With Lauren still in Pennsylvania and just Graham home with me, you’d think we’d be in for a Saturday of sleeping in. And you would be wrong. The high school hosts an annual run for suicide prevention, and the expectation is that all the track athletes compete. I also signed up with little intention of running and all intention of just donating money. The race was due to start at 9 am, while bib pickup was 8 am. We had some friends visiting last night, and I mentioned the race, and Graham said, “We have to be there at 8.”
I said, “We absolutely do not need to be there at 8. That’s when bib pickup starts. No one actually gets their bib then.”
“Dad, you forget that I have to warm up.”
“For an hour?”
“Yes, Daaaaad. I intend to win this.”
Good grief. So we were up at 7 am and out the door by 7:35 am. We arrived at 8:03 am, and Graham secured bib 5, while I got bib 6. I brought Dobby with us so he could exercise one way or another. I took him hiking around the school and the woods where the runners would go. We came back about 1.5 miles later and with the time around 8:40. I found Graham hanging with his track buddies, and I said, “Did you get warmed up?”
“No,” he said.
“What?”
“Daaaad, I’m waiting for Owen to get his bib.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“We’re warming up together.”
“I could have slept for another forty-five minutes, you freaking dink.”
He just smiled at me. It was rainy and cold, and Dobby was starting to shiver, so I did the only thing that made sense. When they called us to the starting line, I brought Dobby over; when they started, we took off—exercise warms you up, right?
We trotted by a group of women, one of whom exclaimed, “Oh my! That little dog is going to beat me!”
We wound through the woods and passed groups of football players, especially linemen. Race organizers snapped photos of Dobby, as we passed. As we were finishing mile 2, Dobby insisted on a pee break, which allowed a girl to pass us that we had passed earlier. She pulled away from us, as a guy roughly my age also passed us. Later after the race, I overheard her telling her mom, “I beat him because he stopped to pee!” In the final mile, though, Dobby was in the hunt, and we ran down the fellow old guy and held him off the last quarter mile. Graham’s track coach was at the last station laughing at us as we went by.
By the time, we got in, Graham had been strolling around for ten minutes. I caught up with him and asked him how he had done. “I won,” he said. He smiled and said, “I got a cold picture for my Strava profile.” This is said “cold” picture, lol.
Once we finished, Dobby was all done being outside and insisted getting back to the car. We wrapped him in a blanket, and Graham cuddled him all the way home. Naturally, Dobby is the champion of the 0-3 year-old category. So inspirational was Dobby’s performance that Brayden composed this.
Meanwhile, Brayden and Lu continue to show evidence of domestic bliss. Lu sent a photo of a piece of art they had just bought.
Hmm . . . where have I seen something like that before? Oh yeah.
“You have your mother’s taste in art,” I told her.
“Apparently, Brayden does too,” she said.
Indeed.
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His Smile Lit Up a Room and Other Things to Say at My Funeral 