As a massive Harvest Moon rises over San Francisco tonight, it is the annual Day of the Dead celebration. It also was an exceedingly hot day, for this time of year.
Driving out to the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park, intending to watch my 13-year-old runner compete in the City championship race, I was stunned by the clear view of the Pacific Ocean along Lincoln Avenue, starting 30 blocks east of Ocean Beach.
But when I arrived, my little guy was hunched on the sidelines, feeling ill: Headache, stomach ache, sore throat. In this season of swine flu, of course, all such symptoms are cause for alarm, but my main feeling was sadness at how sad he felt for letting down his cross-country team.
After all, until today, he has been one of the school's fastest 8th-grade boy runners, though not an athlete by choice. "I love to run fast," he told me. "But I don't like the races at all, actually."
Enjoying competition is not for everybody. Way across town in the Excelsior, his 15-year-old brother was making a different set of choices. After days of icing and elevating his injured ankle, he decided to test it out today in PE and on the soccer pitch, in a light practice.
"It felt good," he told me when I picked him up, just as that moon was rising and the night's cool was replacing the day's heat. "I mean it still hurts, but I think I can run on it."
So, roughly 48 hours before the City playoffs begin for the next chapter in his remarkable soccer team's story, Aidee appears ready to go. And I am sure he will play, because that is how competitive athletes are built.
If you wonder whether I have a preference for the type of son God has delivered me, my answer is, honestly and bluntly, no. I love them just the way they are. They are perfect, whether they like to compete or they don't like to compete. These are their choices, not mine. I am only their witness, equally proud with whatever they choose.
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On NPR this afternoon, during my driving trips around this city, I heard that 115 banks have now failed this year, the most since 1992. The economic pain continues for many people all over this land, including us.
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