Can You Hear It?

Reflections on Losing a Sports Hero

Can you hear it?

Look around the world this week. Nothing much has changed for the majority of us.  We get up and go to work. We drop kids off at school or practice. Make dinner. Walk dogs. Pay bills. It’s all basically the same.  It’s late January, so many of us are getting a bit stir crazy. We are used to the cold now, but we yearn for buds to emerge on the blank tree branches. The wonder of a soft snowfall has blended with the reminder that we’ll need to clear our sidewalks, yet again. We experience the tease that the days are getting longer, but the chill in the air still lingers and window scraping is still a routine chore.

January has been filled with constant reminders that the election is coming. Impeachment proceedings preempt the screen during daytime television. Politicians are loudly confronting each other. Fear still lingers from threats outside our borders. Propaganda has filled the airwaves.

But this week, many of the feelings seem to have changed.  The death of a sports hero has rocked the world and overtaken the airwaves and social media.  Nine neighbors were going about an ordinary day. They went to church, ate breakfast, got the kids ready and headed out to do the stuff of life.

And then breathing stopped.  The final date was locked in their obituary.

Teary tributes have been shared by some of the most powerful and influential people on the planet. So many who referred to Kobe and his family as their family. It’s hard to comprehend the scope of this loss.

The past few days, I’ve noticed that we have collectively sat in grief. Sitting shiva together. Saddened by the loss of a sports hero and his daughter. Heartbroken for the families of the 9 souls on board a helicopter that seemed to have dropped from the sky. 

Granted, most of us don’t take a helicopter to our kid’s sporting events, we carpool. We take the bus. We gather with other soccer moms or scout parents.  We volunteer at community events and create new secondary families from our peers from church, from work, from the pub, from a club.

I think about picking up friends from the airport tomorrow. I think about the hundreds of times we have driven people we loved from place to place.  How many times we have shared an Uber with friends. The beloved moments when we’ve traveled with loved ones.  

And I think about the ripple effect a similar accident would have on our community.  While it would not be a global event like what happened on Sunday, it would drastically impact our community. The people we hold dear in our hearts.

This week, I’m relieved to read minimal arguments on social media. People seem to be taking a lighter approach to minor disagreements.  Strangers at the grocery store seem to be a bit nicer, and it seems that a few more doors may have been held open for others. I hope the ‘pay it forward’ phenomenon at drive-thrus has reached a new high.

Maybe hearing the words of a grief-stricken husband who is now facing raising children alone continues to ring in our ears. When he questions his own memory, wondering if he actually said, out loud, “I love you” as his wife left for the day. She was leaving to show love to a community of girls. A day that should have been like any other day.

Sometimes it takes a monumental tragedy for us to remember just how precious life is.  To fully consider how we live the days in the dash between our birth day and our final day.

Scripture says: 

“Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.”  (Ps. 90:12 NLT)  

“‘LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered – how fleeting my life is.  You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is but a moment to you; at best, etc of us is but a breath.”  (Ps. 39:4-5 NLT)

Now, 5 days later, I am still in shock but I am hopeful that we can learn from this week. Our words to each other matter, as we never know when our last breath will be taken. Our lives matter. Our social media posts matter. How we treat others matters.

We can use this tragedy to remember that we don’t always have to agree. We can respect people who are on different teams. We can learn from these souls who were giving of their time and talent to raise up the next generation. They were serving and inspiring others.

This week has made me realize that I never want to worry about what my last words are to the people in my community. 

Because life is too short to argue on social media.  Life’s too short to spend time on trivial things. I want to keep this feeling and structure my life around building people up, so if something happens to me, others might say “She lived her life honoring others.  She cared about things that mattered.”

“It’s the one thing you can control. You are responsible for how people remember you – or don’t. So don’t take it lightly.” – Kobe Bryant.