The little boy who no longer lives here

"Do we have a lawyer?" he asked his mother one day.

"No, Nick. Why?"

"Because we have a phone, and the TV says if we have a phone we have a lawyer."

In 1996, as he watched a television news report on the Arizona presidential primary, he asked an important question: "Dad, is Bob Dole still alive?"

(Another reason I was never much for columns about my own children: Kids say the darnedest things, but often their parents are the only ones amused.)

I doubt you will remember it, but I once described attending an afternoon meeting with a television executive, being thoroughly bored, not wanting to be there, gazing at the quaking trees outside his office window and looking forward to my son's rec-council baseball game. It was the evening of Nick's 10th birthday. His team did well, miraculously keeping the score tied into the final inning, but Nick had not contributed. He'd struck out twice. When called upon to pitch, he hit two batters and, under the rules, got the hook for doing so. He bowed his head and cried when his coach had to reassign him to first base.

I watched from a distance. It reminded me of a time when I took all emotional cues from the progress of a particular game, or season, or team. Most of us grow up and move away from competitive sports, and find our successes and disappointments elsewhere - in relationships, in our careers. There are a thousand little frustrations and even times when we think we'll never smile again. But the miracle is that, in the next minute of twilight, everything can turn around, just as it did that night.

In the next inning, Nick hit a home run, won the game and happily passed out birthday cupcakes to all his teammates.

The eight years since then seem like a blur, of course, and I find myself, now that he's gone off to college, scratching around for every last blink of memory from when he was 11 and 12, 13 and 14. What I never wrote in this space - because it's just not what I get paid to do - was how proud he made us and how much I admired his brawny work ethic, his leadership, his friendship with his sister, his choice of friends and loyalty to them, his manner with elders, his tenacity in ice hockey and lacrosse, his willingness to sing and dance on stage.

I told Nick all this - packed it all into one heaving, sobbing, loving hug - on Saturday evening in the parking lot near his freshman dorm 312 miles from home. And then we did what fathers and mothers across the country have to do at times like these: We let go.

Dan Rodricks can be heard on "Midday," Mondays through Thursdays, noon to 2 p.m., on 88.1 WYPR-FM.