Sudden death

 Last month I experienced the sudden death of two people.

One was a Facebook friend who’d I’d been around for 20 years.

The other was a cousin of mine.

And we almost saw it happen again last night.

The first person, Kathy, I “met” during the days of Yahoo Groups. I joined a group made up of people who’d all read two books, Karen and With Love From Karen, both written by Marie Killilea. Marie’s daughter Karen was born in 1940 and a year later, diagnosed with cerebral palsy. It took her parents 23 doctors and two and a half years to find proper help. I read both books when I was 13 and was captivated. We in the group swapped stories about the effect the books had on us and swapped stories about each other. I joined the group right before my son was diagnosed with autism and the group was a support to me during that time. 

Kathy was one of the first people to say hello to me when I joined the group. Later, she formed another online group for people who loved books as she did. She was such a fan of the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. She loved God and was enormously proud of her family. 

She died in her sleep in mid-December, while she and her husband were on their way to a cruise to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. One of our mutual Facebook friends messaged me and when I saw the words, “Kathy is dead,” I was stunned. The only comfort I can find is that she went to sleep and woke up in heaven. 

I saw an enormous outpouring of love and memories for her on Facebook. I thought of three people who would be totally heartbroken (in addition to her husband): her best friend, and two other dear friends she met on Facebook. 

She lived a life that will be remembered, and you can’t ask for more than that.

The other was my cousin Bill, who I wrote about yesterday. His sudden death came when he went to burn some brush and the wind blew up. He either suffered smoke inhalation, or a heart attack, or both, and died. His funeral was yesterday, and since he broadcast high school sports for a number of years,  it was appropriate to hold his funeral in the Harlan County High School gymnasium. From the number of comments I saw on Facebook, Harlan County lost a legend. 

Last night, a young Buffalo Bills football player, Damar Hamlin, tackled a Cincinnati Bengals player, Tee Higgins.  They both went down and got up. Nothing remarkable. It’s normal, and expected, to see tackles in football games.  Right? 

Except two seconds after he got up, Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field and this time, he did not get up.

The medical personnel raced onto the field, and both Bills players and Bengals players formed a human wall around Hamlin, shielding him from the audience and from the TV cameras. 

Hamlin was given CPR on the field in those agonizing moments before the ambulance arrived.  

Bills players - and Bengals players - cried, and many of them knelt in prayer for their fallen teammate. 

After an hour or so, and discussions with players and between both coaches, the game was suspended at 5:58 of the first quarter. They will not resume this game this week. Which I think is good. If the teams had tried to play again, no one would have been able to concentrate. All they’d see is the body of their fellow player, lying on the ground, his arms outstretched, receiving CPR so that he could just survive. 

I’m watching a clip of the Monday Night Football broadcast from last night. One of the speakers said he’d never seen an ambulance come onto the field. I have, one time on TV, where someone had a neck injury. (I cannot remember who was playing or when it was.) They did bring the ambulance onto the field and take the player off. 

However, there’s never been a situation where a player collapsed, on live TV, and had to be given CPR before being loaded into an ambulance. 

Damar Hamlin is currently in critical condition in the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. He is alive. 

But we could have seen sudden death on the field last night.

The idea of sudden death scares me. Of waking up and finding my husband dead next to me, or of losing my son, or sister, or niece. I think it scares me because death is something that is out of my control. There is a verse in the book of Proverbs that says “no man has power over the day of his death”.  I get scared of being the one left behind having to deal with an estate. It also scares me to be the one to die and leave others to handle my affairs. 

What do I say? What is there to say in the face of sudden death? Of a relative? Of a person you only knew through a computer screen? Of a young athlete? 

“I’m sorry,” sounds so trite. “Thoughts and prayers,” sounds tired and overused. 

Life is precious when you are looking into the face of sudden death. 

That’s all I know to say.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.