The Gift

“Wait, where is E?” T asked.

We had come to Citi Field to celebrate E’s birthday and to see the Cubs play the Mets.¹ A baseball stadium was never a good place to lose a child, but especially not on his birthday.

We scanned our group quickly. My brother, his wife and their daughter were sitting in the row in front of us and my youngest brother, his wife and their young son were another row down. My mother and her husband were in that row, as well. I kept moving my head from side to side, trying to crane my neck around S, who was standing on my lap and dancing with the music blaring through the PA system, but there was no sign of E.

The dad-panic hairs on the back of my neck had just started to rise when, a second later, T found him. She pointed to the left, a row in front of us but at almost the other end of the section, completely separate from our group. E was sitting next to T’s father; they were gazing forward silently, sharing a quiet moment together, despite the noise surrounding them. My heart warmed as I saw them; their caps showed allegiances to different teams but their faces were mirrors of each other. They were both calm and enjoying the moment but clearly trying to ignore the unseasonable chill around them.

T called E over to us and I gave S to her so that E could sit on my lap instead. He claimed his spot and fidgeted slightly to dig in as close to me as he could. I draped a small blanket over his legs, rubbed his shoulders a few times to give them the slightest bit of heat and then wrapped my arms around his torso and held him against my chest.

“Is that any better?” I asked, leaning my forward slightly to speak into his ear.

He nodded.

“Good.” I said. I leaned forward again and asked, “Are you having a good birthday?”

“Yeah,” he answered, nestling back into me some more.

I smiled and tightened my grip around him.

I leaned my head forward slightly and kissed the back of E’s head. His light brown hair was sticking out slightly through the gap at the back of his once-pure-white Cubs hat. I took a breath and resisted the impulse to tickle E’s ears or ribs, choosing instead to remain present with him and allow our bodies to continue sharing their warmth. E asked me questions about the game taking place in front of us and I answered, reveling in the idea that E had finally become mature enough to start comprehending some of the strategic aspects of baseball.

.@Cubs fan in training, working out before today’s game vs. the @Mets. pic.twitter.com/De2Waf3WGj

— Aaron Yavelberg (@sleepingonedge) June 3, 2018

I tried, unsuccessfully, to remember the last time I had felt so connected with E. I knew that we had moments here and there, either building Lego models together or seeing his face light up when we watched Star Wars together for the first time. But there had been so many other points where we had butted heads, when I had spoken to him too sharply, when he had expressed himself and I had not reacted as supportively as I should have. Even in the moments when I had felt like I was clicking on all my fatherhood cylinders, there still seemed to be something missing between us.

That afternoon at the stadium, though, especially sitting with E on my lap, wrapped in my arms… that felt different. A newly minted six-year-old, he wasn’t anywhere close to a baby anymore. He had turned into a full-blown kid, a baseball playing, Lego model building, elementary school attending child. And maybe that was why the moment felt different. Maybe the fact that E had grown enough to start to understand baseball and Star Wars and read real books and tell real jokes meant that he and I were able to share interests in a real way that we had not been able to previously. Maybe I had finally grown enough as a father and given myself the opportunity to really think about what it meant to be able to bond with my son. Maybe it was just the chilly air in the wind tunnel by our seats that forced us to get physically close to each other that spurred these feelings.

I thought suddenly of the day at the beach a few years earlier when E had fallen asleep on my chest. I remembered feeling that day like I was finally living up to the image of fatherhood that I had built up in my head: the provider, the protector, the comfort. I rubbed E’s arms to warm him up some more and smiled.

It was E’s birthday but I was the one receiving the gift.

^{1. For reference, the Cubs won 2-0, completing a four-game sweep of a depleted New York team. The Cubs scored their first run when Javier Baez stole home, which was largely indicative of the Mets’ performance through the whole series.↩}