‘Life moves pretty fast’ and it’s getting faster

He was ten years older and stood a foot taller than me. We were both on the quiet side. He had two daughters that were around the age of my two oldest kids. When the kids were restless during church, he and I would both stand in the back entrance-way. We would rock our babies or hold their hand. We tried our best to keep them from crying and interrupting the rest of the congregation. We’d smile awkwardly and nod to each other. For him, that was saying a lot.

We were that way for a few years, waving to each other in passing.

Of course, over time, we went our separate ways. He had his life and I had mine.

I hadn’t seen or heard from him in a long time. And then a few weeks ago, I was shocked to see his obituary. He was just 66.

The obituary was standard. You’ve all seen them. It listed the normal things: family members and survivors, his education, and where to send memorial donations. The language in the obituary hit me. “In his free time he enjoyed woodworking, car repair, and traveling to Disney World and Italy.”

It brought the death home. It made it real.

Wow.

The hits keep coming

And then a few weeks later on March 13, I read that sports columnist and bestselling author John Feinstein had passed away at the age of 69. I grew up reading Feinstein. When I was a senior in high school, I would drive each Sunday to my public library to examine week old Sunday editions of the Washington Post to read his college basketball and football stories. He had to be the new guy on the staff, but he was one of the writers I loved reading the most because he was a story teller. No matter what story he covered, he always found a way to make me care. (The Washington Post ran a collection of his work.)

Feinstein wrote 48 books, 23 of which made the New York Times bestseller list. He was best known for writing “A Season on the Brink,” chronicling the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball season and coach Bobby Knight.

I fell in love with writing like this:

"The best thing that ever happened to me as a reporter was covering cops, covering courts and covering politics. When people say to me they want to be sportswriters, I tell them it’s fine, but cover other things. It broadens you as a reporter when you have knocked on the door of a family who has just had a child killed. It’s never hard to go into a losing locker room. It increases your understanding of how important it is to get all of the facts right.

When you’re talking about literal life-and-death situations as opposed to who got the second assist, you understand you damn well better not screw it up. You better not misquote anybody. You better not exaggerate anything. I was dealing with life-or-death situations and I was dealing with cops who didn’t mess around.

Do as many different things as you can along the way because you’ll be better and it will probably open more doors for you. I covered a murder case when I was at The Post about a black kid who killed two white cops. The emotion in that trial made any ballgame you’ve ever wanted to see look like nothing. It not only taught me that you better get every detail right every day, but it also taught me about getting sources so you can be ahead of the curve."

Why so unsettling

I’ve been thinking about why the two deaths have been so unsettling to me. The comedian Bill Burr has a line that I think describes the surprise of death. In his Hulu comedy special, “Drop Dead Years,” he goes, “I’m of that age, you know, it’s starting to happen. I’m fifty-six, this is too young to die of natural causes, but it’s not too young to drop dead, right. As a man, I’m in my drop dead years, which are basically ages 49 to about 61.”

Like Burr, I’m unsettled by the out-of-the-blue obituaries. I’m in the age range that he mentions. When I see an unexpected obit, it throws me off my game. For example, I saw last week that a former coworker had recently passed away. The guy was in his late 50s. I never worked with him directly — we were like ships passing in the night — but I knew him.

He was a health nut and was getting ready to retire. He gave me some great running advice years ago when I was preparing for the Marine Marathon in Washington D.C. He helped me build out my running schedule, shoes, and race day plan of attack. He knew his stuff.

He took care of himself and now he’s dead. Meanwhile, I’m shaking my head: How’d that happen?

No answers!

I’d love to know why some people live to their 90s and others dies in their mid-50s. Why does a tornado touch down in one development, but not another? Why does a woman walk away from a crash unscathed and the passengers in another car need to be flown to a trauma hospital?

I don’t know the answers. I suspect we will never know them.

Of course, this leads me to another comedic line. This one from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I can’t help but think of Matthew Broderick looking into the camera and saying: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Yes, life moves fast and I’ve written variations of this “surprise obituary” post over the years. In the end, I come back to the same conclusion. Live our lives to the fullest and let things fall where they may.