Foundations of character

We had a pretty good, if not unexciting, weekend. On Saturday, Max (with Cathleen and Eliza) attended the 4th birthday party of his former classmate, Kika -- a completely mercenary act for Max; he had little interest in engaging with Kika or any of his friends from school last year, and basically put in the appearance in order to a) get cake, and b) get a goody bag (which was, for him, disappointingly short on candy). Cathleen, at least, had an enjoyable time reconnecting with some of the parents of the kids. On Sunday, after a morning excursion to Fairway, Max and I went out for a run in the afternoon while Eliza napped. He goaded me into making it a long-ish run (5.8 miles, as opposed to the standard 4.2), while also insisting that we stop along the way for him to get a bagel. He's one hell of a training coach. On Sunday night, Cathleen and I finished off Season 2 of The Wire....sooooo good.

The highlight of the weekend for me, however, occurred on Saturday evening, as we made our way to a dinner invite at the house of Max's friend, Henry, the only Rivendell classmate whom Max still sees for playdates, mostly because Cathleen and Henry's mom, Annabelle, developed a real friendship over the past year. Our families have gathered together a couple of times before, but I still can't remember their last name. On our way to their home, we stopped to acquire some accoutrements for the meal: Cathleen and Eliza went into Sip to get a bottle of wine, while Max and I went into the high-end bodega on the opposite corner to get some vanilla ice cream to have with the apple crisp we were making. We grabbed the ice cream and got on line at the register behind an older man who was carrying a boom box which was playing Elvis Presley. This struck me as a slightly unusual sight, and my eyes followed the man as he stepped out of line and promptly dropped his boom box on the floor, the CD popping out and the batteries splaying about. The man looked like he was bending over to pick everything up, but then it appeared to me that he was actually hunching over. I touched him and asked, "Papi, are you alright?" He swayed a little big, and staggered a step or two away from me. I could see now that he was drooling profusely, and I grabbed him with both arms to keep him from falling over -- a not easy task, as he was much larger than me. One of the guys working in the store brought over a stool, and I guided the guy onto the stool. Everyone else in the store seemed to be doing nothing, so I turned around towards the counter and said, "perhaps someone should call 911." The guy behind the counter said, "He'll be OK. This happens all the time." And sure enough, within moments the guy was standing back up and refocusing hiimself. I looked down at Max, and he looked pretty scared -- not terrified, but he had a very worried look on his face. Not only had events in the store been inherently scary for him, but I was intimately involved in those events, and not there for him to hold onto. I told him that everything was OK. He asked what had happened to that man, and the guy behind the counter explained that he has seizures all the time. Not a clear answer for Max, so I reduced it to, "the man was not feeling well, and needed help sitting down." I then paid for the ice cream, and we started to leave the store. Max then turned to me and quietly said, "I feel sorry for that man."

That was an incredibly powerful moment for me. Not the collapsing man -- I think I inherited this sort of "crisis cool" from my father (an EMT for many years), but dealing with that guy didn't phase me at all. What was powerful was hearing my little boy, overwhelmed by a scary and dramatic sequence of events, and in the immediate aftermath while he was sorting it out in his head, his honest and most pronounced reaction was one of compassion. It spoke volumes to me about his developing character, and I was proud beyond words.