Unexpected Generosity

As everyone knows, yesterday was Veteran's Day. My 9 year old son has a strong interest in the military partially due to my service in the Navy. My wife has some of my pictures hanging in the office so he knows quite a bit about submarines and how Navy life works. He is very patriotic and loves eagles and apple pie. I'm not joking about the pie either. So yesterday he comes walking up with a question for dear old dad.

"Dad, who is your favorite Ranger?"

"You know the answer to that. It's Will Clark."

"Daaaaaad, I know that, but I mean someone who is Ranger right now."

"Well, that would be Michael Young."

"Why?"

Now he has my attention. My son doesn't ask a lot of "why" questions. He reads constantly so he knows many of the "whys". Or thinks he does.

"Well, he is a good player. He plays hard all the time, he even wants to play when he's hurt. Mostly it is because he is a true team player. He could have left to play somewhere else and he didn't. When the team got another second baseman (Alfonso Soriano) he moved from second base to shortstop. When the team wanted to let Elvis Andrus play shortstop, Michael didn't want to move to third base, but he did because deep down, he's a team player."

"Ok", he says and walks away.

Now I'm thinking that was a weird little conversation. About a half hour goes by and here he comes again. This time he's holding something behind his back.

"Dad."

"Yes?"

"Thanks for being in the Navy. Here."

He hands me his 2009 Topps Turkey Red Michael Young card. You have to know that he only started collecting his own cards a couple of months ago. He bought a few of his own packs of 2009 Topps and is putting the set together. I've gotten cards for him through several trades and he loves it. His favorites are the Turkey Red cards.

Now I'm no wussy, but I'm not Chuck Norris either. Outer space doesn't exist because it is afraid to be on Earth with me. I was literally speechless for about 15 seconds. I gave him a big hug and holding him close so he wouldn't see my eyes watering, I told him "thank you." A few people told me thanks on Veteran's Day, but that Michael Young card will always be one of my most cherished cards because a 9 year old boy cared enough to say thank you. His generosity was just a tad overwhelming to say the least.

Generosity is something we've tried to teach him by example. He is also seeing it with some of the trades I've received. Many bloggers are exceedingly generous. Whether it's setting up a trade of 50 Rangers for 50 players from someone else's favorite team and they end up sending 75 or 100 cards or David from Tribecards sending out random packs of kindness, generosity is running rampant among the bloggers. We're both learning that collecting cards doesn't mean having the most cards, but enjoying the ones you do have and sharing with others. So, from a proud dad, thanks for using cards to show what generosity is all about.