"Everything's OK, Bobby ..."

I'm just a fool with Grandfather Derangement Syndrome

Hello, hungry people.

Lately I’ve been lurking at a summer camp just down the street and watching the kids play.

This is not as creepy as it sounds. It’s a basketball camp at the local college. And one of the kids is my seven-year-old grandson, Zaven.

Zaven lives and breathes basketball. He’s a four-foot-tall stud in his YMCA league. You want NBA stats? He can reel them off as expertly as any of those jokers on ESPN.

He’s a cool guy, cooler than I ever was or ever will be, but not so cool that he won’t yell “Hey, Bobby!” when he sees me, then run up and give me a big hug in front of his buddies.

I’ll enjoy that as long as he indulges me. Too soon it will change.

***

But something happened the other morning.

I had slipped into the gym to watch him, taking position in a corner behind the bleachers where he couldn’t see me and I wouldn’t embarrass him by being that grandfather.

Zaven was shooting baskets with five other guys his age when they all huddled together for a moment. Then the other five took off running and laughing and left Zaven standing there by himself.

I watched as he pulled up his t-shirt and covered his face. He put his hands over his eyes.

I knew for sure he was crying.

***

What was up with those other kids?

Were they mocking my grandson? Had they picked sides for a team and not included him?

What had those mean little bastards done to upset him so?

***

Long moments went by.

And still Zaven stood there, t-shirt over his face, hands covering his eyes. I was aching inside, just knowing how humiliated he must have felt.

Finally, he pulled down his t-shirt, looked around and ran off, disappearing behind the bleachers at the far end of the gym.

It was everything I could do not to run after him, put my arms around him, comfort him.

***

I was torn up by it all day. No matter what I did, the scene at the gym kept nagging at me.

I went to bed that night haunted by the image of Zaven standing all alone on the court, watching his so-called buddies run off and leave him behind in tears. It was grinding on me when I woke up the next morning.

Yes, I was obsessing about it, letting it occupy way more of my attention than it should.

Call it GDS — Grandfather Derangement Syndrome.

***

I’m no psychologist, but there is an actual scientific term for what I was dealing with—displacement.

It’s when there’s a whole lot going on that’s troubling you and you channel it into excessive worry over something that’s relatively minor. You do this because the relatively minor things are easier to manage than the big important things.

It’s fair to say there’s plenty going on these days that troubles me, that troubles all of us. I needn’t get into specifics here. There’s an abundance of troubling stuff to go around. My troubles are no worse than yours.

We can’t control the big stuff. But the small stuff? We can give it everything we’ve got.

***

So I got to basketball camp early the next morning.

I sat on a bench outside the gym so I could have a few minutes with Zaven when he arrived. I rehearsed all the things I wanted to tell him.

“Sometimes kids can be jerks, don’t let them get to you.”

“You’re a great guy. Keep your head up.”

“Outplay those kids on the court. Show them who you are.”

***

Then I heard Zaven call out: “Hey, Bobby!”

He ran to the bench, gave me a big hug and sat down beside me. I told him I had something I wanted to talk about.

“Remember how yesterday you were shooting baskets with your buddies and then they all ran off and left you standing there by yourself?”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“Well, I saw you pull your t-shirt over your face. I saw you put your hands over your eyes,” I said. “I saw how upset you were.”

Zaven gave me a look.

“I wasn’t upset,” he said.

“I saw what happened. It’s OK to be upset.”

“But I wasn’t upset. Really,” he insisted. “I told them to run off and leave me there.”

“You did?”

“We were playing hide and seek, Bobby.”

***

Him talking to me like I was the kid.

“I was covering my eyes and counting to ten. Like you’re supposed to,” Zaven said. “I told them to run off and hide because I like being the one who finds them. Hiding is boring. Finding is fun.”

I had nothing to say to that. Nothing. But I was feeling the fool.

Then Zaven saw some of his buddies and got up to join them. He gave me another hug.

“Everything’s OK, Bobby,” he said.

And he was right.