In the last few days, I’ve been pretty deep in my old “sports journalist” mode. I’ve had ideas on posts I wanted to write and had even started one about why the team culture at Georgia was so important to the team’s success. I wanted to write something about Stetson Bennett and his legacy and journey. I wanted to write about the incredible joy of seeing my beloved University win consecutive championships in our primary sport.
But today? I can’t bring myself to care about those things. I just can’t.
When I saw the news this morning, my heart sank. More than that, though, my mind raced with a certain fear. See, it would be disingenuous to say that I was friends with Chandler, but I did know her. When I heard that a recruiting staffer had died, my sudden fear was that it would be one of the young ladies I’ve come to know through work over the last year or so. As it turns out, it was.
I will admit that I’m usually the first person to get annoyed when people try to make celebrity deaths or “public tragedies” like this about themselves, but I think I understand it now. We all know the grief of losing a loved one. The pang of heartbreak that we can’t describe. And we all know the mortal awareness that comes from being tangential to death in the world. But then there’s that other feeling. That hard to place loss of knowing someone close to you in another way, someone connected to you somehow, has passed. There can be a strange guilt in grieving because “you’re not family.” It feels like you don’t deserve to mourn this person. But you feel something, and you have to get it out.
Today, I’ve hugged people who were close to the deceased. I’ve promised people my prayers. I have tried to be a Gospel light to the hurting however I could. But it still hurts. It’s still hard. I know I’m not family. I know that some tenuous connection of “Bulldog pride” isn’t the same as losing a child. But I get it. There is a connection that has been severed, and that unique pain is difficult to shirk off.
So we talk.
I am writing this message right now from the Gillis Bridge outside Sanford Stadium. There have been several times in my life where I have felt the need to drive to church and pray, just sitting in my car in the parking lot. But I was in a holy place, and it felt right.
This is the first time in my life I’ve ever felt the need to be sitting outside Sanford Stadium to pray, but I can tell you that it felt right. I believe that God hears our prayers anywhere, but sometimes where we pray is more for us. And that severed connection existed because of this place, this stadium. So as I prayed for the families who lost a son, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a friend. As I prayed for those who will seek to mourn with their loved ones, I knew this was where I needed to come.
I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.