It was a warm spring night, and the stands were full. The air had dirt suspended like the tension would be. I was sitting with some friends and we were watching young men be valiant. Showing strength and courage, and braving death.

I didn’t see it happen. It was too quick and I wasn’t paying attention. But quickly, two hundred pairs of eyes focused on one place, the amount of undivided attention was threatening to tear a hole in space.

He was just laying there crushed, devastated.

We were just sitting there crushed and devastated.

He wasn’t moving.

I rolled it around in my mouth, explored the feeling and the taste of the words. The bitter words brought excitement. Like jumping off a cliff or graduating a class, I might move from the have-nots to the haves. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

I might be able to say I saw someone die.

And I hoped that it wouldn’t be true. I willed him to get up, but at the same time excited that he might not.

He still wasn’t moving and the EMT was there.

Some how the waiting turned into boredom. It was all because he wasn’t really a person, he didn’t have a family who were going to be devastated with him gone. He didn’t have a future of any type, he was just a cut out piece of paper acting out a script in a play. Or we just thought to avoid facing our own mortality.

But he does. He has a family that loves him. He is the same age as me. He is a real person and I celebrate those facts.

I thank God that the man has his life and I thank God that I still can’t say that I watched a man die.

Focus and distraction. The possibilities are overwhelming, but so is the sense of potential and capacity.

What is being shoved in my face right now, is “Do you really want to do this? Cause you can do whatever you want.”

It’s both liberating and paralyzing. I am free to do what I want, and I can do whatever I want, just now I’m the one who’s in charge.

The responsibility is now mine, and mine alone. I’m the master of my own fate. I’m the one who decides between failure and fortune.

He’s with me, no matter what. He loves me, no matter what. He never thinks I’ve failed, and I can’t fail, and there for I will not fail.

Things might not go as well as planned, things might go in a completely different direction that was once thought or dreamed. But there I will be there. He will be there too.

My life is the tension between fear and freedom.

I don’t know if it was the pain in her face, or the crying man outside that solidified the atmosphere, but I do know it was the phone call that told me it’s name.

It was about 10 minutes earlier and the word was a shock. “He passed,” she said and the word just made me jump. Like a slap to the face, or a punch to the stomach.

After I walked in, we started talking, and the older dog knew something was up. She knew and needed reassurance. I couldn’t be petting her enough. I couldn’t be paying her enough attention. She’s normally not that needy and she gave me even more insight into how the whole house was reacting.

It wasn’t good and I had to help. My self-pity and depression became luxuries that I couldn’t afford to keep. My worries and fears became childish in front of this real pain.

The dinner was opposite. It was a different group of people and it seemed like a different world. Lighthearted, not ecstatic, but carefree and untroubled. It was hard. It was cold. It was calloused. It was absolutely normal and perfectly fine. I was the one who needed to change, I was the one who was being insensitive and cold and calloused.

I needed to rejoice with those who were rejoicing. Mourning was not here, pain was not here. It’s not mine to share, it’s not even mine to fix.

It was almost harder the the house. At the house I knew how to act. I knew how to be strong, how to be there, when not to be there. I knew that sometimes I needed to just let them work though it themselves. Sometimes I needed to bring some sunshine in – not to much – but just enough to remind them that the pain will pass. And here, well, I just couldn’t. I was tired. I had to leave. I was not ready to make the switch. I’ve been working on mourning and sadly I wasn’t up to celebrating.

I couldn’t. It’s been something that I’ve been hearing and trying to put in practice all year and I couldn’t.