It has not been the best week to be a Bengals fan, the team lost a member of its family this week in Chris Henry to an accident during a domestic disturbance at the young age of 26, leaving a fiancee and three children behind. To say it’s tragic is an understatement, because it doesn’t hit at what’s really been lost here. Yes, those who are cynical can look up, and probably very rightfully say that with his past, his arrests, his maturity issues, that something like this was coming, even with him appearing to turn his life around and figure out how to deal with the fame and stress of being an NFL player. I prefer to look at it in another direction due to my own personal experience. What’s tragic is of course what was lost, a father, an immensely talented young man, but what’s most tragic to me is looking to see what COULD have been.
His death had led me to reflect quite a bit this week on my own losses in life, most notably that of my brother Jeff in 1997. Hard to believe it has been twelve and a half years since he’s been gone. If you don’t know the story, you can search the blog to read more (or keep reading for bits and pieces). There are a lot of very eerie correlations between my brother’s death and that of Chris Henry. Both were about the same age (Jeff was 27, Chris was 26), both had issues in their life and both at times appeared to finally be putting it all together to erase their past demons. Sadly, neither of them could, to some degree, those demons were their undoing.
I look at where I am now, nearly 30 years old (and yes, it’s scary to think I am now older than my brother ever was), married, with a baby boy, and then promptly look back to Jeff, and the saddest thought is to think about what could have been … the relationship we never fully had as big and little brother, any chance he had to put a life together greater than even his own, and what his mission in this world really could have been. I understand now that his missions in heaven where he is now are far greater than they ever could have been on Earth, that’s how I keep myself level thinking about the weird parallel of being an only child with a big brother (which is how it usually was), and seeing such a correlation in Chris Henry’s death brought so much of that back.
In the reactions of his teammates, Chad Ochocinco’s, Carson Palmer’s, you can see those same thoughts really abound, that of promise unfulfilled. I believe it to be true that many if not most people don’t ever fulfill the full promise of their lives, and that’s a more true metric of success than any single material thing or statistic, and as a Bengals fan, it makes me pull for the team even more now than I have before. I do believe their success this year as a 9-4 team in many ways resonates back to their heart and character, something that from a very superficial look through a sports window, I have often questioned. I won’t be doing that anymore. Chad was right on one thing, you can’t question what God’s plan for each person is, but it’s natural to, and sometimes it’s very unfair.
My prayers this weekend are with Chris’s entire family, with the Bengals organization, and with everyone in his life. I pray for them to play even more inspired football this week and for the rest of the year, not for my own selfish wishes as a fan, but as a tribute to the members of the Bengals family that aren’t here now. When Jeff passed away, I went and took a final exam at college the very next day, it was my escape, something to buffer myself from the sadness and grieving for a few minutes. I pray that the three hours the Bengals spend on the field in San Diego serves a similar outlet for the team, and that they rise up and play like they never have before.
It has not been the best week to be a Bengals fan, the team lost a member of its family this week in Chris Henry to an accident during a domestic disturbance at the young age of 26, leaving a fiancee and three children behind. To say it’s tragic is an understatement, because it doesn’t hit at what’s really been lost here. Yes, those who are cynical can look up, and probably very rightfully say that with his past, his arrests, his maturity issues, that something like this was coming, even with him appearing to turn his life around and figure out how to deal with the fame and stress of being an NFL player. I prefer to look at it in another direction due to my own personal experience. What’s tragic is of course what was lost, a father, an immensely talented young man, but what’s most tragic to me is looking to see what COULD have been.
His death had led me to reflect quite a bit this week on my own losses in life, most notably that of my brother Jeff in 1997. Hard to believe it has been twelve and a half years since he’s been gone. If you don’t know the story, you can search the blog to read more (or keep reading for bits and pieces). There are a lot of very eerie correlations between my brother’s death and that of Chris Henry. Both were about the same age (Jeff was 27, Chris was 26), both had issues in their life and both at times appeared to finally be putting it all together to erase their past demons. Sadly, neither of them could, to some degree, those demons were their undoing.
I look at where I am now, nearly 30 years old (and yes, it’s scary to think I am now older than my brother ever was), married, with a baby boy, and then promptly look back to Jeff, and the saddest thought is to think about what could have been … the relationship we never fully had as big and little brother, any chance he had to put a life together greater than even his own, and what his mission in this world really could have been. I understand now that his missions in heaven where he is now are far greater than they ever could have been on Earth, that’s how I keep myself level thinking about the weird parallel of being an only child with a big brother (which is how it usually was), and seeing such a correlation in Chris Henry’s death brought so much of that back.
