by Cathy Byrd
Regardless of what was to happen with Christian’s potential movie debut, we were thoroughly enjoying our all-expenses-paid vacation in Cape Cod. The seaside town of Hyannis Port is an affluent community where Northeasterners flock for the summer, and is best known as the location of the Kennedy family’s compound. It was a perfect place to be stranded over the next few days while we waited for news from the production company as to when Christian would need to report back for duty on the set. With the exception of a couple of rainy days, our days and nights in Cape Cod were filled with baseball. Baseball at the beach, baseball in the hotel room, and baseball on a myriad of baseball fields, which were plentiful in the Cape.
We found ourselves at more than a few Cape Cod Baseball League games, where we rooted for teams like the Hyannis Harbor Hawks and the Chatham Anglers. I was pitching balls to Christian in a batting cage at the Hyannis Port stadium when we overheard somebody say the Yankees were coming to Boston in two days to play the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Because we were on standby for the movie shoot, it was a little risky to fork out $150 for the cheapest available ticket, but I took the leap of faith and bought it anyway—figuring Christian was still young enough to sit on my lap. Within hours of making the purchase, we received word from the production company that tomorrow was the day we had been waiting for. Christian would finally be filming his baseball-playing cameo role in the movie. Assuming his role in the baseball scene would take only one day to shoot, we would miraculously be able to make it to the Red Sox game before our return trip to Los Angeles.
On the day of filming, the atmosphere on set was a stark contrast to the laid-back environment of the rehearsal. The white van dropped us off at what looked like a makeshift village packed with trailers and people buzzing around in all directions. Like in a colony of ants, each person appeared to be on a distinct mission. We were met by the assistant director, who immediately sent us to the dreaded wardrobe department. The wardrobe assistant’s efforts to get Christian out of his baseball clothes and into the polo shirt, khaki shorts, and dress shoes that he was to wear for the scene were met with a screaming, kicking fit, just as I had feared. He cried so hard that he threw up on the lady, but luckily, not on the new clothes he was wearing.
Our next stop was the makeup department, where a scar on Christian’s forehead from a collision with our coffee table a few months earlier was magically disguised. The very funny and talented Tony Orlando (as in the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” from the 1970s) was seated next to Christian getting his makeup applied for his role as a self-indulgent billionaire with a mini Fenway Park in his backyard. Within minutes, Tony had Christian laughing and totally oblivious to how much he hated his new clothes. The only remnants of the wardrobe fiasco were Christian’s puffy, red eyes.
Kevin, the producer we had met at the rehearsal a few days earlier, then showed up to walk us over to a tent behind home plate to meet Adam Sandler. Adam put Christian at ease right away with a high five, and then proceeded to ask him questions about baseball while I shot photos and videos of the sweet interaction.
“So, Konrad, can I count on you to hook me up with tickets?” Adam joked. “What team are you going to play for? You’re going to play for the Dodgers.”
“No!” Kevin objected, “he’s going to play for the Red Sox!”
Christian surprised us all when he shook his head from side to side and said, “I play for the Yankees.”
Adam Sandler made his team of choice known when he gave Christian a big hug and proudly said, “That’s my boy!” Christian grinned from ear to ear, and I was elated that I had captured the precious exchange on video so he could remember the experience in the years to come.
My first inkling that this might be an R-rated movie was when Adam told us that his two- and four-year-old daughters were in the movie too, but they wouldn’t be allowed to watch it until they were out of high school. I waved good-bye to Christian as they took him out to center field near a large, white screen, which appeared to be used for lighting, and braced myself for what might be about to transpire on the baseball field. The roller-coaster ride was about to begin, and there was no turning back at this point.
The director gave the cue for “quiet on the set.” When it was perfectly silent, the cameras began rolling. I watched from afar as Christian picked his nose and grabbed his crotch on cue. This was not exactly what I had expected when we boarded the plane to Boston, but it was pretty darn funny. It took a little less than the allotted two hours to shoot Christian’s cameo role, and as soon as filming concluded, he begged to change out of his dreaded wardrobe and back into his baseball uniform and cleats. All possible disasters had been averted, and we still had one day to spare before flying home.
The following day we ventured into the city of Boston to watch the Red Sox play their longtime rivals, the New York Yankees, at the real Fenway Park. I didn’t know at the time that the nearly 100-year-old ballpark was the oldest Major League Baseball stadium still in use. After the shock of paying the unimaginable price of $60 to park our rental car, we walked to Yawkey Way, the main street in front of the stadium, where the pregame festivities were in full force. On game days Yawkey Way closes to traffic in order to make way for the thousands of baseball fans flowing into Fenway Park. The roadway is transformed into an animated pedestrian streetscape teeming with street vendors and revelry.
The baseball-themed carnival atmosphere seemed custom-made for a baseball-obsessed toddler, with the exception of the massive amounts of beer being consumed. Christian was completely in awe of the 10-foot-tall baseball player on stilts, who leaned down to give him a high five. This larger-than-life caricature cheered as Christian delivered strike after strike into an oversize glove at a speed-pitch booth. Christian became a game-day spectacle himself as enthusiastic Red Sox fans took turns pitching balls to him and showering him with applause as he launched balls into the sky with his tiny wooden bat and ran around imaginary bases near the entrance to the stadium.
