I thought he was being difficult.

We do field day every spring. The kids get branded shirts — school logo, everybody matching, the whole production.

Alex put his on and started crying.

I'll be honest about what I thought, because I think it's what most people would have thought. I figured he was being difficult. He'd been talking all week about wearing his Super Mario shirt, and here we were putting him in something else. Kid doesn't get his way, kid cries. I've seen it a hundred times.

Except he didn't stop. And he wasn't asking for the Mario shirt anymore. He just kept saying he didn't want this one.

That's when I remembered the card in my desk drawer.

His mom had given it to me back in September. One page. I read it once and filed it, the way you do.

I went and got it, and there it was, four lines down: he can't stand tags.

I found scissors, cut the tag out of the collar, and he put the shirt back on. That was it. That was the whole thing.

He ran the relay. He was fine.

I want to be clear about what happened there, because it wasn't insight and it wasn't patience. I got lucky that somebody had written it down, and luckier that I remembered. If that card hadn't been in the drawer, I'd have spent field day thinking a seven-year-old was spoiled, and he'd have spent it in a shirt that felt like sandpaper.

That's why the card has a line about clothing.