Getting Beat

Gabe is now faster than me. His hands and feet are bigger than mine. We are both a little stunned by this development.

He is better than me at everything physical that we both love to do: running, throwing, hitting, imitating people; his upper braces are off and his lower braces come off next week. He's a good writer, too. For a school project, he was bluntly funny about the poor quality of teachers: "If you put all my teachers in a group and threw a rock in their direction," he wrote, "you'd probably hit a bad teacher."

At a little over 5 feet 4 inches, and still shy of his 14th birthday, he's taller than I was on the eve of my 16th birthday. He seems totally at ease in the world, with enough humor and self-deprecation to survive the sudden handsomeness that adolescence has bestowed, and despite the approaching kingship of being an 8th-grader in a middle school. He's a good athlete, but not a stellar one. A fine student, but not a competitive one. His ease extends in all directions.

I could be wrong about this ease of his. But I doubt it. It's just possible that he's a straightforward, confident kid, living his life. May he stay straightforward and confident, long after I'm gone.

 

We are both a little sad that I can't compete with him anymore; our athletic arcs intersected only briefly. But there is nothing as exhilarating as that sadness. Gabe is a kid who makes me glad just to be around to watch him grow up.

--T.A.

Comments

[May]

What a wonderful post!
It reminds me of my own son, same age (class 1996), same self-confidence, joyful, ironic; in a few words, a young man who is blooming. Despite his big hands and feet (and his 5'7'' height), in the evening he still tries to cuddle in his father's lap. His dad is not at ease, I can see it, but deep down he must be touched by his son's affection.