I'll preface this by saying I started writing this in a comment box in the Adenhart fanshot, but quickly got too involved to leave it at that.  Apologies to the folks who do not enjoy lengthier writings.  You've been warned.

Last evening, I was absorbing the magnificent Northwest sky and reflecting heavily on Adenhart's death, as well as the other young lives taken so quickly and unfairly in the accident yesterday morning.  The thin clouds veiling the setting sun cast a silver glow across the sky.  The image was stunning and I felt grateful to be witness to it.

There are days around here that many of us go for the throats.  At the end of last season, when the Sox blew that series in Minnesota and lost first place, this place was volatile.  Understandably. 

I haven't seen us get like that since then - and I certainly didn't think we'd be there three games into the season....but yesterday was a special circumstance.  It's obvious that when negative events occur, just like any group of people, we react and deal differently from one another.  Even if our emotions are relatively mutual, nerves are inevitably struck in different ways.

I came to a couple conclusions yesterday. 

First of all, like I told WU in an email last night, we must really love each other around here, because we fight like family when something sensitive arises.  We all seem to agree that this accident was horrible and unfair and devastating, yet we still spent the day bickering with one another. 

When you put everything into perspective - from Adenhart's death, to each of our personal lives outside of this virtual community and all the tragedy we each have seen in our own days - it seems silly to fight pettily on the same day that there is something so poignant and larger worth acknowledging.  (I was not exempt from the pettiness).

There is not one ideal suggestion for being at peace when something so devastating occurs, but there are lessons to be learned and perspectives to gain.  When young lives are undeservingly taken, it is our job as the privileged living, to improve or alter something within ourselves.  To be affected and inspired in some way makes their deaths less in vain.  I view it as a way of paying respect. 

I've spent many hours of my young life contemplating death from all angles.  Not morbidly (okay, sometimes morbidly) or in fear – but mostly with curiosity and wonder.

There is one singular (although science is trying to create more) way to enter this world, yet infinite ways in which you can be taken out of it.

A tree grows for a hundred years, and is chopped down in seconds.

A house or building is built by the hands of men over months or years, filled with events and memories…and then demolished with a little dynamite.   

Parents spend a lifetime raising children, protecting them, teaching them how to be independent, showing them how to love and find happiness and how to make goals and follow dreams; and all it takes is some irresponsible asshole to undo it, to take it all away in a flash.  All it takes is hitting your head in the wrong spot, or being stopped behind the wrong bus – basically just being in the wrong spot at the right time.*

It’s a lot of work to stay alive and see your days played out.  Even when you are doing everything in your power, looking both ways before crossing, taking a right turn out of your way instead of going left across four lanes of traffic, everything your parents taught you to be safe, you are still living very delicately in proximity to people who are not.  This fact of life will never be fair.

Days come and go so quickly that it is truly difficult for us to slow down enough to value each and every one.  But when something like this occurs, it seems to put my days in slow motion.  I was on edge more than usual driving home yesterday, every car too close for comfort.  I saw more beauty in the sky and acknowledged each new blossom on the trees. I closed my eyes and listened to the chorus of frogs in the ravine outside my house, whose din has come to symbolize Spring for me.  I filled with gratitude to be alive. 

Adenhart’s death, though obviously sad for anyone who hears of it, is almost certainly harder to stomach for baseball fans.  We all know what certain players mean to us, or even just the excitement of watching a prospect get to the big game.  We love the potential of players, even when they are merely in the minors; we anticipate their futures and how they’ll fill our evenings with delight or dismay, depending on the day. 

 What has given me the greatest solace over this occurrence, is the report about Adenhart’s dad flying in for the game on Wednesday.  Adenhart asked him to fly in for the game because he thought "something special was going to happen."

Something special did happen.  A promising young pitcher gave the performance of his lifetime.  His father was witness to his son’s biggest accomplishment – his lifelong goal coming to fruition.  I cannot imagine that there would be too many moments of Nick Adenhart’s life, in which he was more fulfilled and more proud, than Wednesday night.  And he got to do it in front of his dad, and even got a hug from him and looked into his eyes after the game, I would imagine.  What Adenhart sensed when he requested his dad's presence will never be known. But his dad was there to see his best and final hoorah and give his kid a prideful pat on the back.  That is heartbreakingly special...for both of them.

A person can’t really expect or ask for a better final day on this earth. 

Adenhart left the world undoubtedly too soon, but he had just lived, for all intents and purposes, his ultimate day.

That comforts me in a strange way.  Few of us will be so lucky to exit on such a high note.

One final thing that I took away from this, is how neat it was yesterday to visit Halos Heaven and skim through the hundreds of comments left for Adenhart.  Fans from all around baseball stopped by to pay respects and unify over the tragedy. 

Never before in my history, have I been able to actually see the weight of an event like this, directly from the words of so many people so far and wide.  We can always imagine the masses of people affected by tragic events, but to actually read people’s words and see their grieving before you, is quite different.  This silly blogging thing gave me and everyone else a chance to pay our respects, and read the condolences of virtual strangers all over the world.  Pretty amazing stuff.

So if nothing else, we can pay respect to Adenhart and the other people killed yesterday, by allowing ourselves to be filled with gratitude for all we each have; from the roof over our heads, to the friends and family walking beside us, to each day we get to be alive.  They are numbered for all of us, and destruction is swift and indiscriminate. 

For what it’s worth, I love you fellow meatheds and the community in which we dwell together.  Yeah, we’ve all got real lives and things more important than baseball (few as they may be ;)), but I wouldn’t hang out here so damn often if I didn’t feel enriched by a whole lot of you, and what you have to say.

On that note, let’s ruin the Twins this weekend.  It’s the first weekend of the baseball season and my spirit is renewed; even more so in the wake of this tragedy. 

*As my dearest hero, who passed last year and left me in a devastated stupor, once pointed out: the wrong place at the wrong time would make it the right place…because it’s not a wrong place without the right time to make it a wrong place.  ;)