To the Finish Line

As I am about to slide the minivan into reverse to head for the Cardinals-Padres showdown at Busch Stadium, Max announces that he wants to dart back inside the house to grab his glove.  I cannot imagine a more vibrant display of hope than a nine-year-old toting his own baseball glove to a big league game.  To heck with these 44,291 other fans, that foul ball is gonna land smack here in MY leather.

Then, at the bottom of the second inning, with Skip Schumaker up at bat, little lefty Max, with the big glove smothering his right hand, turns to me and whispers, “If I catch a ball tonight, I’m gonna give it to him.” And he motions to the teenage boy sitting two seats to his left.  The boy who keeps confusing the twos and the threes under the “balls” column on the scoreboard, the boy with the droopy eyelids and the hanging-low-on-his-nose eyeglasses.  The boy who, after each decent fielding play, announces, with his hurricane laugh, that that one will “definitely” be on “Top Ten Plays” in the morning, the boy with Down’s Syndrome.

And if there are some brilliant words that I should say to my son, I cannot think of what they should be, so I just battle away the tears of pride, squeeze Max’s shoulder and say, “Really, Buddy?”   Then, I pull out a raggedy piece of paper from my purse, the back of some business card, so that I can quickly record this moment,  so that it does not get jumbled with all the other moments that have brushed by this week.

I guess I could describe how Pujols popped a game-tying RBI double to right field, or how Matt Holliday followed that up with a homerun to center, and how the fireworks exploded.  Or how Molina picked off Venable to end the seventh, and how the Redbirds brought home a 7-4 win with 13 hits. For these are the details that Max will surely want to share again, years from now, when he says, “Mommy, remember when we went to that game together against the Padres and…”  But I know that, to the disappointment of my Cardinals crazed son, I will have to admit that, no, this is not what I remember, but you can tell me again about that homerun, if you want to…

And maybe, when you, Max, are finished recounting all the details, it will be my turn.

I will remind you of how there was a perfect breeze on that last August night before school started, and how you reached out a few times to grab my hand and to hold it.  And how you told me three times that this is your “favorite way to spend special time with Mommy.”

And I will remind you of how I bought you a mound of blue cotton candy, and how I watched you pick at it with one hand, your giant glove encasing the other one.

And, finally, I will remind you of your plan to toss your prize to the boy sitting two seats over to the left, to the boy with the hurricane laugh, to the boy who you decided needed something magical to fly his way. And though that moment passed without the fanfare of a fireworks display, it was, my son, far more beautiful and impressive than Holliday’s 431-foot bomb.