Tag: children

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Please Look After …

A dear friend called me the other day to discuss Paddington Bear.

Now, even for a certified geek like me, children’s literature doesn’t come up in the conversation very often. I haven’t set aside time to chat about Babar on Mondays, or Dr. Seuss on alternate weekends or Peter Rabbit over tea. (The fact that Richard Scarry came up in the same week is completely coincidental.)

No, this one got started as many conversations do these days, with something seen on the internet. My friend had been scrolling through social media and noticed a post about Paddington’s origins … one with a drawing to show him (like so much else these days) in Ukrainian colors.

“Do you know the story?” she asked.

I did, in fact. For those who don’t, I’ll be quick.

The stories focus on a young bear – one who walks, talks and dresses like humans, naturally – who’s found alone in Paddington railway station and adopted. A new arrival from “darkest Peru,” he bears a tag reading: “Please Look After This Bear. Thank You.”

The character itself came from two elements. One was a teddy bear alone on a shelf in a shop near Paddington Station, which Bond saw one Christmas Eve. But the other piece – one that’s recently been recirculated online – came from displaced children he’d seen during World War II. The story varies as to whether the children were London evacuees or newly arrived Jewish refugees, and maybe Bond himself wasn’t sure which. The key detail remains the same: the lives of the young, uprooted by the battles of their elders.

Why does that matter now? Because those battles seem to be uprooting more forcefully than ever.

There’s never been a time in our memory when the lives and livelihood of the young haven’t been in danger somewhere. (I wish I could say otherwise.) But the war in Ukraine has put it on a horrifying scale. UNICEF recently estimated that every minute, 55 children have fled Ukraine for elsewhere. That’s roughly one child every second.

“This refugee crisis is, in terms of speed and scale, unprecedented since the Second World War,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder told the press in Geneva, “and is showing no signs of slowing down.”

That’s a staggering thought to hold in the mind. So most of us don’t.

I don’t mean that we don’t care, or that we’re not capable of holding more than one crisis in our minds at a time. But we do get easily distracted. I mean, many of us just spent a week going back and forth about one man slapping another at the Academy Awards. There’s always something new on the radar, screaming for just a few minutes of our attention, and the minutes add up.

Add in the day-to-day concerns that we all have and … well, anything beyond the immediate tends to fall away.

But for some, the immediate is all they have.

We need to see. We need to remember.  

None of us are Superman, able to fly into a war zone and pluck the innocent from danger in a single bound. But anything we can do, we should, even if that something is just to keep reminding the people who can do more.

We’re here to help each other. However we can. Wherever we can. And whether that reach is across the street or around the world, to one person or a flood of children, it matters.

It doesn’t take a hero. But we do have to see the bear and read the tag. It reads much the same as it did then:

Please Look After Each Other.

Thank You.

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Spider-Man: Romecoming

It’s a Marvel after all these years, but I am still an unabashed Spider-Fan. And that’s true whether the man behind the mask is Peter Parker, Miles Morales … or Mattia Villardita.

If you don’t recognize that last name, don’t worry; you haven’t missed the box office smash “Spider-Man: Far From Rome.” Mattia Villardita is a man from northern Italy who visits sick children in hospitals dressed as the superhero webslinger. During the pandemic, that even extended to organizing video calls for pediatric patients, delivering Spidey-pizzas to them, and organizing a kids’ play area in his home town’s hospital.

It’s been a colorful way to help others,  and recently it’s gotten him international recognition. Photos of Spider-Man receiving a thank-you from Pope Francis on June 23 and then giving the Pope a mask of his own rocketed around the internet… to the amazement of Mattia, who didn’t learn of his applause until later, since, as the Irish Times noted, the Spider-Man costume didn’t have room to carry a phone.

“To tell you the truth,” he told the Irish Times, “I expected that this meeting could spark curiosity, but not that it would go all over the world.”

Unlike Mattia, I’m not surprised at all.

If ever there was a superhero for all of us, right here, right now, it’s the webhead.

I latched onto Spidey as a kid, buoyed by comics and games and episodes of “The Electric Company.” It was a neat fit – a young hero with a quick sense of humor and a mind that worked faster than his web-shooters. As I reached my teen years, I even had a bit of a Peter Parker look myself, albeit with blue eyes instead of the traditional brown hidden behind the mask.

