What happened during “The Day: Remembering Dale Earnhardt” - I think my son gets it now

“Hurry up, get in the car,” I say to my son as we leave the karate studio.

“What’s the rush?” he says getting into the side door of the van.

“There’s a T.V. show on about the day Dale Earnhardt died that I want to watch,” I respond in a matter-of-fact tone all the while thinking the show starts in 5 minutes and it takes 11 minutes to get home - if I get the green light and no one gets in front of me.

We pull out of the parking lot, hit the intersection and wait for the light to turn red (damn, there’s another 2 minutes added to my travel time) and once we turn left my son asks, “Is this the day that Dale Earnhardt died?”

“Wow,” I think, “He actually knows that this is close to the time Dale died.”

“No, that is next Friday,” I say, “You know it’ll be 10 years since he died.”

“I know, it was just a few months before I was born.” he reminds me.

“You know, everyone - including your mother - thought I was going to change the name we had picked out for you to Dale.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Oh I thought about it and I came really close to changing your middle name to Dale, but I didn’t.”

“Why?” he asks with a note of seriousness in his voice.

“Because if we were going to name you after Dale then we would have already have had that name picked for you before he died. It wouldn’t have been fair to you to change your name because everyone would know that you were named after Dale because he died and that is something I didn’t want you to be stuck with. It would have been different if everyone knew that was going to be your name before he died - you know?”

(silence as he processes this - and 3 more stop signs to home)

I then think, “If there are no line-ups at the stop signs I’ll only miss the first 5 minutes of the show.”

We pull into the driveway and I hustle him out of the van into the house. Darn! My daughter is watching one of her Barbie movies on the TV. I then make the mad dash to the basement to catch the rest of the show ignoring my wife in the process - I’ll pay for that later I think, but oh well.

As it turns out I only missed the first few minutes - I turned on the TV during the first commercial break.

I didn’t even turn on the lights, I just sat there on the couch with my back to the staircase watching Speed Channel’s The Day: Remembering Dale Earnhardt.

By the time the show gets to Kenny Schrader’s recount of the Turn 4 aftermath I’m so wrecked with emotion that I debate about turning the T.V. off - but I can’t, it’s like in the book Plato’s Republic when Socrates talks about when Leontius couldn’t restrain himself and looked at the dead bodies. Then he got angry at himself and cursed his own eyes. Even If I had to I just couldn’t take my eyes away from the T.V.

I really feel for Ken Schrader - man, to be the first one there and to see what he saw and then have to tell Childress, Junior, and Waltrip that things didn’t look good. I just don’t know how he got through it.

By the time Schrader is done and they get to Childress and the others telling their versions of hearing the bad news I’m crying.

My son then came down the stairs but I didn’t turn around.

He climbed over the back of the couch, plunked himself beside me and started watching the T.V. All was silent except for the T.V. and my sniffles.

If any of you know my son, you’d know that he likes to talk - a lot. Non-stop chatter, but not at that moment.

When the commercial came on he leaned forward and looked at me. He was about to say something, but stopped when he looked into my eyes and then he looked uncomfortable.

“Do you see it now? This is why I couldn’t name you Dale,” I wanted to say to him, but I couldn’t.

He then got up, hugged me and left without saying a word.

I watched the rest of the program and walked upstairs with a feeling of loss that I hadn’t experienced in years. I found my son and wrapped my arms around him. I kissed him on the top of his head, held him a little longer than usual - I probably squeezed him a little harder than usual too - and then let him go.

He started to run away to continue playing with his sister but he paused, turned and smiled at me with a look of understanding that I’ve never really seen in him before and then he was gone.

And I was left feeling a little better than I did when I first came up the stairs because I really do think that he understands why I couldn’t name him Dale.