Adult Tears

Tears are our first show of emotion.

Most healthy babies come into this world crying.  And then they spend the next umpteen years crying because they are hungry or in pain, or cranky or hot or cold or any other misfortune that comes their way and they can't articulate.  They are feeling something and they want whoever is within earshot to make it stop.

Parents spend many years of their lives trying to do just that, filling their kids with love or donuts or stuffed animals or long bumpy car rides in an attempt to make it go away.

Over the course of his life I have seen my son's face contort in all forms of those tears and more:  The it hurts-when-they-give-me-stitches-in-my-chin tears, the I broke-my-arm tears, the I did-it but-I-can't admit-it tears, the I didn't-make-the-team tears.

But tonight I saw different tears.  Adult tears.  Tears of joy, tears that were one part relief, one part disbelief, and one part unbridled happiness.

Some argue that as we age there are more reasons to cry, but the tears come with less frequency.  Adult tears come in different forms:  The baby-is-healthy tears; the child-is-safe tears; the test-came-back-negative tears; the graduation from something tears.

Maybe this is, for him, a peek into his future of crying.

Yes there was pent-up relief.

In 2011 we were there for an overtime loss to the Lightning.



In 2012 he stayed up all night in London only to see the Caps lose a triple overtime game to the New York Rangers.  We found him alone and inconsolable on the couch the following morning draped in mismatched Capitals clothing.
















But there was something different about this year.  It wasn't just the team and their unlikely run.  It was how he began navigating his own trip to the cup.  Where he would watch the game, how he would get home from New York or Philadelphia.  Instead of me searching for tickets that would cost a fortune, it was him setting up two laptops and a cell phone to win a lottery.

I was driving home from New York on Wednesday when the text came through at 1:11 PM:

Son:  "Tickets sold out already"
Wife:  "Really"
Son:  "Sold out in 8 minutes"
Pause
Son:  "But you know who had their computer open to the ticket page 30 min before they were released?"
Pause
Son:  "This guy"

Twenty years ago I was in the same arena with my dad when the Capitals lost to my hometown Detroit Red Wings.  I was rooting for my team. I wanted to see them shake hands and hoist the cup.
During that game my son slept in his crib while players he never saw like Peter Bondra, Adam Oates and Dale Hunter played under the Caps banner.

My super powers to fix my children's problems diminished long ago.  There was a time when I could cure what ailed them by holding them close, a late night ice cream, or a trip to Funland.  But no more.

For 21 years his tears were a signal to me that something was wrong.  In this stadium, on this special night, the tears that flowed told me something was right.

Two Seasons Come to a Close (Part I)

There is nothing like a child’s first love.  Not the one that breaks your heart once.  But the love that breaks your heart again and again your entire life.  In sports your first love is often the one that lasts.


He may not be able to get himself up on most school days without his mother and the promise of chocolate chip pancakes.  But he set his alarm and got himself out of bed at 2:30 in the morning for every hockey game the Washington Capitals played and watched until completion, whether that meant regulation or overtime, or double overtime, or triple.

All over England you can strike up conversation by asking which football club they follow.  And they always have one.  And when you ask why they answer that it was their father’s club.  Or their grandfather's or the place where their first house once stood.  “We’ve always been Arsenal fans,” they might say.  "My dad remembers the plane crash in 1958 and that's how he got stuck on United."

The previous evening my son went to bed with tears in his eyes after his team lost on a long day which ended well past 3:30 in the morning.  There was only pain in his heart.

The next afternoon we watched as the Manchester City fans wept in pain and then joy, the reverse for Manchester United.



The pain lasts and then fades and it's on to next season.


A few hours after the soccer season ended I was riding in a car with a Manchester United fan, whose team had been handed as heartbreaking a defeat as we’ve ever seen.  “Manchester City deserved it,” he said.  “I have to hand it to them.  They played the better football.”


That night I told my son I'd pick him up at eight o'clock the following evening.  


"Please don't say the word eight, dad.  It reminds me of Ovechkin and that the Caps lost."