watching me just like in the old days. I tried to ignore them, but I couldn’t get over the fact my teammates stopped talking to me as if they’re worried I’d blow my first perfect game. 

Are you kidding me? The only thing I could have blown at the time was a 0.12 on a Breathalyser. Anyway...

I rolled three more strikes and yet I still wasn’t nervous with everyone’s eyes on me. I had gone up to the second ball on the tenth frame a handful of times in my previous attempts at perfection, and I figured I’d either do it or not. The first shot was a strike, and as luck would have it on the second shot the head pin flew over the rest of the pins, leaving me a 5-10 split. 

I don’t recall if I made the spare, but I ended the game with a personal high 288 game. What I do recall afterward was rolling strikes in the first six frames of the next two games and hearing humorous comments like, “Will you fucking stop that?” and "He's doing it again?"

I ended the session with 31 strikes, a career high 753 series, and we swept every game. When May rolled around, it was fitting that I ended my final season mere percentage points shy of a 190 average, also a career high.

True to my word, I haven’t visited a bowling alley since and I'm not hobbled by those past injuries or the aftermath. My liver is fine according to my blood work. The numbness in my fingers disappeared when my bicep detached from my shoulder a decade ago, and this past week I squeezed and held a hand grip trainer at the maximum 90 lbs for ten seconds. 

Thanks, Sky Daddy -- I mean, God.