The National Anthem

I am driving my son to see his first baseball game, but there is traffic and we are already late, and so we are listening to the pre-game show on the radio and my son is sitting beside me in the front seat looking out the window and he is quiet, listening; now the voice on the radio stops talking and the national anthem begins to play, and instantly in my head I am back in time, to the first grade, where we are learning the words to the star-spangled banner and I am called out of class and told my mother is here to pick me up and take me home, and we are in the car but the radio is off and she is telling me there has been an accident; that my father was up on the ladder cleaning the gutter and he fell and landed on the rake that had been left points up on the lawn below and a coldness spreads through me as I learn my father is only human.