In Pursuit of Miracles

When my 6-year-old, Jordan, started getting interested in football, he searched up videos on YouTube. One of the big ones was “Plays That Have Nicknames.” You know the type, the Immaculate Reception, the Helmet Catch, etc. One of the things he noticed was that a disproportionate number of plays that have nicknames have the word “Miracle” in them — Music City Miracle, Minneapolis Miracle, Miami Miracle, you know the ones.

He took the wrong lesson from that. Because in seeing so many plays deemed “Miracle,” Jordan thought that meant any big play was a miracle. We would watch a regular game, like Jets-Colts or Saints-Giants, and there would be a 35-yard catch-and-run, and he’d run around the house yelling, “It’s a miracle!” Which, points for enthusiasm, kid, but maybe we pump the brakes on calling every last little thing a miracle.

Especially since he had a full-fledged miracle who shared his dang bedroom.

See, Jordan is a twin. And while Jordan has been more or less smooth sailing from a medical perspective — his biggest health concern was when he was 2 and fell and bonked his head and had to get some glue for a cut — his brother, Lucas, has been an adventure since he was at the 20-week mark in utero.

That 20-week appointment was when the doctors realized Lucas had a Swiss cheese heart. Am I making a bit of light of the situation? Yeah, probably, but since it was my situation, I’m allowed to describe it however I want. Ventricle holes. Narrowed aorta. Persistent left superior vena cava. Not quite hypoplastic left heart syndrome (if you don’t know what that is, be thankful), but close enough that there was more than one conversation about whether he’d need a transplant. He’s had four open-heart surgeries (first one was a 19-hour surgery at 3 days old — do not recommend!), and while he’s fine at this point, we still have a very close relationship with his cardiologists and see them on the regular.

I’m not lying when I say I didn’t think Lucas would make it. His first surgery was supposed to be about seven hours. He went back a little before 6 a.m. And it just kept going. The TV in the waiting room was wrapping up that day’s Pardon the Interruption, which meant it was nearly 6 p.m., when the nurse came out and said they still had him on bypass and were still struggling to find and fix the holes. I was sure he had been on bypass too long, that he wasn’t going to make it. And he had another seven hours after that. A week later, they tried to take him off his breathing tube, and he turned gray. I thought that was it. He went for a second surgery, then a third, then ultimately a fourth. The kid’s been under the knife more than whole families generally do over whole lives. And now, he’s fine. He’s played soccer, he’s played football. He’s played baseball and been on an all-star team. If you didn’t know, you’d never know.

You want a miracle, the fact that they diagnosed that kid with a wand on my wife’s belly and had him under for close to 20 hours when he was the size of a football, operated on him thrice more, and the only way you’d know now is if he took his shirt off and you saw the scars is the miracle-est miracle you’ll ever want.

The other thing about Lucas, when compared to Jordan, is that he’s always lacked his thing. He likes stuff, he dislikes stuff, but in almost every instance, it’s the same stuff Jordan likes or dislikes, and Jordan feels everything so very hard that Lucas seems along for the ride. Jordan likes maps and flags, Lucas starts liking maps and flags. Jordan enjoys marble runs, Lucas also enjoys them. We get them a present, Jordan runs around the house like a madman, Lucas smiles and says thanks. They turn 7 next month, and we’re still looking for something to give Lucas that Jordan won’t be even more excited about. Not that Jordan shouldn’t be excited, but he shouldn’t outshine Lucas every time. It funnels to sports, too, where Jordan has gone crazy for baseball and football, while Lucas is fine with them in small doses before moving on to something else.

At 6-almost-7, they aren’t ready for their first fantasy football team in any way that you might take seriously, but I thought it might be fun for them to each have their own casual roster for the 2024 season. I asked them. I’d help, but the decisions would ultimately be theirs. Jordan’s answer: “Yes!” Lucas’: “No thanks.”

Fine, it wasn’t a must. Jordan and I joined a public league, though. He took players representing all the favorite teams of the players he loved. Garrett Wilson (Jets for his Uncle Heath, Ohio State for his mom), Ray Davis (Kentucky for him), Michael Pittman Jr. (Colts for me), Bears defense (my friend Travis), David Njoku (Browns for his grandpa and his Uncle Ric). Other than insisting on taking Ray Davis in Round 3 (I talked him down in Rounds 1 and 2 but he wouldn’t be dissuaded in R3 for fear of someone taking him early), it isn’t a bad team in the end:

But! While we were drafting, curiosity got the better of Lucas. He came over, he watched, he made suggestions. Were they all good suggestions? No. He’s 6. But he was involved. Near the end of the draft, he asked: “Can I have a team too?”

So we joined another league. 10-team league, eighth pick. Lucas wanted Christian McCaffrey or Justin Jefferson, but when both were gone by his first pick, we scrolled through the names and he saw “42.” In the Yahoo app, you get several numbers for each player. Projected stats. Their draft order. But also their rank in overall projected points, which reflects that quarterbacks score more. So even players who were high draft picks had some lower numbers, and the player at No. 42 was a borderline first-rounder. Well, 42 has been Jordan’s number in both soccer and baseball, and with no “14” (Lucas’ number) in sight, he decided to pick Jordan’s number, and that meant his first-round pick was Saquon Barkley.

And when you scroll to those numbers, you see the numbers around them, and the boys’ best friend on their summer all-star team, Ian, wore No. 41. So when it wrapped back to Lucas in Round 2, he picked … A.J. Brown.

Eagle time.

He recognized his theme. Jalen Hurts in Round 3. DeVonta Smith in Round 4. Dallas Goedert, Round 7; Jake Elliott, Round 10; Eagles DST, Round 11. Even Will Shipley in R15.

Fifteen rounds, eight Eagles. The best strategy? Eh, maybe not. But his strategy? Yep.

And then, the best moment. Remember earlier when I mentioned the boys like maps and flags? For whatever reason, Brazil is their favorite country. Why? I dunno, man, because kids are weird. But as Lucas was drafting his Eagles-or-bust team, it occurred to me that their Week 1 game is against the Packers … in Brazil. His all-of-a-sudden favorite team, playing in his well-established favorite country, including numbers (which are fairly arbitrary, but he doesn’t know that) that represent two of his favorite people. Lucas has never been very excited about watching a football game, certainly never been more excited than Jordan about one. But he is already making plans to stay up late (I mean, a little late, he’s not staying up until the wee hours) Friday to see his Eagles team play in Brazil. He’s asked if I can record the game for him to watch Saturday. He’s a full-fledged Eagles fan all of a sudden.

Will it last? Will he finally have something he loves more than his brother? Have we uncovered his true excitement? I don’t know. Honestly, odds are against it, just because kids are flighty. But if so?

Miracle.