Time And Space

I wish that what seemed "just like yesterday" actually was just yesterday.

Happy Birthday, Dude

About 10 minutes before 1:12 a.m., my oldest son began crying in his sleep.

Ten minutes from his 9th birthday and he was certifiably sick.

Five minutes before that, I ran my fingers through his hair, kissed his forehead, marveling at how far he has come in the nine years since he was a little baby that I could almost hold in the palm of my hand.

He had had a big day planned at school this morning ...

An awards ceremony for making all A's. Little spherical rice-krispie treats with baseball threads that my wife made for all 24 kids in the class. His name announced over the speaker, proclaiming it his day because he was the only one in the school born on April Fool's Day.

But it wasn't to be.

He was too sick to go to school.

I was barely awake when I decided that I was staying home with him. And not just because it was a rainy day.

I can't tell you how much I wish I could re-live those first days when he was born -- when spring's first flashes of pink, violet and powder-blue blooms begin to emerge tree-lined streets between the hospital and home.

Just to hold him and move him effortlessly. To watch the slightest turn of his lip, a hint of a smile that proves baby's want to be happy. To watch him wake up crying for food, being fed and happy, and then crying before he went back to sleep.

And then doing it all over again the course of a few hours.

I didn't really have any idea what I was doing, nor could I see beyond what I expected fatherhood to be compared to letting it be what it was going to be.

I didn't necessarily handle it well. And I can't say I do now.

However ...

Today was the closest I've been to living that time again.

He woke up and played his Madden '09, then came to wake me up.

He laid in the bed with me.

I told him how I was going to take care of him like when he was a little baby home for the first time.

I described his routine back then. He laughed. I told him how we had to set him beside a window because he was jaundiced. I didn't actually say "jaundiced." I said it was because his skin was weird and the sun would fix it.

I told him how he would squeak when he had the hiccups. I did an impression of that. He giggled.

I told him we would lay on the couch, him resting on my chest, and watch the Final Four

I gave him his medicine and cooked him eggs and sausage. He ate the sausage. The eggs weren't that good.

I ordered him the "Madagascar 2: Escape To Africa" movie on pay per view. It could play all day.

He asked me to play his WWE wrestling video game. I asked him to let me sleep for an hour. He came in frequently to wake me up for various reasons. I woke up and asked him if he was ready to play. He was asleep.

I opened up his little tin baby capsule. There was a lock of hair from his first haircut. A copy of the hospital's discharge paper on April 2, 2000. A ticket stub to his first Gamecock football -- September 21, 2002 vs. Temple.

When he woke up this afternoon, I asked him if he was ready. He told me he was, but that he wanted to watch the "Suite Life of Zach and Cody" first.

Of course he could.

Last night, I took the remnants of the Rice Krispy cutouts and molded them into a crude resemblance of circle. My wife painted some baseball threads on it but insisted that the mutated monstrosity wasn't going to school.

This morning, I put nine candles in that concoction and had him make a wish and blow them out.

Over the course of the day, he ate the whole thing ... one foot in diameter.

We played the wrestling game. I was Shelton Benjamin. He was Shawn Michaels. He won, because he's better. I let him download whatever music he wanted.

We picked his brother up from school. I let him sit in the front this time, because it was his birthday.

We went to a Walgreen's to pick out some sunglasses for baseball. I had promised we would do that. His eyes are sensitive like mine. While inside, he found a wrestling figure by the name of "MVP." It was $9.99. I bought it, because it's his birthday.

He came home and acted out a match with his new figure. And watched the Madagascar movie again.

Like a little kid who didn't just two days before -- as his team's starting pitcher for their first game of the season -- work his way out of bases-loaded jam and strike out one of the best hitters in his league.

That's where he is now.

On an edge between the babyhood I don't want to vanish and the growing kid who sometimes lapses and involuntarily calls me "dude" if I'm frustrating him.

"Dude."

He's embarrassed when I bring up that habit.

These years go by.

It's getting to where one day isn't enough to contain them.

And He Steps Calmly On The Cobra ...

"It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory."

'I Crouch Like A Crow, Contrast In The Snow'

A sunrise in the winter has so much more significance when you're unable to summon artificial light.