But it didn’t take me long to see what really made his heart beat behind those red-and-blue long johns. And what makes him still work today.

Then and now, he’s one of us.

Superman routinely saves the planet. Spidey’s had his moments, but spends most of his time with more local problems (as befits “your neighborhood friendly Spider-Man”).

Batman has the resources of a billionaire to help Gotham, both in and out of costume. Spider-Man sometimes struggles to make the rent.

Wonder Woman fought to become a champion, Spider-Man chose to become one when he saw how badly he’d screwed up.

He goes into battle scared and covers it with jokes. He’s got troubles of his own, but doesn’t let it stop him from helping someone else.

Flawed. Limited. Struggling. And still trying to help.

That’s us. Even if we’re a little less flamboyant in how we cover our mouth and nose.

That’s the family friend who visits because they heard the lawn mower was broken … and then stays to help tame a backyard that had become Wild Kingdom.

It’s the daycare helper who’s in demand to read again and again because “You do the voices!”

It’s the steady hand on the trembling shoulder, offering comfort at a time when there’s nothing else to give.

It’s the realization that we’re all responsible for each other. And that if we each do what we can, however small it might seem, it can make a difference.

Even without a Papal photograph to prove it.

I hope Mr. Villardita keeps up the good work. I hope we all do. We may not be able to climb a wall or swing between skyscrapers, but together, we can spin up a super amount of help.

And True Believers, that’s a world-wide web worth having. 

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A Mother by Any Other Name

The siren call takes many forms. But the intent is unmistakable.

“Moooooooommmmmmm!”

“Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mom!”

“Mommy?”

And when the call goes up, so does Heather. To get Missy some more tea. To hunt up some art supplies. To listen to a question, or unlace a pair of shoes, or smile at how Missy has dressed herself with two odd socks and an inside-out shirt.

It’s all in the job description. Even if it’s not necessarily the traditional job.

For our developmentally disabled ward Missy, “Mom” has always been more of a job description than a literal relationship. Her own birth mother, Heather’s grandma, died 10 years ago, three years before Heather and I became Missy’s guardians and caregivers. Missy has certainly never forgotten her, something we’re reminded of each April when she becomes a little sad and quiet around the time Grandma Val passed.

But Missy – who sometimes seems to be 4, sometimes 14, and sometimes 44, depending on the situation – takes a very practical approach to life. If you are living with her, loving her, and providing her with the care she needs, you are “Mom.” Sometimes regardless of gender – I’ve been “Mom” a few times in the grocery store (along with “Daddy,” “He,” and many times “Frank,” the name of her late father).

The more I think about it, the more I figure Missy has it exactly right. If you are taking on Mom’s role, you are Mom. Never mind the genes. Never mind the spot on the family tree. Never mind how a dozen dictionaries define the word.

Wil Wheaton once said that being a nerd isn’t about what you love, it’s about how you love it. I think you could say something similar about being a mom – it’s not who you care for, it’s about how you care for them.

And so, mothers everywhere, by any name and description – each year, Mother’s Day is for you, too.

You may be raising the children you brought into this world yourself.

You may be raising a family that’s more blended than a Dairy Queen blizzard, with “halfs” and “steps” and other prefixes that only matter to a genealogist.

You may be the guardian to someone who needs your care and attention to get through the day, whatever their age.

You may be the grown child who has suddenly had to become the parent to a parent, keeping a heart-wrenching watch that could never be fully described to another.

For you, and for the many others besides – you have claimed the name. You have taken up the mantle. You have assumed the duty with all its care, pain, and sudden crises at 3 o’clock in the morning.

You are Mom. And Mother’s Day belongs to you. (Heck, every day belongs to you. But Hallmark and FTD have to make their money somewhere.)

So this day and every day, thank you.

It’s not enough. Somewhere between “Stop yelling at the dog!” and “Why are you being so quiet?”, you get taken for granted. That’s the way of most good things in life – we assume they’re just there, invisible and vital as oxygen, until the moment reminds us how vital, how essential.

