The 4th is meant to be a time spent with family. In that regard alone, our family's holiday was not a disappointment.

My older son had a crit (criterium race, cylcing) around 8am. He's hot off a cycling development camp and wa eager to test his new skills in a Cat 4/5 race. That's a race against beginning racers and those in the level just above them. He's been steadily improving his finishes: top-5 finishes are becoming the norm.

With one lap to go, my fatherly nerves kicked in

The final stretch. A sprint finish. My boy is sandwiched between two teammates from an opposing Austin team. The idiot on his right accelerates and veers left to squeeze him out. My boy has learned how to lean and nudge so he applies the skill -- likely to the older rider's surprise and disappointment -- and finishes 3rd.

The bad news is he finishes, not on his bike but backwards in the air. He breaks his collarbone and ends up (for now) being disqualified. The other guy should have been (and may still end up being) disqualified; however, he was able to protest in the 15 minutes following the race and my boy, on his way to the local emergency room, was not. I'm confident, he will be vindicated in the end.

He suffered abbrasions to the palm, wrist, both elbows, left shoulder and right shin. Of course, being a boy of (nearly) 17, he's more disturbed by the disqualification and the points missed out on as a result.

As a father, I could handle the injury. I saw it happen and realized, though his collar bone was broken, there was no sign of spinal injury or serious breaks.

My wife, on the other hand, could only imagine her boy's condition, so she took the news harder. To make matters worse, after she hung up with me, the sad news came that her mother had died. Elsie had been fighting a third bout with cancer in the last two years. Finally, three or so months ago, she had a series of minor strokes which had increasingly complicating effects. In the last few weeks, there was no Elsie left. The end was not surpring, but the period at the end of the sentence brings with it a clearer point of view.

So this holiday weekend has been one of worry and grieving. My boy is doing fine, even to the point he could bake a batch of delicious chocolate chip cookies. And my wife is doing well considering the situation. She leaves for Florida early tomorrow morning.

We did end up seeing some impressive fireworks though. Six Flags over San Antonio can't hide their show, so thousands of us line roads for miles around the park. The funny thing is a large church near us happened to have an equally impressive display so we were treated to that on our slow drive home. It was close enough, we could have stayed home the whole time. Ah well.