April 25, 2018

Saying Goodbye

Last week was a particularly hard one for a lot of people, myself included. Among all of the unusual stuff that got piled up on top of the usual stuff, there were a lot of deaths. A stepdaughter, an aunt, a grandson, a mother, and a friend all passed from this life to the next last week. I was affected by most of those through the simple fact that I am priest to the people most touched by death, those left behind. But one of them hit close to home.

Last week I was notified by some of my officiating colleagues in Oregon that one of our partners had died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack. The news was . . . surprising to say the least.

Officiating is an interesting hobby. It's one of the few avocations where you are expected to be perfect from the time you step onto the field or court and get better from there. It's the only job that I know of where people feel free to publicly berate you for every decision, tell you how awful you are, and scream out how anyone but you could do it better. It can be extremely stressful. Officials have been physically assaulted, some have even been killed.

But officiating is also a stress-reliever, in that game stress is totally different from job stress. It offers camaraderie like very few other things can. It can forge lifetime friendships. And it can provide stories. My friend Lou had stories.

Lou was one of the most irreverent officials I have ever come across. He never took himself or the game too seriously. No matter the game, sport, or level, he always had a good time. Despite his irreverence, he always protected the crew. And he could tell stories, because he had a way of falling into a good one.

Three of my favorites include: the time his crew had to cancel a baseball game because the home school used an inappropriate method of killing weeds and set the infield on fire; the time he spent a whole game glaring at me because I deemed the weather to be passable for short-sleeve shirts (it wasn't); and the time he saw a belligerent, loud-mouth, obnoxious fan working in a grocery store and came up behind him to berate him for stocking shelves improperly.

Yes, Lou was one of a kind. But then again, we all are. All of us have our quirks and skills. All of us have something that nobody else has. All of us have stories.

Share your stories. Have fun. But may this past week also remind you that all of us will, at one time or another, pass from this life to the next. And make sure you have things in order while you can so that the shock of your passing doesn't become a burden to those left behind.

Blessings