Or if you had spent your night halfway sleeping to make sure the fire is kept alive.

Or in preparation in knowing that the whole of the neighborhood's children will flock in and out your home because it's one with a fireplace where they can get warm after playing in the snow makes your clothes wet and your cheeks red.

Just one night and six inches of snow and no electricity... I know it's presumptuous, but I feel a kinship with this sunrise like the ancients of necessity must have.

Idol Worship

OK, this is the only place I write anything down ... so I just have to recount this series of events before I forget them ...

Today my little 7-8 year old Christ Church basketball team was in a dramatic basketball tournament championship game.

And at the center of it all was, ultimately, my son.

The whole regular season, we played in the A division against the toughest competition in the league. I don't know why we were put there, but ...

We won one game, lost a couple of semi-close ones, got blown out in others. You couldn't ask for a better group of children. The lesson all year was that there was character in losing with dignity. We did that pretty well and pretty often.

Come the post-season that started this month, they put us in the Division IV tournament -- the least of the tournament divisions.

Somehow, we got a first-round bye -- I suppose thanks to our trials and tribulations in the A division in the regular season. All we had to do was win one game and we would be in the championship.

I didn't know what to expect as the tournament started. I told my kids all year that I couldn't promise them they would win, only that I would consider them winners if they played the best they could.

Last Saturday, we won our first game 25-14. We could have scored 40, but I put in the second string for the whole 4th quarter.

I couldn't help it. For all the talk of losing with dignity, all week I was nervous.

"What if? Wouldn't that be cool? No. That's shallow. I've just got to let it be. Remember what it is I taught them all year and what made me most proud ...

... but wouldn't it be cool?"

Today, we matched up today with the #2 seed for the championship.

When I walked into the gym, I saw their team. They had a kid who looked like he was almost as tall as a middle-schooler. They were pumped. I heard their coach telling them, "Focus."

I was thinking they might be the youth basketball league version of Drago in Rocky IV.

The game didn't start well.

The big kid scored at will. We were down by 4 points twice -- which is an expansive sea of point differential at this age.

I told my tough center -- who was at least two inches shorter than her counterpart -- to put a body on the big kid and foul him if she had to.

I directed another little defender -- my #1 fouler -- to help her out. (Sorry, I'm not going to just let some kid pitch a tent in the lane and score flat-footed).

We shut him down. .

My son is the scorer. The flashy one who gets most of the glory -- even if he doesn't totally deserve it each time.

He wasn't shooting as well as normal, but he was playing point guard about as good as I could ask for. Driving, passing, taking reasonable shots, filling the defensive passing lanes, running full speed despite being winded.

I give Asa hell sometimes. I asked all the kids in practice one day, "Raise your hand if you wish Asa would pass it more." You could feel the breeze as their hands shot up.

All season I've told him to pass the ball. He hasn't always complied -- in part because of his confidence in himself, his desire for attention and because he has a hard time letting go of control over whether the ball is going to be stolen.

He always played hard, every second ... sometimes too hard where he tends to lose himself.

The truth is, the team wouldn't be where they are without him -- and they don't always catch the ball when it's thrown to them. I made the center the captain early in the season to prove a point: Do the dirty work and take the bruises with no one really noticing, and you're a leader.

The game didn't look good, didn't feel right, but we answered baskets with baskets. But all along the way, just a little short.

Until late in the 4th quarter.

One of my littler ones made a corner shot to tie it up 14-14.

During the time-out, I reminded them about what they were best at -- defense.

I instructed my center to front the big kid because I knew that's where they were going. That's not always a good idea, but I figured they weren't quite sophisticated yet to know to throw it over her head.

I backed her up with someone to play him from behind, too.

It worked.

We got the ball back.

Asa rushed it down the court. The other coach must have called for a double-team on him.

I called a time-out when he ended up trapped by two defenders on the sideline with about 20 seconds left.

Time for a decision.

All year I'd been yelling at Asa to pass the ball.

Not this time, though.

For the first time ever, I told him explicitly not to pass it. In front of all the team to hear. He worked hard all year and listened to a lot of griping from me and ultimately paid me heed ... but this was his moment and I was going to give it to him.

The plan?