Entering the hallowed halls of Fenway Park felt like walking back in time. I followed my young son’s lead as he wandered over to a vendor who was selling black-and-white photographs of Red Sox players from days gone by. Much to my surprise, Christian begged me to purchase a large photograph of old-time Red Sox players Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr. It struck me as odd that a photo from 1939 was the only thing he had asked me to buy during our entire trip. We had come across many other souvenirs that seemed much more appropriate and fun for a young boy. His obvious love for the photo inspired me to purchase it and have it shipped to our home.
When I took Christian’s hand to lead him through the concourse to our seat, something very strange happened. I was stopped in my tracks when, all of a sudden, he wouldn’t budge. He was mesmerized by a larger-than-life portrait of a baseball player from days gone by that was hanging on the wall beside us. Next came an outburst that made time stand still. Christian was visibly upset as he waved his little wooden bat at the photograph and repeatedly yelled, “I do not like him. He was mean to me!” This was not a normal two-year-old tantrum, but a passionate display of emotion with real feeling behind it. It was clear to anybody in the vicinity that Christian believed that this man on the wall had done him harm.
Even strangers had no problem interpreting what he was trying to communicate. One man commented as he was passing by, “This kid is on to something because Babe Ruth was a real jerk.” I knew nothing about Babe Ruth at the time, but I did recognize him as a famous baseball player from long ago.
Trying to be empathetic to Christian’s obvious upset, I calmly asked, “Babe Ruth was mean to you?”
When he said “Yes!” I felt like a deer in headlights and had no idea how to respond. How do you have rational conversation with a two-year-old who is convinced that a man who died decades before he was born was mean to him? I somehow managed to calm him down and get him to our seat, but Christian was so agitated that we only made it through the first two innings of the
game. As we made our way out of the stadium, I went out of my way to avoid walking by the wall with the towering photo of Babe Ruth on it. When I called Michael to tell him what had happened, the only word I could find to describe the experience was eerie.
CHAPTER THREE
TALL LIKE DADDY
“I did not begin when I was born nor when I was
conceived. I have been growing, developing, through
incalculable myriads of millenniums . . . All my previous
selves have their voices, echoes, promptings, in me . . .
Oh, incalculable times again shall I be born.”
JACK LONDON, THE STAR ROVER
When we landed in Los Angeles, all I could think about was getting to my mom’s house as quickly as possible to pick up Charlotte. Bubbling with excitement to be reunited with my family, I gabbed on the phone with my mom for the entire 40-minute drive there. We swapped updates on the movie shoot, our real estate transactions, and life in general. By the time we pulled into her driveway, it was a little after 10 P.M., and she was standing outside in anticipation of our arrival with a very sleepy Charlotte nestled under her arm. I was hoping Christian might remain asleep in his car seat for the additional 10-minute ride to our house, but my hopes were dashed when he snapped out of his peaceful slumber and jubilantly shouted, “Grandma!”
Charlotte and Christian were giddy at being reunited, and stayed up well past midnight planning his third birthday party. I had sent out the invitations prior to our trip to Boston, and the party was now just three days away. Charlotte, the budding artist, sketched a cake design while Christian happily offered direction.
“Make it Dodger blue,” he instructed. “Draw a baseball field. Don’t forget the catcher. Where will the candles go?”
The three of us crammed into Christian’s queen-size bed that night, as was our habit, since neither of them liked to sleep alone. It was very crowded, but better than being woken up in the middle of the night by little ones trying to sneak into my bed. Just before dozing off, Christian got a very serious look on his face.
“Mommy . . . I used to be a tall baseball player.”
“Do you mean a ‘tall baseball player’ like Matt Kemp?” I asked, tucking the blankets around him.
“Yep.”
I knew the odds of my son actually becoming a professional baseball player were one in a million, but I seized the opportunity to correct his grammar by saying, “Yes, sweetheart, one day you will be a tall baseball player.”
He fell asleep and so did I—not giving the exchange another thought.
Michael was scheduled to return the following evening for his normal two-day weekend at home before the Monday morning turnaround to Texas. As much as he disliked the weekly traveling, he didn’t have much of a choice because the real estate business that we both relied on for our primary source of income had slowed down considerably. Southern California home prices had plummeted to a five-year low, and so had our annual income. Six years earlier we had been riding the wave of steadily increasing home prices, which had allowed us to buy homes, fix them up, and sell them for a profit—in addition to our regular business of representing clients who were buying or selling their own homes. Thankfully I had been able to put some money in the bank at that time to make it through lean times like this.
Before getting married, Michael and I had come up with a plan to split our bills 50/50, and even with our dwindling income, we stuck with our pact. Although somewhat unconventional, it’s a system that has always worked for us. Keeping separate bank accounts and contributing equally to our monthly bills allowed us to make independent financial decisions and also ensured that neither of us would ever feel like we were carrying more than our share of the financial burden.
On Friday evening I was pitching balls to Christian from the kitchen while preparing dinner in anticipation of Michael’s arrival when Christian blurted out the same thing he had said the night before.