In the reactions of his teammates, Chad Ochocinco’s, Carson Palmer’s, you can see those same thoughts really abound, that of promise unfulfilled. I believe it to be true that many if not most people don’t ever fulfill the full promise of their lives, and that’s a more true metric of success than any single material thing or statistic, and as a Bengals fan, it makes me pull for the team even more now than I have before. I do believe their success this year as a 9-4 team in many ways resonates back to their heart and character, something that from a very superficial look through a sports window, I have often questioned. I won’t be doing that anymore. Chad was right on one thing, you can’t question what God’s plan for each person is, but it’s natural to, and sometimes it’s very unfair.
My prayers this weekend are with Chris’s entire family, with the Bengals organization, and with everyone in his life. I pray for them to play even more inspired football this week and for the rest of the year, not for my own selfish wishes as a fan, but as a tribute to the members of the Bengals family that aren’t here now. When Jeff passed away, I went and took a final exam at college the very next day, it was my escape, something to buffer myself from the sadness and grieving for a few minutes. I pray that the three hours the Bengals spend on the field in San Diego serves a similar outlet for the team, and that they rise up and play like they never have before.
Chris Henry’s Story Of What Could Have Been
It has not been the best week to be a Bengals fan, the team lost a member of its family this week in Chris Henry to an accident during a domestic disturbance at the young age of 26, leaving a fiancee and three children behind. To say it’s tragic is an understatement, because it doesn’t hit at what’s really been lost here. Yes, those who are cynical can look up, and probably very rightfully say that with his past, his arrests, his maturity issues, that something like this was coming, even with him appearing to turn his life around and figure out how to deal with the fame and stress of being an NFL player. I prefer to look at it in another direction due to my own personal experience. What’s tragic is of course what was lost, a father, an immensely talented young man, but what’s most tragic to me is looking to see what COULD have been.
His death had led me to reflect quite a bit this week on my own losses in life, most notably that of my brother Jeff in 1997. Hard to believe it has been twelve and a half years since he’s been gone. If you don’t know the story, you can search the blog to read more (or keep reading for bits and pieces). There are a lot of very eerie correlations between my brother’s death and that of Chris Henry. Both were about the same age (Jeff was 27, Chris was 26), both had issues in their life and both at times appeared to finally be putting it all together to erase their past demons. Sadly, neither of them could, to some degree, those demons were their undoing.
I look at where I am now, nearly 30 years old (and yes, it’s scary to think I am now older than my brother ever was), married, with a baby boy, and then promptly look back to Jeff, and the saddest thought is to think about what could have been … the relationship we never fully had as big and little brother, any chance he had to put a life together greater than even his own, and what his mission in this world really could have been. I understand now that his missions in heaven where he is now are far greater than they ever could have been on Earth, that’s how I keep myself level thinking about the weird parallel of being an only child with a big brother (which is how it usually was), and seeing such a correlation in Chris Henry’s death brought so much of that back.
In the reactions of his teammates, Chad Ochocinco’s, Carson Palmer’s, you can see those same thoughts really abound, that of promise unfulfilled. I believe it to be true that many if not most people don’t ever fulfill the full promise of their lives, and that’s a more true metric of success than any single material thing or statistic, and as a Bengals fan, it makes me pull for the team even more now than I have before. I do believe their success this year as a 9-4 team in many ways resonates back to their heart and character, something that from a very superficial look through a sports window, I have often questioned. I won’t be doing that anymore. Chad was right on one thing, you can’t question what God’s plan for each person is, but it’s natural to, and sometimes it’s very unfair.
My prayers this weekend are with Chris’s entire family, with the Bengals organization, and with everyone in his life. I pray for them to play even more inspired football this week and for the rest of the year, not for my own selfish wishes as a fan, but as a tribute to the members of the Bengals family that aren’t here now. When Jeff passed away, I went and took a final exam at college the very next day, it was my escape, something to buffer myself from the sadness and grieving for a few minutes. I pray that the three hours the Bengals spend on the field in San Diego serves a similar outlet for the team, and that they rise up and play like they never have before.