SUBMISSION to TRUTH

There is a freedom in the truth. I recently started privately training a bright 10-year old kid who is excited about life and basketball. He and I train together three times-a-week and yesterday I was five minutes late to his house for training. I pulled up to his driveway as usual and found him shooting around. He saw my car and the biggest smile was on his face. He’s got braces with blue studs in them for flare. If it’s possible to ooze elation, this kid does. I’m not foolish enough to say it’s attributable to me but I’m also not so falsely humble to think that his excitement has nothing to do with me either.

When I got out of my car, assembled my materials and walked over to him he said, still smiling, “You’re late. What happened?” He was afraid and relieved all at the same time. See, I’ve never been late to one of his training sessions, only early. He was afraid I wasn’t coming this time. He’s too young to analyze the business transaction between his parents and I. He’s not looking at me thinking I have to come because of some formal obligation or professional commitment. All he knows is that I said I’d be here on Fridays, Sundays and Mondays to train him. And for a moment it looked like I wasn’t going to show. Can you imagine if I hadn’t?

So when he asked me what happened, I told him the truth. I was tempted to offer a mild version of it but opted otherwise. “I was over at the high school where I train kids sometimes,” I said avoiding eye contact. “I was playing basketball with those guys and when I looked up at the clock I was like…man…I’m going to be late today to train Javier. I’m sorry.” There I was telling a 10-year old the truth. And he said, “that’s alright, we just got home about five minutes ago.” I appreciated the gracious pardon but something tells me that I could have made things so much easier if I had just been on time. The truth matters, even to a 10-year old with blue braces.