Daryl

In the beginning of our marriage Daryl and I use to play backgammon and chess together, always at my request. He had a beautiful hand carved chess game from Bolivia which I thought we should put it to good use.  I saw playing games as a "fun" way to connect. Daryl didn't play games for fun, he  had one goal in mind, to win! I learned long ago not to sit by him in the family Uno game at the cabin, or maybe he knew not to sit by me.  I don't know why I thought I could beat him at anything! He was so smart, naturally talented and... very competitive! He studied the board and like the advice for the instructor in the movie Searching for Bobby Fisher, Ben Kingsley's character tells the young boy "Look deep Josh, it's there, it's 12 moves away, but it's there." Daryl too could see the moves, so playing for fun made no sense to him. He would say to me, "are you sure you want to make that your move?" Many times I thought that was part o...