Life As it Comes | Teen Ink

Life As it Comes

August 4, 2013
By atlittlejohn SILVER, Las Cruces, New Mexico
atlittlejohn SILVER, Las Cruces, New Mexico
7 articles 0 photos 5 comments

Favorite Quote:
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consist principally in dealing with men. -Joseph Conrad


I hate to think why, but here I am asking why.

Dear God, forgive me, you have the reasons that I can't seem to understand. But you know why. I can't wrap my feeble mind around the miracles and I can't see beyond what my sight allows, but I know. I know you know. I know what the Bible holds, I know.

But I can't stop from asking why, and yet that word feels sinful coming from my mouth because I don't need to ask why, I just need to accept. You just accept the faith because that's what religion does, it asks you to accept.

I had a question once about money and the quality of life, and if money had anything to do with it, and at first, I said well sure, but then I looked at it again. I thought about it before I formulated an answer. Money does what? It buys things, that's it. Now at this day and age, it makes babies, it heals people, it enhances business, it does things that we thought would be impossible. Money has become the paper devil. But yet with money, you can do whatever, buy anything, go anywhere, you can live with money. How happy are you?

I'd take life happy and poor doing what I love than rich desperate, and terribly living life.
Even in a happy life, you cry. You bawl like a baby. Tears fall down your face and you just cry.

Like a mom giving off her baby to play football. I know football, I lived almost seventeen years of football.Most of you...more.But I still know football. There's that risk that comes when you play football. You are the soldiers of your school. You're tough, strong, you are powerful,you are something to be admired. There is that risk. It's not like going into war, the police force, or even a fire academy, but it's still something. Soldiers, police officers, and fire fighters, they have that fear of never returning home, never seeing their family, never living life, they carry that fear. But a football player, they have the right to fear to.
You are afraid you may never get to play again. You fear you will sustain a game ending injury. You fear something will happen to your coach. And the biggest fear of all, you fear you will fear the game itself.

Fear the game itself...

So you look at me and say okay you're a high school girl proably doesn't know anything, have never gone through this, but listen again, yes I have.

In October of 2012 I prepared for game day like I have many times before. I geared up in my khaki's polo and nikes, it was game day. That's the way it was. A good friend of mine, *David, I always ask if he's okay becasue as a student athletic trainer that's what i'm supposed to do. I walk up an down the sidlines asking if everyone is okay, and this particular game, he looked at me and said, don't ask me if I'm okay today I am not coming off the field unless i'm on a stretcher. I said sure, I won't ask.

That was the stupidest decision I could have made. That game not once did I ask if he was okay. By the third quarter he was down on the sidelines. Now picture me in a boot suffering from a broken foot. I had thought it was his knee and maybe a ligament had given out, but then they yelled for a splint. I have never ran faster in a boot, but at that moment I felt no pain, no hurt, no nothing, I was just concerned because he was on the ground, helpless. He broke his femur, and though this is no where near a neck injury resulting in paralysis, I felt what you guys felt. I felt the sting in your throat the burn in your eyes, the sniffles in your nose, I felt it. I lived it, I know it.

But I am here to tell you this. It's not the end for him, it's not over. He's breathing, he's living. His quality of life is fine. He is alive. And yes this sucks, he will never play again but God only has three answers to prayer, yes, not yet, and I have something better in mind. If you don't believe or you believe in something different that's fine, but listen to this. He needs you guys. He needs your prayers, your love, your fight, he needs everything you guys can give him. You DO NOT have to be tough every minute of every day, you have a right to cry. But you must be there for him. Be his something, be his rock, be there.

Take a lesson from his injury, life is unpreditable, yes this is in its cliche state, but it's true. Think about what you are doing now, if you ceased to exist tomorrow wo
uld your family be poud of you? If you could look back at your life would you be proud of you? Let this change you for the better. Let this make you a better person. Let this be that something motivatinal. You will be scared at times, you will be sad at times, you may not wanna play sometimes, but it's going to be okay in the end. Keep moving forward, keep living, keep smiling, and never stop playing. Because you are somebody, you are phenomenal, you are a student of this world, learn from what this world gives you regardless if it's good or bad. Take it,learn from it, and apply it.


The author's comments:
Some people liked my honesty in my Senior Year piece, here's another, this is a speech I gave to college football players after one of their own was severely injured during the game.

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