Today I played badminton with my son. I didn’t really want to, but his little face was so cute when he asked me that I just couldn’t say no. I put away my loppers and dragged my poke weed shrubs out of the flower bed I was working in. I took off my gloves and picked up the blue racket I had been assigned.

“Here’s the cock!” my son yelled, holding up the birdie.

“Shuttlecock,” I corrected, wondering why I had ever taught him that word.

“Maybe we should just call it a birdie,” I add.

We swatted the birdie/shuttlecock back and forth for a while and I found myself relaxing and even having fun, my earlier reluctance melting away. It was a beautiful fall day, crisp and cool with a blazing azur sky. The leaves were beginning their fall performance, transforming themselves from their everyday green to gold, auburn, and sable.

The birdie made a satisfying thwack when hit squarely and my son kept up a running commentary on every stroke. The neighbors came home from their weekly tennis match and gave us a big thumbs up for solidarity in racket sports. My son tossed and swung wildly, laughing when he missed and exclaiming when he connected.

Life was good.

Then my son batted the birdie up onto the roof. There it stayed, white feathers gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

Game over.

Last 5 posts by OrganizerMom

• Get Your Own Email! - October 2nd, 2008
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