Just Beginning to Take Off

"You will travel through a world of marvels..."

The news is almost always bad, almost all the time.  Violence.  Hate.  Racism.  Fires and floods.  Hurricanes and tornadoes.  They say it'll only get worse.

Every night at work, more darkness.  Suffering and struggling.  Crime.  Death.  I've been shaken to the core so much I'm not sure I can be anymore.

Then I come home to the world's most exuberant "Dada!."  You drop what you're doing and come bounding to the door with absolute abandon.  And for a little while the bad goes away.  I just want to protect you from it all, for as long as I can.

What a delight it is to have someone greet you with a smile every single time they see you.  What pure joy it is to watch you grow.

You love your baby sister.  Anytime she cries you say her name as if to alert me or your mother that we need to check on her, or you go find her pacifier and bring to her.

The other day she was crying on the bed.  I told you I needed to go check on her, but you said, "No, Dada."  So I watched as you walked down the hall, into the bedroom on your own, stopped beside the bed and said her name.  ("Har-har.")  Then repeated it.  Softly, sweetly.

You're fiercely independent -- insisting on buckling yourself in your high chair, taking off your own shoes and socks (and attempting at length but in vain to put them on), and "helping" Daddy take out the trash.  Every Tuesday we can be seen ambling down the driveway, you with hands over your head on the handles, me with one hand helping to guide when you inevitably veer off course.  My favorite may be when I open the door as we're about to leave and go somewhere, only to have you protest and proceed to close it, lock it, unlock it, and reopen it yourself.

Yet and still occasionally you can be so bashful, clinging with all your might to your mother or me.

At two years and two weeks you are at the average height and weight -- for a three-year-old.  How lucky am I then that you like to be rocked and sang to sleep.  It is a habit your mother isn't fond of me starting, but one I cherish.

You love music.  Your favorite songs are "Believer" ("Rain"), "Thunder" ("Neenuh"), and "Barbara Ann" ("Baa-Baa").

You also love books.  We read several to you every night.  And morning.  And at every nap time.  Some I have memorized, like "The Paperboy."  The best is when you "read" them to yourself, or to one of your stuffed animals.

And you absolutely love airplanes quite possibly more than anything.  I feel confident in saying your ability to hear or spot one in the sky is unparalleled.  I had never noticed how many planes flew over our house until you came along.  Now?  The sky is seemingly always offering up a vapor trail or three.

I remember not that long ago when you thought anything that flies -- birds, butterflies, helicopters, dragonflies -- was an airplane.

And I want to squeeze you and tell you that time is an airplane, and somehow be able to make you understand.  Oh Lukie, it flies, so breathtakingly fast.  Life is like one big vapor trail.  At first seeming so long and grand, and then...

But you... you're two.  You haven't even reached cruising altitude yet.  The seatbelt sign is still on.  You're looking out the window, filled with wonder, taking it all in.

I love you, buddy.  Cherish each and every mile of your flight. 

2nd and 26

In the latest of hours on the evening of January 8, 2018, a middle-aged male lets out a shrill scream, runs to the bedroom to wake his wife, bursts out the front door and sprints down the soaking wet driveway in his sock feet, pumping his fist in the air like some misplaced member of Arsenio Hall's dog pound dropped here by mistake from 1994.

He stops in the road, looking south and then north, wondering why no one else is outside.  One can almost read his mind: "What is wrong with these people?"

(Yes, because it is they who have the defect.)

What could cause this otherwise mild-mannered doting father and trophy husband to behave in such a way?

Following is his exclusive story, in his own words, told in the second person point of view.  (Why, I'm not sure, but the word "disturbed" does come to mind.)

You lie on the couch, intent but oddly calm.  Your mood turns from hopeful to solemn as the gladiatorial contest played out on the living room screen reaches its midway point.

There is no joy in Sabanville.  Mighty Bama has been shutout.  The score?  Thirteen to nothing.  Not zero -- nothing.  No excitement.  No energy.  No real reason to think anything will change.

Your wife goes to bed after the first drive of the 3rd quarter.  You don't blame or begrudge her.  This is your baby, not hers.  You brought it to the marriage.  She accepts it.  You've even caught her yelling at it herself a few times, but she will never love it as you do.

You will have to go the rest of the way on your own.  It won't be easy.  For while hope may not be completely lost, it has wandered far from home without a map, compass, or navigation system, and will have to rely on the stars, prayer, and luck to ever find its way back.

The stars begin to align with the insertion of the young Tua Tagavailoa at quarterback, the freshman warrior from our 50th state.  (You find out later his name in Hawaiian means "at the back" or "behind."  And you wonder what is the Hawaiian word for "apropos.")

