Toughness

I have two godsons: Lil Bear and The Boy. Lil Bear is 6 months ahead of The Boy, which right now is a lifetime. The other day I was at the Staten Island Children's Museum with both of my godsons and DW. We had an amazing day - as much as they loved it, I prolly did more. But the upshoot is that The Boy is still in a stroller...he can walk when he wants to, but he's not totally sold yet. Like any kid his age. So when it comes to loading up the car, I bypass all the bullshit and load him into his stroller. It's 4pm, we wanna get him home in time to let his parents enjoy him, fuck it throw him in the stroller and roll him outta the building.

So we're rolling outta there and I'm riffing with DW (water broke?) and, without even realizing it, my stroller has completely PLOWED over Lil Bear. I mean plowed, I mean mud tracks on the back of his flannel shirt. Completely rolled over him somehow. I'm initially horrified, waiting for Jesus to come take my human license away, I must be the worst Manny ever, when Lil Bear bounces up.

Now, I must tell you, he is furious. He just got plowed over and needs to know why. As we all would. No blood, but he is fucking pissed. He jumps up and looks at me, curls his lip like he always does whenever I've thrown a brick at him, and looks around to get some answers. Well, pretty quickly he surmises what happened. He sees that he was run over by a stroller that while it carried The Boy, was not controlled by The Boy. I'm watching this, and it's unreal. Lil Bear instantly know what happened, and he gives The Boy a fucking pound before walking towards the car again. More grace than I have ever known.

So we keep walking, I'm like well, crisis averted, when all of a sudden Lil Bear starts jumpin, starts pointing, and I look and he's pointing to the front wheel of the stroller. Get it? The stroller that just ran him over, but he's like "you better fucking check the tire pressure there, bro."

A beautiful boy. I'm reminded of when I was a freshman in college, and I got a call that my brother had been hit by a car. I call the hospital, get connected to him and the first thing he says is "you should see the car."

There is a toughness I am not privy to. And my godson has it. A toughness my brother has, a toughness Op has, and now Lil Bear. Thank god he has it. Cause I sure don't.