Have a good passer in-bound the ball to Asa. Then dribble out the clock a little, drive it to the basket with nothing other than a shot on his mind and see what happens. It was our best chance.
He did what I told him. He sliced into the lane, got forced to his left and took his shot.

Foul.

With 10 seconds left, we're looking at two free throws to break the tie. If he just hits one of them ... well, the truth about kids basketball is that a team can't get the ball down the court and get a decent shot off within the span of 10 seconds.

Just one free throw.

I sit down.

I put my hand on my assistant coach's knee. I tell him, "All he has to do is hit one of them and we win."

He tells me don't worry.

I tell him I can't worry, because I know I've got no other choice. I have no control.

Asa looks around, calmly. He just looks like he belongs there. He looks like I don't think I could look if I were in his position.

The ref gives him the ball, he looks calmly to the basket ...

In there.

I sit down as if a small gust of wind blew a feather over.

Before his second shot, I call to him and he looks over.

"Make sure the ball hits the rim before you move into the lane."

He nods.

One of girls earlier in the game had a free throw that she made taken away because she entered the lane on the release.

He shoots it.

He waits for it to hit.

It bounces out.

He runs into the lane ...

The day before, he spent the afternoon practicing free throws in the driveway. Just for fun, he practiced missing the shot, then making a running rebound and tapping it in on one jump.

It didn't quite work out as spectaculary as in the driveway ...

But he darts into the lane, gets the rebound and puts it in the basket to go up by 3 with 6 seconds left.

Tears of pride come to my eyes. I'm embarrassed that I can't control it. Or guilty that I enjoy it too fully.

We did it.

All year I've held him to a higher standard. Maybe too much of one.

Play smart. Think about his team and not just himself.

Today, he did that. And, at the end, he found himself with all the responsibility on his shoulders.

The moment that he imagines in his driveway.

Today, the only yelling I did was to tell him to quit interrupting me and finishing my speeches in the huddle.

(He's heard it all before. But there's only so much time. Last week, they gave me my first technical foul ever ... for a substitution penalty as I struggled to sort out equal playing time for each kid and get them in the game quickly enough).

That rebound and basket allowed Asa and his co-MVP to come off the court and watch the seconds tick off from the sidelines.

The second string goes in -- their lack of defense be damned because 3 pointers don't count -- to have their moment to soak in the last seconds on the court.

We line up behind the captain to shake hands. I walk up and down the line and tell them be reserved and keep it cool. The other team's feelings are hurt, I tell them.

They know how that feels.

But ultimately ... the celebration, the pictures, the hugs.

Postgame ...

Now, no one can accuse Asa of a lack of self-confidence.

Nor a lack of vanity.

On the way home, he announces to me that he's retiring his #12 jersey. He tells me he's putting it in the "baby box," a large tin can where all his little baby stuff is kept from when he was an infant -- including the tiny YMCA jersey he wore during his first basketball season when he was only 4.

He tells me the jersey is not to be washed. Next year, when he moves up in age group, the kids start wearing powder blue tank-top jerseys. No more #12.

He gets home, opens up the garage, places the trophy at the edge of the driveway, puts on some hard-driving "Guitar Hero" and WWE entrance music -- which somehow manages to include "Beat It" -- that he burned on a CD and shoots his basketball the rest of the afternoon.

I didn't realize he was serious about the jersey. He actually pulled out the big tin can and put the jersey inside. Unwashed.

He's spent the rest of the night carrying the trophy around. He's held it up like a wrestler holds up a championship belt, special hand signals and all. He carried around one of those fake belts for months. Now he has something real.

He fell asleep with it.

On Monday, the trophy will go to another kid's house, to stay in his bedroom for a couple of nights. He can soak in his accomplishment. Take some pictures, show his friends. I understand he takes his first communion tomorrow morning and will insist on wearing his jersey underneath his tie.

Then it goes to another house, where she and her sister will have to figure out whose bedroom it goes in.

Until the big party, where we all return, as a team, to get our participation medals, triumphant ... champions.

Yeah, there's a little bit of idol worship going on.

I told Asa that we couldn't keep the trophy, that it wasn't just ours. But I told him he should enjoy it, because he worked hard all year for it.

He told me, "The team worked hard."

I couldn't be prouder.