Hard Time Here

He was someone who always seemed to have great joie de vivre. But I didn’t know him well. I just knew him for a long time. He was a fixture in the community, a lawyer turned youth worker and coach. It always seemed like he could take any bunch of kids – any gender, any age – and turn them into a team. Everything he did was about the kids in his community. When he was mentoring an especially gifted athlete, he’d figure out how to help her get the best opportunities. Once I got an email from him asking for donations to send a young girl to something that would advance her chances of playing college sports and I sent money. Of course I did, because he was that kind of guy. If he asked you, you said, “Sure.”

He was the caliber of man you wanted your own kids to know and look up to.

You must sense by now that he died this morning. He died of Covid-19. I don’t know any of the circumstances but it was probably the same heartrending way others have died of Covid-19. Alone.

It makes me sick. If this man was to die, he should have had rows of people at his bedside. Kids that he coached over the years that would come with their kids and their kids’ kids.

I had been feeling it in my bones for days. We were Facebook friends and he had gone dark on social media for several days. His wife mentioned that they were both sick with colds a few weeks ago and then a colleague let it out that he was in the hospital and, for days, I have been waiting, either to see his triumphant return home or to see the news I saw this morning.

The last time I saw him was a few years ago. I’d taken my granddaughter to a swim meet at the ancient city high school where my friend coached girls’ basketball – the Lady Rams. We got lost in the building, looking for the pool, one so old that it had ceramic tile on the pool walls, and we criss-crossed the basketball court, asking for directions and getting lost anew, time after time. Coach laughed and pointed to the right direction, his smile ever-present, along with his gentle chiding that I ought to be able to get myself to the pool after several tries.

I remember the high school girls on the team – the Lady Rams – listening to him. I remember his encouragement to them. I remember the bouncing of balls on the gym floor. I remember his smile and laugh, the kind of laugh of a guy who would never think anything in the world would be better to do than what he was doing right at that moment.

It’s a hard time in Milwaukee, my friends. A hard time everywhere.

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Photo by Abhishek Chandra on Unsplash