And in that moment, we don’t care what anyone calls you.

You are Mom.

And that’s enough.

Thank you, Heather my love.

Thank you, all.

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Back to the Neighborhood

I don’t remember much of my high-school French, with one notable exception. A simple little song that I translated for a silly little sketch, one where I knew that even if I didn’t have the words quite right, the tune would be unmistakable:

 

C’est un jour ravissant dans le voisinage,

C’est un jour ravissant pour un voisin …

 

It was, indeed, a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Especially when you realized your classmates would have Fred Rogers’ signature song in their head for the next three class periods.

***

It’s now officially been 50 years since Mr. Rogers first appeared on a television screen. Looking back, it’s kind of a marvel he was ever there at all.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood had no boisterous gags or bellowed punch lines. Instead, it had a quiet man putting on a cardigan and welcoming friends to his home.

The show had no animation or state-of-the-art tech. It got by with a trolley, a traffic light, and a collection of hand puppets that interacted with only one live actor – a mailman – and that, rarely.

And in an age where even the most educational of shows is developed with an eye to the toy budget, the biggest thing Mr. Rogers sold was respect.

He didn’t talk down to children. He didn’t avoid hard subjects like divorce, or war, or the death of a goldfish. But he also made it clear that the world need not be a scary place, and that it never had to be faced alone.

“You know, I think everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know that he or she is loveable,” he once said in a documentary. “And consequently, the greatest thing we can do is to help somebody know that they’re loved and capable of loving.”

***

But that was then and this is now, right?

For most of us, it’s been a long time since we heard the dulcet tones of Mr. Rogers’ sleepy voice, soothing and reassuring and with a dozen small questions in every sentence. We’ve gotten used to a scarier world. A dangerous and frightening one where no one seems particularly neighborly. A world where it’s harder to tell what’s real and what belongs to the Land of Make-Believe.

Oh, putting on sneakers and singing about how you won’t fall down the drain is fine for kids, we tell ourselves. But surely we’ve outgrown all that. It’s time to face a bruising, bustling world that gives you 24-hour stimulation and where “special” is just one more demographic to be measured, analyzed, and marketed. Right?

And yet … and yet.

The world was a chaotic place in 1968, too. The headlines screamed of assassination, war, and protest; of a political process that seemed to be turning meaner by the day; of a world that seemed to grow increasingly hopeless.

That was the world in which the Neighborhood first began.

To meet such a world with quiet tones and pleasant songs might seem an act of futility. But that was only the stage dressing. The core was always the same. To hope. To learn. To respect. To care. To look out for each other. And especially to trust that everyone had value – including yourself.

Those are still the tools that can light a world today, whatever form they take. Those are still the essentials that must be wielded before any change for the better can take place. We remember them in the hands of a soft-spoken Presbyterian minister, but they have been held by many others.

Workers and teachers.

Rescuers and friends.

A myriad of “helpers” from every walk of life – the very thing that Fred Rogers’ mom once told him to look for in scary times. “Look for the helpers.”

Their actions may be as simple as welcoming a new face to town. They may be as earth-shattering as giving their life to save students in danger.

Large and small, these are the neighbors of today.

And so long as we continue to seek them out, and strengthen their number, and teach their lessons anew, we can again make it a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

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Reading Into It

Once upon a time, I watched children’s literature win the Super Bowl.

OK, not literally. There were no overpriced commercials armed with bad jokes, cold beer, and cute puppies. Justin Timberlake never got within a mile of the microphone. There were no questioned calls, no fireworks and high-flying blimps, no appearances of the Tom Brady game face. (Broncos fans, take a moment to cheer, please.)

But the small city of Emporia, Kan. lined the streets for a huge parade. Well-known children’s authors from across the country descended on the school system for classes and events and even sleepovers. LeVar Burton himself, he of Reading Rainbow, showed up to be the emcee on the big day.

It was 2002, the 50th year of the William Allen White Children’s Book Awards. And on that day, there was no doubt that reading had power.

As the last remnants of Super Bowl LII-RTD-LOL-EIEIO get scraped off the field, it’s good to remember. Football champions come and go. But a good book lasts.

This week – in theory, at least – it’s time to call that out.

