The Game
A rehearsal in care...
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know how to write.
Like most of us right now, I’m carrying too many words and somehow… none at all. I reach for something solid, something to hold onto, and whatever I grab squeezes back for a moment… then lets me go.
Maybe that’s the truth of it.
Nothing is meant to be held forever.
Only practiced.
But this weekend, something stayed.
My son Miles had his first basketball game.
The night before, we were gifted tickets to The Lion King. His first live play. We stayed out later than we should have… lights, music, bodies moving in disciplined joy. A story rehearsed for generations, retold so children can feel it land in their chests for the first time.
Actors stepping into roles they’ve practiced a thousand times.
Not to perfect them.
To remember them.
When I was a kid, my first dream was to be a theater actor.
Before ambition calcified into practicality.
Before the world asked me what I was going to do instead of who I was going to be.
I wanted to stand on a stage and learn how to live inside another body.
To rehearse empathy until it felt real.
To practice presence until it stuck.
I didn’t become an actor.
But the instinct never left.
By the time we got home, the songs were still in us.
We went to sleep carrying them.
So Saturday morning arrived gently.
Groggy.
Coffee as ritual.
That good kind of tired… the kind that comes from having been moved.
A stage, I would realize later, is just a court.
A court is just a stage.
Both exist for the same reason: rehearsal.
Not performance.
Not mastery.
Rehearsal.
At the gym, kids stood unsure in oversized jerseys. Parents lined the walls. Sneakers squeaked against hardwood. A coach and a referee explained rules no one fully understood.
And then… confusion.
Where do I go?
How does this start?
Do I shoot?
Do I pass?
This is how everything begins.
Some kids seemed to know exactly what to do. Especially the girls… focused, fearless. Every time the ball touched their hands, they shot it. No hesitation. It was beautiful to watch.
But that’s only half the game.
Miles is a passer.
By nature.
By temperament.
By heart.
He looks for teammates. He wants everyone involved. So he passed… again and again… sometimes when he could have shot, sometimes when he probably should have.
He missed a lot of shots.
From multiple angles.
And each miss asked something of him… not in words, but in muscle and breath:
Can you try again?
Can you stay present?
Can you learn without quitting?
That’s what practice is.
And every single time… every miss, every wobble, every almost… he was cheered on. Not just by us. By everyone. Parents clapping for kids who weren’t theirs. Strangers rehearsing kindness without knowing it.
That’s when it hit me.
Basketball is life.
Not the highlight-reel version.
Not the winner-take-all myth we were sold.
The real thing… the repetitions, the missteps, the slow discovery of where to stand and when to move.
None of it was about winning or losing.
None of it was about making the shot.
It was about staying in the game.
Children learning timing.
Learning trust.
Learning how to share space without erasing one another.
Actors on a stage.
Kids on a court.
Human beings rehearsing how to be human.
And I needed that reminder… badly.
Because outside that gym, something in this country is breaking apart.
A nurse named Alex.
Someone who spent his life practicing care.
ICU…
I see you.
Hands trained to steady breath.
To calm panic.
To stay when others couldn’t.
He used his body the way healers do…
as shelter.
as shield.
as care made visible.
And the system answered with too many shots.
Ten, to be exact.
No pass.
No pause.
No rehearsal for mercy.
And just like that, there were videos.
From multiple angles.
Phones lifted instinctively.
The moment slowed, replayed, dissected.
A body that was all heart turned into evidence.
The game stopped for him.
The clock didn’t.
This is the part that tightens the chest.
Because my wife is a nurse practitioner.
Because I’ve watched her come home carrying other people’s fear in her shoulders.
Because I know care is not theoretical… it’s physical, exhausting, practiced in fluorescent rooms with not enough time.
Because when someone who practices healing is met with violence instead of protection, it isn’t abstract.
It’s personal.
It makes you want to stop watching.
To stop rehearsing hope.
To sit the rest of it out.
Because cruelty is loud.
Fear is profitable.
Rage is rewarded.
And people who devote their lives to care
are being met with a force that has forgotten what care even looks like.
Back on the court, though, the kids didn’t know any of that.
They just kept practicing.
Kept bumping into each other.
Kept missing cues.
Kept finding them again.
They passed when it felt right.
They shot when it felt brave.
They missed.
They tried again.
Miles was wearing number 10.
The same number I wore when I was a kid.
I didn’t think about it then.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to now.
Near the end of the game, he dribbled down the court one more time.
This time, he didn’t pass.
He went for the shot.
It bounced on the rim.
Once.
And then… it went in.
The gym erupted. He high-fived his coach. My whole body lifted… pure, raw joy. The kind that doesn’t deny the world’s pain, but answers it anyway.
I didn’t have my phone out. My wife and I were sitting apart. I thought the moment had already slipped through my hands.
But after the game, she found me and smiled.
“I got it,” she said.
She had the video.
A child practicing courage.
A child finding his mark.
A moment saved not as proof… but as love.
And that’s the difference, I think.
What we rehearse
versus what destroys.
What we record because it’s violent
and what we save because it’s tender.
Play is not frivolous.
Practice is not small.
Practice is how we learn to stay human in inhuman times.
The theater taught me this first…
that presence is trained.
that empathy is practiced.
Basketball is teaching my son…
that you share the floor,
that you keep moving,
that you don’t leave the game because you missed.
So when I don’t know what to say…
when the world feels unholdable…
I remember the stage lights.
I remember the hardwood floor.
I remember a nurse who practiced care until the end.
I remember my wife practicing it every day.
I remember my son wearing my number, rehearsing life one possession at a time.
Life isn’t a performance to be perfected.
It’s a rehearsal we keep returning to… together.
And for now…
that’s enough.
This weaving of joy, bravery, heartbreak and the triumph of a child is masterful. Thank you!
You scored again! Another winner!