The Warmth We Carried

The one we carried. There's a hill above a small town football field, second tier. That's where a brown station wagon would park on Friday nights. 1970s brown long heavy doors, more room than a car.

Down below my dad was the head coach. At that age he might as well have been invisible to me, not emotionally, just physically. I didn't see him. I didn't interact with him.

I only knew that being there mattered. Inside the station wagon my mom engineered warps. Super hot hot chocolate sealed inside a fragile glass thermos. You weren't allowed to drink from it directly, you'd have to drink from this plastic red

cup that screwed on the top. It was always too hot. The first sip would singe my tongue every time. Not enough to hurt, just enough to announce itself.

Steam rising, hands cold, tongue burning. I blow on it, knowing it wouldn't help and sip anyway. A big brown paper sack of popcorn sat nearby. soaking through, oil stains spreading like quiet maps of care. The back of the wagon

was layered with sleeping bags, cocoons stacked on cocoons, but bodies make moisture and moisture fogs windows and fog wasn't acceptable. So sometimes I was sent out, not as punishment, just physics. The cold had texture. The aluminum bleachers that pulled the heat straight out of you. Later in the season, flurries would drift down,

light indifferent. The field would turn white then slush then mud. I had zero interest in football, the noise, the rules, the obsession. It all felt loud in the way my nervous system couldn't translate. When something good happened in the game, the people had hunked their car horns from the hill or the road below. Long burst, a rough symphony of horns. Approval translated into

sound as the whole world needed to announce agreement with what just had occurred. The honking would cut through the cold air, bounce off the bleachers, and disappear until the next touchdown. On the opposite side of the field under the bleachers was a radio announcer booth built up between two

light poles. A wooden ladder led to it. A hatch underneath. I was never allowed up there. It was sacred space, adult space, important space. I got to peek once. Inside there was nothing mystical. Just bare wooden shelves holding radio equipment. Structure and function pretending to be special because of

where it sat. One night the game got so intense the radio announcer had a hard attack up in there. He didn't survive. Dad said it was very hard to get him out. That stayed with me. If I had to be out there I stayed low away from the crowd letting the cold be even predictable. I'd watch other younger kids throwing

footballs rehearsing the future they wanted. That ball, that awkward shape, never made sense to my hands. Coordination and autism don't always negotiate well. Autism does something else though. It doesn't let memories fade politely. It keeps them close. This doesn't feel like a lifetime ago. It feels like a few days ago.

I can still hear the honking when something went right. I still feel the burn of the red cup on my tongue. I still see the fogged windows and the snow falling past the bright light poles. still know exactly what it feels like to be sent out of out of the warm. Eventually I'd beg to go back into the station wagon back to the sleeping bags,

back to the fogged windows, quiet warmth, and the smell of popcorn and care. I wanted to be home but we stayed because support I learned early doesn't always look like excitement. Sometimes it looks like sitting in the cold while approval honks in the distance remembering everything exactly as it was

and carrying peace quietly while someone you love lives inside a world that was never meant for you. This is Oddly Robbie. Thanks for listening. I'm not a robbie. I'm not a robbie.

I'm not a robbie. I'm not a robbie.