The first full week in February, it seems, marks one of the thousands of obscure holidays that the world has to offer – Children’s Authors and Illustrators Week.  Normally, I call holidays like this out to tease them a bit, on the order of National Popcorn Day (Jan. 19), National Kiss a Wookiee Day (June 15), and Eat Country Ham Month (October, which must make trick-or-treating a little interesting). But in this case, even if the date is forgettable, the topic’s a close one to my heart.

I started reading when I was two and a half. I never really stopped. Kids’ books were old friends, from Richard Scarry and Dr. Seuss, to Stuart Little and Encyclopedia Brown, to The Westing Game and The Secret Garden. Never mind the family read-aloud time, where my sisters and I discovered Middle-Earth, Green Gables, and many more.

Each story led to the next … and possibly, to my habits as a night owl. When I met my wife Heather, she was the same way – she had shed tears at the end of Charlotte’s Web as a child, and thrown 1984 across the room as a teenager in anger at the ending. Even now, as guardians to Heather’s developmentally disabled aunt Missy, our most sacred time of the day is the evening storytime. (Often with Mr. Harry Potter, the audience favorite.)

I know some will call this memories of a bygone era, that social media and smartphones have eaten any desire to actually read. I smile and remember working in a bookstore in the 1990s, when television and video games were the worries of the day … and children streamed in to buy Goosebumps books. Or helping with children’s summer theater during the 2000s, when the internet was taking over … and seeing half the cast parked backstage with the latest Harry Potter.

Books have found distracted youth before. They can still find them now.

And they’re still needed.

A good book builds empathy. It requires you to put yourself in a character’s shoes, live in their brain, see how they experience the world. Chosen well, it can make you reach outside yourself and enter a world you never knew.

A good book can build family. Taking even a little time to read together – and I know how that seems to get harder every day – not only spurs interest in a story, it strengthens family bonds to simply have the time together. (It also means there’s a guide on hand for the more challenging words; I first learned “fortnight” and “quay” from reading Tolkien with my dad).

And yes, it builds language and learning skills – but maybe even earlier than anyone realizes. A recent study found that babies learned more quickly if they were read stories that had named characters. As young as six months.

It doesn’t take a halftime show by Bruno Mars, or an overflight by the Blue Angels, or a trick play drawn up by Bill Belichick. Just time, love, and a library card.

And if you want to hold your own private parade for your favorite title, I’ll be the last to stop you.

Go, team. Let’s book ‘em.

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When Life Gives You …

The cardboard signs are out. The kids are waving eagerly. The shout goes up loud enough to carry half a block in any direction.

“LEMONADE!”

In some ways, Longmont has changed very little. I remember doing the same thing – very briefly – when I was in grade school. It’s not a business model that any investor would pitch to Wall Street. Foot traffic is less common than it used to be. Cars are insulated against your pitch unless you’ve got a really good sign. And lately, the weather has been closer to Seattle in springtime, further depressing your product’s demand – except of course, for Mom and Dad, who are usually also your major wholesalers. (Don’t tell the FTC).

All of which is to say that I’ve already purchased two cups in two days from two different sellers. And I’ll probably buy another tomorrow if I see the chance.

It’s what you do.

This isn’t just me being a nice guy. A while back, I read a book of little things that police officers typically picked up on the job – small details, habits, trivia that might make its way into a novel someday. One of the items on the long, long, list was simply this: if you are on patrol, and you see kids on the sidewalk selling lemonade, you WILL buy some. If you have no cash, you WILL get some from an ATM and come back.

In that case, it’s part of community policing. But many of the same reasons apply even for those of us who don’t wear the badge. It makes you a neighbor instead of a face. It establishes trust. It means that if they or their family see you again, they’ll have a smile and the knowledge that you’re one of the good guys.

And these days, children can use all the good guys they can get.

Sometimes it seems like we do a lot to push them the other way. Oh, I know, if you look at the long-term trends, this is a pretty good time and place in history to be a child. But we fill the world with so much stress, and with so much to stress about, that it can even overwhelm the adults among us, never mind the young.