“Mommy, I used to be a tall baseball player.”
“Yes, you will be a tall baseball player someday,” I said, as I’d said the night before.
Christian was clearly dissatisfied with my reply. With a look of exasperation, he stomped his foot and hollered.
“No! I was a tall baseball player—tall like Daddy!”
Was a baseball player? Tall like Daddy? What was my son trying to say to me? Did he mean . . . he couldn’t mean . . . was he trying to tell me that he was a grown-up in a previous lifetime?
He stomped his foot again, waiting for me to say something, wanting me to understand him. I took a deep breath as I struggled to come up with a response. Trust me when I say these are not words you want to hear coming out of your toddler’s mouth.
I bent down to his level and looked him in the eye, trying to hide the shock on my face and the worry in my voice.
“You were a grown-up? Like Daddy?”
His answer was a resounding “Yes!” The look of relief on his face was undeniable. He had finally made his point.
Having this conversation with my son was as shocking as seeing a ghost walk through our front door, and seemingly as plausible. Christian’s obsession with baseball was strange enough as far as I was concerned, given that there was no affinity for the sport in our family, but his new revelation about having been “tall like Daddy” felt like a descent into the rabbit hole. I found myself straddling the great divide between logic and intuition. The concept of reincarnation was diametrically opposed to my rational thoughts and my religious beliefs, yet my heart was telling me not to ignore what Christian was so desperately trying to tell me.
When Michael walked through the door, I was in urgent need of a reality check. Barely saying hello, I immediately flooded him with all the thoughts that were going through my mind, hoping that he would be able to make sense of it all. Michael listened intently as I rehashed Christian’s odd statements and behaviors, which were beginning to feel like pieces of a puzzle. We both found ourselves with more questions than answers. How could a toddler have an emotional reaction to a portrait of a man who had died half a century before his birth? Christian was not a kid who was prone to temper tantrums—unless, of course, I was dragging him away from a baseball field or attempting to influence his wardrobe choices. His visceral reaction to Babe Ruth’s photograph was totally illogical and completely out of character. We also couldn’t wrap our heads around why a young child would be so attracted to a black-and-white photograph of two old-time Red Sox players.
I think I must have exhausted Michael because with a weary smile he said, “Let’s let it go for now.” I simply couldn’t. As soon as my family was soundly asleep, I crept downstairs to my office to scour the Internet for information on Babe Ruth and the two Red Sox players—Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr—in the photo that Christian liked so much. My walk back in time revealed that Ted Williams was one of the greatest left-handed hitters in baseball history. He was born in 1918 and passed away in 2002, six years before Christian was born. I learned that Williams had made his debut in the Major Leagues for the Red Sox in 1939, which was four years after Babe Ruth’s retirement. I skimmed through the baseball stats, having no clue what all the numbers and percentages meant. And then, regretfully, I came across a story that made my stomach turn.
Apparently Ted Williams’s children had ignored their father’s dying wish to have his body cremated, and instead chose to have his remains cryogenically frozen, in hopes that future advances in medical technology might make it possible to revive their father and reunite their family. The children had paid more than $100,000 to have their father’s head severed from his body and stored in a steel drum filled with liquid nitrogen. The idea of being able to bring a frozen head back to life seemed wildly preposterous, but then again, searching the Internet for a former baseball player, who my nearly three-year-old son may have known in a previous lifetime, felt equally absurd. This was a sure sign that it was time to put my curiosity to rest.
Our weekend culminated wi
th Christian’s third birthday party on Sunday afternoon, a low-key gathering of family and close friends at our home, with an inflatable bounce house that attracted kids from all over our neighborhood. The highlight for Christian came when three of his nine-year-old Little League heroes showed up to wish him a happy birthday. He also loved Charlotte’s special baseball-theme birthday cake and the catcher’s gear he received from my mom. Following the festivities, Michael and I packed our bags for our upcoming travels. He was off to Texas; Charlotte, Christian, and I would be spending the week in Yosemite at an outdoor camp that had been organized by our church.
As a child in Germany, Michael had periodically attended a Lutheran church with his family, but he had grown out of the habit of going to church during his adult life. When I had suggested we join a local Presbyterian church when I was pregnant with Charlotte, he hadn’t been thrilled about the idea of attending the required classes to become church members, but had gone along with my plan anyway. Getting him to go to church was a different story. Michael preferred to spend his Sunday mornings playing tennis. He didn’t necessarily dislike going to church, but he just didn’t see it as a priority; I did. I had eventually given up trying to persuade Michael to join me, Charlotte, and Christian at church on Sunday mornings—except for special occasions, such as a religious holiday or if our kids were singing in the youth choir. It is quite possible that my desire to provide our children with a strong religious education came from my own topsyturvy path to discovering religion as a child.
Being the only child of a single, working mother who didn’t go to church or talk about religion made me wonder what I was missing out on. My first recollection of being in a church was at the age of five when I attended a Catholic service with a family from my neighborhood. I recall imitating my friend Patty as she dipped her fingers into the holy water and then touched her head, heart, and each shoulder while saying, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Even though I didn’t understand what I was doing, it felt special and sacred.