EVERY LITTLE STEP

Dear Spike:

This week was an absolute explosion of development for you.

You’ve begun to sit upright without any help at all. You can now roll from your back to your front and then back again. You’ve started to slither, just a bit, in an attempt to grab out-of-reach toys. You study your hands as they open and close and have begun to experiment with moving one or two fingers at a time. And, just in the past two or three days, you’ve begun to scream — not in sadness or agony, but simply to demand attention and maybe to sing a little song.

I’ve pretty much given up trying to capture every momentous moment with the camera. And recently, I’ve had to abandon the fantasy that I’m even going to be present for every little step.

To wit, this exchange with your mother a few days ago:

Me: “Come quick! Look what she’s doing.”

Your mom: (rushing into the room) “What? What is it?”

Me: (proudly) “Look! Spike is crawling toward her toys!”

Your mom: (sighing) “Oh that? Yeah, she did that with me a few days ago.”

Me: “A few days ago? Where was I?”

Your mom: “Well, you were somewhere.”

Me: “So I missed it?”

Your mom: “No, you just saw it.”

Me: “It’s just not the same.”

Your mom: “Yes, it is.”

She’s right, of course. It seems that we’re often so obsessed with firsts that we tend to miss the significance, the joy, the struggle and the glory in everything that comes next.

Many people know, for instance, that Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in Major League Baseball. Far fewer can name the second black player drafted out of the Negro Leagues, Larry Doby, who played his first game for the Cleveland Indians on July 6, 1947.

The world had not, in the 11 weeks separating Robinson’s and Doby’s entries into the big leagues, suddenly become a more tolerant place for black baseball players. Doby spent the rest of the 1947 season – and indeed, a good portion of his Hall of Fame career — suffering through the same indignities as Robinson.

Robinson rightfully went down in history for his place in advancing the cause of civil rights for Americans of color. Doby’s role in the battle, meanwhile, was ignominiously ignored. And yet even in Robinson’s shadow, Doby still shined. He was a seven-time All-Star, twice led the American League in home runs and led the Indians with seven hits, including a double and a homer, in Cleveland’s 1948 World Series victory over the Boston Braves.

Many people know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first men to summit Mt. Everest. Hillary and the expedition’s leader, John Hunt, were promptly knighted for their accomplishment. Nearly lost to history is the subsequent journey of Swiss climbers Ernst Schmied and Jürg Marmet.

The 29,029-foot peak had not shrunk a single inch in the three years that separated the first and second ascents of the world’s tallest mountain. Marmet and Schmied (and, the following day, climbing partners Adolf Reist and Hans Rudolf von Gunten) didn’t have the promise of being first to the top of the world to help drive them up the deadly peak. They climbed not for history but for themselves.

And at the risk of beating a dead horse ...

Many people know that Charles Lindbergh was the first person to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The second person to make the solo hop hasn’t exactly been lost to history, but I think that’s likely because her name was Amelia Earhart.

To be certain, Earhart knew there was value in being first. “Never do things others can do and will do,” she once said, “if there are things others cannot do or will not do.”

But it seems equally clear to me that Earhart didn’t make her solo flight across the Atlantic — or any of her other “firsts” — simply to be the first woman to lay claim to those feats.

“Adventure,” she once said, “is worthwhile in itself.”

Being first — or being present to witness a first — is as good an excuse for doing something as anything. But being second should never be an excuse not to do something or appreciate something that is being done beautifully.

The last time our species set foot on the moon was in 1972 — six years before I was born. Someday I hope to see us (you?) return. And when that happens, I assure you, I won’t be disappointed that I’m not watching Neil Armstrong’s first “small step.”

A giant leap is a giant leap, after all.

Congratulations on all of your accomplishments this week. I can’t wait to see you do it all again.

And again.

And again.

Love,
dad