I was almost 13 when the Challenger exploded. It seemed like every classroom that day had a television or a radio on with images and news of the disaster – almost none of it new news, just the same trauma recycled over and over again. Schools don’t generally do that anymore, and with good reason: it doesn’t help. It’s like asking a Volkswagen Beetle to tow an elephant; even if you succeed, the slug bug’s not going to be in the best of shape afterward.

You measure. You moderate. You don’t isolate a child from reality, but you help them handle it on their terms. And you always let them know that there are people to turn to with their worries and fears. Parents. Teachers. Helpers and friends.

You don’t have to helicopter or coddle or swathe them in cotton and plush. But never destroy a child’s hope. Be the face to trust, the ear to listen, the proof that there are still people in the world who want to make it better instead of worse. Even if it means carrying an extra 50 cents in your pocket in case of lemonade ambush.

Besides, most of the time, it’s not bad lemonade.

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No Place Like Home

My home is running away from me.

Yes, I wrote that correctly. It’s a simple demonstration of what Jack London might have titled The Call of the Grandchild. When two sisters with three kids between them both choose to live in Washington State, Mom and Dad will follow, and it will be sooner rather than later. The draw of gold panners to the Yukon is a weak thing compared to the draw of getting to be Grandma and Grandpa without the need of plane tickets.

By the time the dust settles, I’ll be the last member of the old team still in the state. By itself, that’s OK. We’ve been scattered before. I lived in Kansas for almost 10 years after college, with co-workers who often asked “You moved here from Colorado? Why?” My sister Carey spent two years in Chicago before coming back to Colorado, while Leslie’s been in Washington for so long that we’re used to celebrating birthdays via Amazon. Through all of it, we knew that blood was thicker than distance, that family endured even when we couldn’t see each other all the time.

But this one’s a little harder.

This time, my folks have sold The House.

The House is where my parents have lived since 1977.  It’s a curious place in a way, more open in the back than the front. According to family history, The House was originally designed to be placed near a golf course and protected from errant shots; when that location didn’t happen, the plans were moved part and parcel to a site on Gay Street instead.

But don’t be fooled by blueprints. That house was open to a lot.

Its backyard was an opening to the galaxy. There sat the three swings that magically transformed into X-Wing fighters when my sisters and I took to the skies; a nearby two-seater was the avatar for the Millennium Falcon.  In the Christmas Blizzard of 1982, it became the ice planet of Hoth; in summers, it hosted backyard baseball games (including, memorably, one broken arm for an unlucky friend).

Its basement hosted tools, plants, books, a half-finished doll house, video games, and an ultra-organized pantry. (FEMA only wishes its planners were as detail-oriented as my Dad.) It was the base for sleepovers, for Bible studies, and for any game my sisters and I could invent. Blackout Tag, where we killed all the lights and searched for each other on our hands and knees, was perhaps not the best idea we ever had, as my black eye could soon attest. (“Tell me again how you ran into a table leg?”)

Every room of its two levels could host similar stories, along with the Rochat Family Zoo. Dogs, cats, a horned toad, birds, a rabbit, and some surprisingly-long-lived fish all called the place home. Looking back, it’s a wonder there was room for people – and yet, it held not only us, but Grandma Elsie as well, who lived in The House with us for a few years and visited often.

When Heather and I moved in with Missy, The House was just a few blocks up the road. It was one of the many things that made a surprising move feel pre-ordained, like pieces fitting together.

Now, The House will make memories for someone else.

It’s a strange feeling.

Ancient Romans spoke of a “spirit of place.” I think any Coloradan could agree with that feeling. We’ve felt the power and even quiet majesty that some locations can hold, from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Sand Dunes. But that power is never stronger than in a place you’ve called home.

When that place is removed, it’s disorienting.

The important things are still true. We’re still a family. We’ll still see each other. The love that was always our real home is still there.

And maybe, sometime, I’ll drop by and meet the new neighbors.

After all, when TIE fighters could strike at any time, it’s only fair to give warning.

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Picking Up The Peaces

It’s time to enter the deep end.

You know what I mean. The Christmas season. The most full-immersion experience this country offers,  unless you count the marketing for the new Star Wars movie. The wrapping paper and decorations hit the shelves weeks ago. The lights have begun to re-appear, with the music and the online ads not far behind. Soon it’ll even be time for that most communal of American holiday experiences – exchanging profanity and insurance information in a crowded strip mall parking lot.

