Open wounds

If you wait long enough, the kid eventually - of course, of course - takes your place, carries you, helps you out. Aeneas bears a feeble Anchises from burning Troy; Joannes Florentius a Kempis replaces his father as the chief organist at Brussels Cathedral. And Doug Drabek scans the box scores, in which his name once appeared, for his son Kyle's stats.

No blogs since Monday, as my tools - my hands, that is - have been pretty beaten up, and in no real mood for additional typing. On Monday, my left thumb had swollen by about half: a big purple ball that itched and emitted an unnerving warmth. On Tuesday afternoon, I went to the doctor, who immediately diagnosed it as a staph infection, slit it and drained it, and sent me home with my very own box of antibiotics. And then on Wednesday afternoon, as I played at home with Cleo, I tried to open a window and slit my right thumb but good, on a sharp metal fastener. Walked to the bathroom to retrieve a band-aid, only to realize that I simply couldn't open it, with one of my thumbs wrapped in gauze and the other bleeding openly.

And so Cleo stepped up. She stood on the toilet, as she likes to do while she brushes her teeth, and calmly opened the band-aid wrapper: her efficient gestures the result of lots of practice bandaging in Baltimore. In a few seconds, she handed me the clean band-aid, and soon all was well, again.

What did Nicolaus feel as he watched Joannes play the cathedral organ that had once been his domain. A sense, I would guess, of his own mortality. A relief, perhaps: a sense that he had discharged his generational duty. And, of course, a swelling of pride.