When I was a kid in Evanston, Illinois, I loved to play hockey. Nothing made me happier on cold winter days than going to the “lagoon” several blocks from my house and playing pick up games until dark. By the time I was ten I was set to graduate to organized leagues, with practices and games played at Northwestern University’s rink a couple of miles from my home, and far further afield were one fortunate enough to be chosen to the travel team.
Now, my mother had delivered my brother Alex not two years before, and had yet to learn how to drive. It being the Mad Men 60s and Evanston being a classic midwestern small town, such a deficit had yet to seem like a big deal to me. It soon would. My father was a young hot shot Chicago lawyer, who had to “work late” often enough for me to notice my mom’s aggravation when the predictable late afternoon phone call came to again inform her she would be alone with three small children that evening.
I tried out for the house league, which I don’t believe cut anybody, and was satisfied that I was in the upper tier of talent. I wound up on a team anchored by a kid named Johnny O’Brien, generally considered one of if not the best player for his age in the general vicinity. When we broke into our teams to meet our coaches etc., I was flattered the young prodigy seemed to recognize me as his line mate and sort of number two on our squad. Still, I had one serious concern I couldn’t share with anybody because I was ashamed and thought revealing it would open me to ridicule; I had no idea what this thing offsides was! To this day I can’t say why I kept it such a personal secret to suffer senselessly from, but I did.
The rule that an offensive player cannot precede the puck across the opponent’s blue line is, of course, foundational to organized hockey. All strategy and orientation takes place with this restriction in mind. To not understand it makes one unable to participate with any sense of focus, only confused reaction. And so it was my first practice I lurched around, unable to hit my stride, and admonished several times by the coach for either being out of position or violating the fundamental I did not understand. Why he didn’t comprehend my ignorance that night and explain things to me, I cannot say. He waited until the next practice to do so, but by then it would be too late, the damage done.
But for all the confusion and frustration I felt during that initial practice session, it was what occurred after that stays with me to this day. Since Northwestern’s rink was too far to walk, and my mom could not drive me, I was required to take the bus. Again, just as I had digested my mother’s lack of a driver’s license to that point, catching the bus did not initially seem like such a big deal. That changed as I watched every one of my fellow players get escorted to their cars by hockey moms of the day. Suddenly, now I had two things to be ashamed of, only this indignity now dwarfed the other. I cut a solitary and pathetic figure as I trudged alone in the bitter cold toward the bus stop, watching the brake lights of Johnny O’Brien’s family station wagon disappear. No doubt any of the mothers would have been glad to give me a lift. Asking was unthinkable! It was the first time I can remember feeling sorry for myself. It was also the first and very few times I resented my mother.
As it happened, tryouts for the far more prestigious travel team were being held that Saturday in neighboring Northbrook at 0-dark-thirty… some things have always been thus. I had secured my father’s pledge to drive me a couple of weeks before, but he had yet to arrive home as I finally fell asleep that Friday night. How many late nights were actually devoted to work versus downtown Chicago watering holes is a question I never demanded my father answer, mainly because I already knew the answer.
Even so, that Saturday sunrise I felt like I was heading toward my execution. It was one thing to be clueless on a house team; this was the elite, the cream of the crop. How could Johnny O’Brien respect me as a teammate when he found out my ugly secret, which I was certain would spill out for all to see? As we silently drove toward Northbrook, my groggy dad still in his pajama top, my anxiety mounted. I desperately wanted to ask him to explain the rule, but just couldn’t make myself do it!
By the time we arrived I was frozen with doubt. When my father asked what was wrong, I blurted out the whole thing was a mistake and I wanted to go home. My dad seemed more incredulous than empathetic or concerned. He impatiently asked me why. I lied and said I didn’t think I was good enough, and besides, it would take away from basketball at the Y. Of course, not so deep down, I hoped he would be unconvinced by my excuses and gently but firmly nudge me out of the car toward my reckoning. He didn’t. When we arrived back home, my mother asked what had happened. “Ask your son,” my father said as he headed back to bed. I yelled I didn’t want to talk about it and closed my own bedroom door. … and for many years after I didn’t.
These specific vivid memories were foremost in my mind in late 1998 as my wife, Sue, and I discussed family planning. My daughter, Isabelle, was born that January, and after overcoming the initial trepidations of fatherhood, I genuinely felt I was hitting my stride. Things were good. With the Rolls Royce of downtown DC daycares permitting Sue the ability to work while visiting Iz just two blocks away whenever she pleased, we had settled into a very comfortable routine. Two incomes meant financial security, but more importantly to me, it was clear this status quo would fully permit me, like my father before, to compartmentalize parenting. Sue loved every minute with our daughter and seemed to have no real issue with me seeking distance when I needed it. Golf, beers with buddies, ponies and working out… it seemed I could have it all, just like pre-child.
Yet and still, even while luxuriating with the cake I could have and eat too, when my wife directly asked me whether I really wanted the daughter I now treasured to be an only child, the answer was natural. Of course not. My girl would not be alone and ashamed to lack what all of her peers would take for granted! Moreover, she’d always have a ride home from practice by parents, and a brother or sister, there to cheer her on! Whatever accommodations needed to be made for my narcissism would be dealt with on an as needed basis. I could do this for my Issie!
In March of 2000 my son, Luke, was born. About three years later he was diagnosed with pervasive autism, instantly shattering whatever selfish preoccupations I hoped to protect, and finally forcing me into real manhood. My daughter grew up with all the struggles, and self-imposed shames a sibling of a special needs child confronts. As her parents have been forced to divide and conquer responsibilities simply to cope, my wonderful Iz has many times felt solitary and detached from her peers, alone in circumstances they can’t relate to. She has time and again trudged alone to that bus stop.
Now I shelter in place with my wife and the one who changed everything, making me a man of worth and my life a rewarding struggle instead of a predictable dalliance. One by one Sue and I have been gutted as we try yet again to explain why another thing he so relies on has been taken away by “the virus”. Disappointing him has always been painful, never so excruciating as now. Both of us are fearful we could suffer the worst of Covid 19 and leave him at the mercy of this world. Isabelle would then be most all he would have to protect him She knows this and seems resolute as she sits tight hundreds of miles away.
We all have reached together the crossroads of national crisis. Each and every one of us has a tale like mine to tell, pivotal events of our lives that now define us and will prove invaluable during this part of our journey, even as days begin to string together and the dull ache of depression and hopelessness begins to pulse. It’s in us all and will get us through this; we simply need to hold it close. It’s called our humanity. Never forsake it or we are lost. BC