You gotta admit, it’s a heck of a way to celebrate peace on Earth, good will to men. Or are we?

Pope Francis recently raised that question. Well, actually, he did a bit more than that. In a recent homily, he drew some press attention by calling all the pageantry nothing more than a pretty wrapping over a world at war.

“Christmas is approaching: there will be lights, parties, lighted Christmas trees and manger scenes… it’s all a sham,” he said. “The world continues to go to war. The world has not chosen a peaceful path.”

Strong words.

It’s true that we’re a lot better at singing about peace than pursuing it – one of the Christmas traditions that hasn’t changed over the centuries. It’s a rare Silent Night or Joy to the World that hasn’t echoed over a battlefield somewhere. Our own American history even celebrates Washington crossing the Delaware in time to surprise a Hessian army that had been enjoying the season. (No word on whether they had finished watching “It’s A Wonderful Life.”)

Even on a more personal level, I wonder. At the start of this year, around Martin Luther King Day, I wrote about how “peace” means more than an end to war or violence. At its roots, it means a restoration of balance, a revival of how things should be. A sense that all’s right with the world.

Put it like that, and it becomes even more maddeningly difficult to pursue. Especially at this time of year, when the words “chaos,” “hubbub,” and “stress” would be the adjectives chosen by most people – at least, out of the words that can be printed in a family newspaper.

And yet … I wonder.

It’s easy to forget that this time of year is also a time of centering. Under the bustle remains a call to remember the basics: family, friends, faith. To come together. To see faces long missed and think on memories long absent.

Granted, that can sometimes be painful, too. As the season gets closer, I start to hear Grandma Elsie singing carols with us in the car and telling stories with us in the early-early until Mom and Dad woke up. But maybe that’s a different way of being whole, uniting yesterday with now.

Or, for that matter, with tomorrow. Grandma always said Christmas was for children. The eagerness, the decorations, the sense of being part of something special while following a long-established pattern … given all that, I suppose it’s no wonder that our disabled ward Missy starts to celebrate Christmas in July.

Unite all that and it becomes a place where hope and memory can meet — a place where peace, however fragile, is renewed.

Small? Certainly. But of all the season’s lessons, one of the oldest is that wonderful transformations can begin with the smallest of things.

So here’s to a piece of peace for us all. Here’s to the future those pieces may someday create.

And that’s no sham.

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The K Word

When I used to watch “Happy Days” as a kid (and boy, does that date me), it was always hilarious to watch the Fonz try to apologize. He’d take a running start at the key word, like a verbal Olympic track star, but never quite clear the barrier.

“I’m s-s-s-s ….” (Stop, grimace for laugh track.) “I mean, I’m real s-s-s-s- ….”

But that was a sitcom. I’m a grown adult in the real world. Which is why I will have no problem saying that my four-year-old niece has been declared ready for k ….

You know. For k-k-k-k …

This is ridiculous.

Kindergarten.

Wow. It’s even hard to look at that word on the page.

I’m proud of her, of course. And objectively, it should be no surprise at all. She’s the right age. She’s been doing very well at her pre-school. When she visits, the living room now has a more focused mess that receives at least a token effort of cleanup. And she’s very good at telling our behemoth of a dog “No, Blakie!” when he accidentally whaps his gigantic tail in her face.

So she’s ready. Beyond a doubt. And it’s a good thing.

So why does it feel like the world just caved in?

I know I’m not alone here. (If I were, “Sunrise, Sunset” would be a forgotten song.) And I know a lot of it is sheer human cussedness. We like to think that our world will go on the way it is forever, never changing in any significant way. And when reality intrudes – a shrinking hairline, a growing child, a friend or relative that moves away – it’s unsettling. Sometimes it even seems to give you eyes to the future, where you can suddenly envision the new kindergartner’s first date, her college graduation, her efforts to start a career … all this from the individual who once bound the first floor of your house in yarn because it was fun.

