Now, as I stood before him, I thought of those lost opportunities. How many times have we all let such moments pass?

　　A parent dies, and, instead of giving a eulogy ourselves, we let a clergyman speak. A child asks if Santa Claus is real, or where babies come from, and, embarrassed, we slough it off. When a daughter graduates or a son is married, we watch them go through the motions of the ceremony. But we don‘t seek out our children and find a quiet moment to tell them what they have meant to us. Or what they might expect to face in the years ahead.

　　How fast the years had passed. Daniel was born in New Orleans, slow to walk and talk, and small of stature. He was the tiniest in his class, but he developed a warm, outgoing nature and was popular with his peers. He was coordinated and agile, and he became adept in sports.

　　Baseball gave him his earliest challenge. He was an outstanding pitcher in Little League, expecting to make it big in high school. It didn‘t happen that way. He failed to move up from the junior varsity team. But he stuck it out. Eventually, as a senior, he moved up to the varsity. He won half the team‘s games. At graduation, the coach named Daniel the team‘s most valuable player.

　　His finest hour, though, came at a school science fair. He entered an exhibit showing how the circulatory system works. He sketched it on cardboard. It was primitive and crude, especially compared to the fancy, computerized, blinking-light models entered by other students. My wife, Sara, felt embarrassed for him.

　　It turned out that the other kids had not done their own work--their parents had made their exhibits. As the judges went on their rounds, they found that these other kids couldn‘t answer their questions. Daniel answered every one. When the judges awarded the Albert Einstein Plaque for the best exhibit, they gave it to him.

　　By the time Daniel left for college he stood six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. He was muscular and in superb condition. But he never pitched another inning. He found that he could not combine athletics with academics. He gave up baseball for English literature. I was sorry that he would not develop his athletic talent, but proud that he had made such a mature decision. He graduated with a B average.