We weren’t told it would happen, we just knew.
My son and I were playing catch in the yard at the time. Every time I threw the ball at him, he would crouch down and beg me not to hit him.
I would never hit him, and didn’t understand why he was so scared I would.
He would pick the ball up and throw it, like a girl, nowhere near my general direction.
It would sometimes even go behind him.
“I don’t wanna play anymore, Dad,” he said to me, after ten minutes of this.
That’s when it hit.
I threw my boy down and covered him with my body, my body shocking and bursting into him, breaking the impact long enough to make it last just a little bit longer.