First, a tackle-breaking, field-reversing third down conversion.  Then, at long last, a touchdown.  You leave your couch nest and get on your knees in front of the TV, fists clenched in unspeakable tension.  It is there you will remain -- three feet away from the 55-inch screen, alternately sitting and standing, for the remainder, in all likelihood doing irreparable damage to your already aging, failing eyes.

The Red Army of Georgia strikes back, and almost before you can say "Bolshevik Revolution" an 80-yard bomb scorches the Alabama secondary and the Bulldogs restore their thirteen-point margin.  The score is 20-7.  Hope interrupted.

Enter Lady Luck.

With the Bulldogs in Alabama territory and threatening to add to their lead, the Georgia quarterback's attempt deflects off the helmet of a lineman and is snatched out of the air by a hungry Crimson Tide defender.  You are jumping up and down with the excitement of a Price Is Right contestant on a Red Bull drip.  But you can't scream.  You have a son now.  And a cat.  You're basically a mime at this point.

The good guys inch closer.  20-10.  20-13.  Then comes a do-or-die 4th down in the closing minutes.

"Just let us win this one," you pray.  (As if you haven't won four of the past eight.  But it's never enough, is it?)

Also, to whom exactly are you praying?  You're almost positive God does not concern himself all that much with sporting events.  Perhaps you've unwittingly channeled your mom, as you recall the many times during your childhood (and beyond) you heard her implore, "Come on, Bear, look down on us one more time," speaking to the dearly departed former Crimson Tide coach who would probably be watching from up above and could presumably affect the outcome of any game as needed.

To believe otherwise would be to admit sports are played in a spiritual vacuum, with no ghostly or divine intervention having any effect whatsoever on the outcomes.  What then, are we to assume the winning and the losing is decided solely based on the participants' aptitude and athletic prowess, their coaches' direction, the referees' decisions, and what, the weather???  Absurdity, thy name is this!

(There was a timeout before the fourth down play, so you had a little more time to pontificate there, but the game is about to resume.)

Young Tua's near-desperation fling is cradled by Bama's top receiver, the talented Mister Ridley, just before he lands in the end zone for the tying points.

Victory, once about as likely as a mosquito-less Alabama summer, again seems possible.

The ravenous Bama defense, impenetrable as a devout nun lately, gets another stop.  The offense drives into position for a potential game-winning field goal.

Those last four words are enough to make any and every Tide fan triple their dosage of anxiety meds.  For if one thing has been the absolute scourge of this program for the past decade, it has been the dreaded field goal.  Almost every significant loss has been plagued by one, sometimes three, four, even five wayward kicks.

Still on your knees, you put your head down on the floor.  You're pretty sure this is a yoga position though you've no idea what it's called.  Downward Facing (string of expletives) Field Goal maybe.  You can't watch.  Literally.  You don't.

Five seconds feels like a minute.  Then the golden voice of Chris Fowler bears the bad news.

"No!!!  Hooked it!"

Of course.  

But hey, you've not truly lived until you've felt your heart sink like that a few times, am I right?

Then cometh overtime.  

The Bama defense is once again its nun-like self, not only stopping the Red Army from penetrating, but forcing them to retreat.  They can muster but a measly field goal.  You think to yourself how nice it must be to be successfully complete one of those.

Now for the final act.

Young Tua, who at this point has an entire thirty minutes of hand-to-hand combat under his belt, will be called upon once more.  Needing to advance only twenty-five yards through enemy territory to win the game, yea, the championship, he drops back to pass on first down.

But the receivers all seem to be covered.  He retreats, twisting one way, then another, finally swallowed up in a sea of red, sixteen yards farther from the goal than where he first began.

On the sideline, St. Nick, the Crimson leader, appears slightly perturbed.  He must have just realized his best chance to survive is a potential tying field goal.  You reluctantly agree.  For it is 2nd and 26 from the Bulldogs' 41-yard-line.  Just try and gain back ten or fifteen yards to have a prayer of a tying field goal.

But it's 2nd and 26.  Second and twenty-six.  Those words will outlive the whole of us due to what happens on that next play.

Young Tua lofts a magnificent spiral to the sprinting true freshman and future Heisman Trophy winner Devonta Smith.  He cradles it in his arms as a mother would cradle her precious winning lottery ticket.

Game over.  Another national championship.  

Cue middle-aged man sprinting down wet driveway in sock feet., all the while imagining his mama, in tears, saying, "Oh, thank you, Lord," and "You DO care about us, Bear!" and "Oh, my heart can't take this."

You think to yourself, "Mine neither, Mama.  Mine neither."