As Norma Munroe lay dying in a Florida hospice bed, her body weakened by a four-year battle with lung cancer and her faculties dulled by dementia, visitors who walked into her dimly lit room could count on two things.
One was that Allan Munroe, her husband of more than sixty years, would be seated next to the bed in a wooden chair, holding her hand in his. The other was that Allan's eyes would be intently glued to a TV screen if his beloved Boston Red Sox were playing, counterbalancing the room's grim immediacy with the steady routine of balls and strikes, outs and base hits.
The Red Sox have helped 87-year-old Allan these past few years by "being an escape from a reality that hasn't always been so great," says his granddaughter Angela McKinnon.
Norma died this May, creating a void that baseball — even Red Sox baseball — can only do so much to fill.
"It was a horrible thing to watch as far as anyone you love being in a hospice and going through that whole long process," McKinnon tells Mashable. "Grandpa was married to her for so long and you could just tell he was lost."
A couple years ago, midway through Norma's battle with cancer, McKinnon and other family members pooled their money to buy Allan a commemorative brick at Boston's legendary home field, Fenway Park.
"Allan Munroe has 2 tru loves," it reads. "Norma and the Sox."
Allan hasn't seen his brick, though. At least not yet. The Massachusetts native hasn't been to Fenway in 50 years. He went to games there as a young man, but life has since gotten in the way. He was in the Air Force, an occupation that took him all over the world. Then he and Norma moved to Florida, where they raised four kids and he enjoyed a long career with the Brevard County Sheriff's Department. He made it to a few games in Tampa when the Sox played there, and rarely missed a game via TV or radio, but never made it back to Fenway.
He's also got health issues of his own. He recently got out of a rehab center after breaking his hip, has heart problems and McKinnon says dementia is just beginning to set in.
But Allan Munroe has a final dream before it's all said and done. He wants to see his Red Sox play in Boston one last time.
Between other family members' health issues and the costs of education and child-rearing, however, McKinnon says the family doesn't have enough money to fund the trip on its own. So they've turned to the crowd-funding site GoFundMe.com to try to get Allan back to Fenway and help him with the aftermath of Norma's death.
Allan gets tired early, so a day game would be best. With just a month left in the season and other family members' work schedules, that leaves one ideal target date: Sept. 14, a Saturday, when the loathed New York Yankees pay a visit. Three days prior, Sept. 11, will mark what would have been Allan and Norma's 64th wedding anniversary, the first since she died.
Since McKinnon started the campaign on July 22, it's raised just over $1,500—$1,000 of that from one anonymous donor. She hopes to reach a grand total of $5,000 to pay for lodging and rent a large vehicle Allan can travel comfortably in along with herself, her husband and her mother and aunt, who have spent the past few years as caregivers for Allan and Norma. Even so, with the money raised so far, McKinnon says "we're still gonna try to make this happen even if just one person takes him and they eat peanut butter and jelly the whole time."
She says Allan is only "vaguely" aware of the online effort, but that a visit to Fenway would be a poignant moment for both him and the family after some difficult years and a lifetime of service to his kids and grandkids.
"He would never give up on something he knew would make us happy," McKinnon writes on the GoFundMe page, "and we will not give up on making his dream become a reality."
For more information, you can visit the GoFundMe page here.
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