Do You Want To Hold It?
Our softball games rarely have an audience, since everyone who plays is middle-aged or older. We’re not as much entertainment as, say, little league or a high school team. We just play for fun.
But on Wednesday, we had a couple of fans, including a little boy. Dominic was maybe six years old, wearing a baseball cap and running after the balls when they landed in foul territory. Dominic had long blond hair, so I immediately thought he was wonderful. He reminded me so much of Dylan with his boundless energy and flowing locks.
I was still rescuing cicadas from the dirt during the game, as I will continue to do until they all disappear. As I carried one on my finger out of the dugout, headed for the trees, I saw Dominic staring at me, wide-eyed. He was holding a candy bar but he had stopped chewing.
“Do you want to hold it?” I asked leaning over gently, the cicada perched on my fingertip.
He shook his head. “Not really,” he said.
“Okay,” I said and started to walk away.
Suddenly he said, “Put it on the ground.”
Right, I thought. I’m a stranger. It’s a pandemic. It would be more comfortable for him to pick up the cicada from the ground.
With the utmost care, I reached down next to the boy but the cicada didn’t want to leave my finger. I worked with it carefully, releasing one leg then the other, gently positioning it off my finger.
Then finally – okay. The cicada was on the ground for Dominic. I stood up.
Dominic didn’t look at me. He looked directly at the cicada. And then he lifted his foot above the cicada and decimated it with his shoe.
“No!” I wailed, but it was too late.
Dominic took another bite of his candy bar. “What?” he said, laughing.
I looked at the people who’d brought him to the game. They had no reaction at all. In their house, in their family, killing a living thing was acceptable. Their motto seemed to be: If you can kill it, you should kill it.
I walked away with a knot in my stomach. That cicada was literally incapable of hurting anyone. I wanted to cry.
A teammate said loudly, as if I needed her opinion, “Not everyone likes bugs, Kirsten!” Her comment didn’t make me feel a bit better about the destruction I’d not only witnessed but facilitated. She continued: “He’s just a little kid. I crushed tons of things when I was a little kid.”
And I thought: I didn’t. I didn’t crush living things for “fun.”
My own children didn’t crush things, either. Our motto: If you can save it, you should save it.
I recall holding a very young Dylan, still small enough that I carried him around. Dylan was on my hip with a peanut in his hand, reaching out toward a tree where a black squirrel waited. The squirrel reached out quickly and grabbed the peanut from Dylan’s little hand, put it in its mouth, and scampered back up the tree with its prize.
Dylan’s face lit up as he looked at me, both of us beaming with pride. Dylan was born with empathy.
Little Dominic may have long hair, but he will never be like Dylan.
With one quick movement, Dominic’s future flashed before my eyes: jock, bully, popular kid, reckless driver, lazy husband, macho father. He’ll teach his children: If you can kill it, you should kill it.
And Dominic will believe that until the day he dies, because that’s what he was taught.