A Life in a Flash

Right before you die, your life supposedly flashes before your eyes like an extended version of a Bar Mitzvah montage, with Green Day’s “Time of Your Life” playing in the background.

I’ve often wondered what that flash would look like. Does it start with the day you were born and move forward chronologically? Or does it do a Benjamin Button and go in reverse? Does it follow a narrative arc, or is it just random moments in time? And how does our mind shoehorn an entire life in a flash when it takes more than three hours to watch any Oscar-worthy biopic?

One thing I know for sure is that we’ve all seen countless cuts of our child’s movie. It’s usually a midnight show or thereabouts, and despite the situations in which we know there’s no possibility of a happy ending, we can’t take our eyes off the screen. We can recite every line of dialogue, and we know every set and location of every scene, and even though it breaks our hearts, we can’t stop watching it over and over again.

Frankly, I’ve had enough of these late-show tearjerkers, and maybe you have too. These days, playing nightly in the Larry Theater of my mind is a more Hallmark-y, feel-good version of the flash that was our life together, and you’ll always find me sitting in our favorite seats in the center of the top row.

Robbie is nine days old, and he’s lying by my side as we watch Bills placekicker Scott Norwood prepare to break my heart and win Super Bowl XXV against my beloved Giants with a last-second field goal attempt. I tell Robbie that we’re going to win this game because he’s my lucky charm, and when the kick sails wide right and the Giants miraculously win their second Super Bowl 20–19, I pick up my new baby boy, kissing and hugging him while we dance around our living room, celebrating a lot more than just winning the championship.

Rob is twenty-seven, and his brother Zach and I are taking him to see his first pro basketball game in person — the Clippers against the Nuggets. When we get to Staples Center, it turns out that two of our three seats are together and the other one is across the aisle, so the kids sit next to each other, and I’m the odd man out. I wind up watching them more than the game, which turns out to be a Clippers blowout after Jokic´ gets tossed, and they’re cracking up and goofing on each other while I’m beaming because I can feel how much they love each other.

Robbie is eight, and we’re walking in the parking lot of Jones Beach Theater on our way to see my favorite band, Steely Dan, and he’s with me because Caryn didn’t want to go, and he didn’t want me to go alone. I have my arm around his shoulder and I’m overwhelmingly happy that he’s with me. It’s one of those perfect summer nights with a warm breeze coming off the ocean, and right before we get to security, some half-drunk, wholly stoned woman wearing a Two Against Nature T-shirt turns around and kneels down to talk with Robbie. She asks him what his favorite Steely Dan song is, and Robbie, without hesitation, says, “Rose Darling,” which is kind of an obscure deep cut, and the woman bursts out laughing and says, “Your daddy taught you right, little boy!”

Rob is twenty-six, and he’s in our house in Venice to meet his new little bro, Wallace, an adorably devilish Jack Russell puppy. Wallace is frantically jumping all over him on the couch, so Rob scoops him up in one hand and places him on his belly and says, “Who’s a good boy, Wallace, who’s a good little boy?” Then Rob picks him up and brings him face-to-face, and they kiss and lick each other, and I’m in the kitchen watching the two of them, quietly repeating to myself, “Who’s a good little boy?”

Robbie is seven and sitting on my lap in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajamas playing an interactive computer game called Full Throttle. He’s all excited as we help Ben, the leader of a biker gang, kick all kinds of ass at each gnarly obstacle thrown his way until we can’t figure out how to climb over a warehouse fence guarded by an angry attack dog, so we switch to Dust and immediately encounter gunslingers, gold prospectors, and numerous hot babes in a Western saloon. Just as we’re ready to face off in a duel with the Kid, a hot babe in my bedroom upstairs yells at us to go to sleep already, and we quietly laugh and stay up way past our bedtimes, playing these games late into the night.

Rob is twenty-seven, and we’re riding a rickety elevator that leads to his new apartment on the sixth floor of a historic landmark building right on the waterfront in downtown Long Beach. I’ve never seen him look prouder, and as soon as we walk in, I tell him that this is his dream place and that it reminds me of my first apartment and that I’m so proud of him. He’s nodding and smiling hard, and the whole thing feels like we’re in some type of an alternate Rob universe, and I’ve never felt more hopeful for him and think that maybe things will work out this time, and I get all caught up in his California dream.

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