Think Fast (Calmly Refusing to Age, #9)
**serialized weekly **
I’ve got great reflexes. That’s because at least once a day when I was growing up, my dad yelled “think fast!” and without any notice tossed me an object, big or small, and I’d struggle to catch it. The tossed object was never something of mine but instead had deep sentimental value to my dad. And if I failed and the object broke, Dad would sit on the floor and cry—never angrily, never blaming me, just out of a childlike sadness that something he loved was now gone.
The game was an addiction for Dad. He loved the risk and—increasingly as years passed—the relief of seeing that his possession (his signed Mickey Mantle bobblehead, his glass Toastmasters award, his grandmother’s saucer) go unharmed. I worked to improve my reflexes because I hated to see Dad sad, and it paid off. For a few years in my twenties, I was a catcher for the Baltimore Orioles.
Decades later, the whole family flew in for Dad’s ninetieth birthday. He was thinner and frailer since Mom had passed. At his party, Dad stood up on a chair, patted me on the back, and addressed the group: “Thank you all for coming. It does my heart good to see you here. Think fast,” and then he jumped off the chair. I had to drop my Sprite to catch him, and didn’t have the easiest time since I was by then in my sixties.
When I returned him to his chair, my dad’s face displayed his usual relief, but also, for the first time, some disappointment that I’d caught him, and I knew then that he was starting to let go. I pretended not to notice, said, “Same old Dad,” and we all had some cake.