With me, the shock is a triple whammy. Some of you may remember that 2010 was the year I became Uncle Scott in spades, acquiring two nieces and one nephew in a six-month period. (That makes it sound like “The Price is Right,” doesn’t it?) Sometimes at close range and sometimes from over a thousand miles away, I’ve watched them discover finger paints, the Blue Angels, drums, the solar system, ballet and the non-negotiability of naptimes.

So when one of them is ready to cross the bright blue line of The Big K it means all of them are. That they’re growing up. Maybe even that they’re growing away a little, with a part of their lives happening at a distance.

Mind you, I know we want children to grow. I’d be even more disturbed, and for different reasons, if the Terrific Trio of 2010 was 35 years old and living in our basement with no immediate prospects for departure. No one wants to be the helicopter relative or to be dealing with a family full of Peter Pans.

But when so much of a life has been so close, it’s hard to let go. Even a little.

Their life has changed. Your life has changed. And it’s time for you to do a little more growing up, too.

I know this isn’t the end. There will be plenty of exciting adventures ahead. Probably more than a little exasperation, too. But Heather and I watched them transform from confused babies into enthusiastic toddlers and we’re ready – if a little sobered at times – to see what’s coming next.

So go ahead, word. Bring on the k-k-k-k …

The k-k-k-k…

Sigh.

Arthur Fonzarelli, where are you when I really need you?

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Going Out a Champ

I came home one day to find my ground floor had become a cat’s cradle.

You get used to spontaneous home decoration when much of your family is below the age of 3. Even so, this was impressive. Our young visitor had found my wife’s yarn ball and, with her smiling help, unraveled it all. Round and round they went, binding the bannister, the couch, the basement door in multiple layers of bright red strands.

It looked like a giant spider had eaten a Hobby Lobby.

I laughed in admiration, praised the work, took pictures by the ton. And then, when the time came and everyone had gone home, I reluctantly pulled out the scissors.

I knew it had to go. But I hated to do it. It had been so much fun that I wanted it to be for always.

I’m sure Pat Bowlen and John Elway understand just where I’m coming from.

If there’s been a more-loved Bronco on the current team than Champ Bailey, I haven’t seen him yet. His amazing play on the field made him admired, his quiet attitude off the field made him adored. Last year’s rallying cry may have been “Finish the Job,” but a close second was surely “Win One for Champ.”

But the real test came Wednesday.

It’s easy to swoon over someone who’s flying high. Every Bronco fan knows how quickly a bandwagon grows seats in the good times. The company’s welcome, of course, but the question always lingers “Where were you guys when it was hard?”

It’s been hard for Champ Bailey for a while now.

Last season was a painful one for the Bailey Bunch. Denver’s favorite cornerback got hurt, played, got hurt again. He played only five regular-season games, and only in the AFC championship game did he really seem like Champ. The rest of the time?

The rest of the time he played like a 35-year-old man with a couple of bad injuries. Willing, even eager, but with a body that couldn’t keep up with his mind.

Had it been anyone else, there would have been no question what should happen next.

Because it was Champ, the sky fell.

“That’s the worst news I’ve heard all night,” a shocked cashier told me at the grocery store.

“Poor Jaimee!” my wife declared. (Her sister harbors a not-so-secret crush on the Champ.)

“I know why they had to, but ….” said friend after friend on Facebook that evening.

Yes. But.

Those three letters say it all.

That’s when you can see the impression that one man made.

That’s when you know that a region has fallen in love with a person, and not just a player.

That’s when you know this was truly one of the good ones.

That’s how you always know.

Not just in football, either. Everyone’s had the friend or the relative or the co-worker who passed their glory days long ago … but whose glory remains undimmed. After years of what they’ve done, they’re left with who they are, and who they are is something pretty special.

That’s the life I think all of us want to have lived. It doesn’t take a trip to the Pro Bowl or a shelf full of trophies. But it does take work, humility and a willing spirit.

Willing for what? For whatever’s needed.

Champ, if you’re reading this, hold your head up high. Whatever happens next, you have the triumph that really counted. Others may hold the rings, but you hold hearts. And you’ve earned every single one of them.

Yes, it has to come. We hate to see it. We want it to be for always.

And the best parts are. Every time we remember when.

And so ends my tangled yarn.