Last night was a good night of TV for me. Jonah wasn’t demanding to watch Wonder Pets and played politely with his toys, meaning I could pay attention to what was on. In an even more bizarre turn, Jonah decided at 8:30 that it was time for him to go to bed, and grabbed Rachel by the hand and led her into the guest bedroom where they cuddled up and fell asleep, leaving me some serious alone time with the television.
First, I watched V. I wasn’t planning on watching it, but it was on and nothing else really sounded appealing. Had there been a World Series game last night, I’d have watched that. Lucky you, V. Turns out it was really good. There’s nothing like going into something expecting to hate it and it turns out that you enjoy it. My favorite example of this is that I was adamantly against trying Panda Express for the first 20 years of my life. I saw no appeal in Chinese food, so why would Chinese fast food be good? Turns out that Orange Chicken is amazing, and it’s now one of my favorite places to grab a bite to eat when on the go.
After V got over, I watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Len Bias. The thing I like about this series ESPN is running is that these are stories I know about, but am not familiar with. I knew Len Bias had died of a drug overdose in the days following his being drafted by the Celtics, but I didn’t know it was with his teammates in a college dorm room. I didn’t realize how good he was at basketball, and how much he meant to the people of Washington DC.
Really, the whole hour I was upset. I came to find out that Len’s brother was murdered a few years later. His parents are good people. They weren’t absentee parents. Len was a good kid. He made a mistake and it cost him his life, a life that was just about to become uber- successful. I couldn’t figure out why this story about a guy who died 25 years ago was so upsetting to me.
When it ended, I got up and went into the guest bedroom to wake Rachel up and transfer Jonah to his bed. That’s when it hit me why the Len Bias story was so upsetting to me. As soon as I picked up my son, I realized why, 25 years later, Len Bias’ father was still so tortured by what had happened. He’d been a good parent, but he couldn’t protect his sons.
Growing up, we hear all the jokes from our parents about how once we turn 18 we’re on our own and they get to relax. As a parent, you do have to let go of the reins at some point. You have to trust that you’ve done all you could to teach right from wrong and good from bad. When something like that happens, it has to make you question every parenting decision you made. Were you tough enough on him? Did you push too hard? Was it something I did? I felt so awful for Mr. Bias.
I held Jonah for a few minutes in his room in the dark before putting him to bed last night, realizing – maybe for the very first time – that every day, every smile, every hug I share with him is truly a gift.
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