As sports fans, there are times like those Lauren Holiday is going through now in which we need to look up into the wide world around us and say “This too”.
Gene Wilder’s death wasn’t quite the sort of celebrity death that transcends the present tense and becomes a “Where Were You When” moment, but it was the sort that forces the air out of your lungs, oxygenating those cobwebbed thoughts about art and mortality that you had shoved down years ago. Wilder was a luminary in every sense of the word, and his career took educated opinions about self-expression and success to task.
It was the kind of sudden passing that makes thoughts like this linger into a sleepless night:
More I grow old and see sadness meet art, more I can't stand that I spent today watching a DBacks game and thinking about the 02 Celts.
— Brendon Kleen (@BrendonKleen14) August 30, 2016
By dedicating so much of our lives to following the goings on of a franchise whose central money maker is an orange ball flying through a nylon web, we can lose sight of what makes the world truly go ‘round. It’s not basketball, or sports at all; art is what gives meaning to this grand experiment we all undertake. You’ll remember the first time you saw Willy Wonka on screen far longer than Steph Curry making a couple million threes over the life of his career. There really is something to that.
In a year full of death, it’s hard not to contextualize our own emotions about greatness based on those who have passed. The Greatest himself was an honest example of someone who surpassed athletic achievement by jumping out of the statistics books and onto the history pages. His death shined a light on several decades of reverence and graciousness, and memories of his Greatness brought people together far more than any of his fights ever could have. He floated atop discourse and logic- jabbing, jabbing, jabbing until the first thread of justice of frayed. The rest of his life was putting that thread between his thumb and forefinger and ripping expectations to shreds.
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One needn’t be in the public spotlight for their stories to inspire. After meeting Jrue in college at UCLA, Lauren Holiday impressed as a soccer player before retiring in her athletic prime to spend the time to build a family and support her husband’s career. About a year ago, that idea manifested itself in the form of the couple’s first child, when Lauren became pregnant. Now, news has broken that Jrue will make a sacrifice of his own, missing an indefinite portion of the early-season New Orleans Pelicans schedule to be with his wife as she recovers from surgery to remove a brain tumor. Lauren will have the child right as the season begins, follow that shortly with the surgery, and then take the time to heal with Jrue by her side.
Moments like this are vital because they give us a moment to breathe and recognize what is important here. It’s days like today where you settle the urge to analyze the basketball repercussions of an unexpected situation like Lauren Holiday’s and feel for a family in pain. Instead of spending your afternoon thinking about the ‘02 Celts or watching a replay of your favorite sports game, call your mom. Read your favorite poem. Find a short story you never knew existed. Rediscover Steinbeck. Eat some ice cream.
But please, oh please do not tell me what the projection for Tim Frazier’s RPM is based on the extended minutes he will play while Lauren Holiday gets better after brain surgery. Do not mention Jrue’s All-Star candidacy or contract possibilities. Understand that this narrow little world of professional athletics fails to fully encompass the full range of human existence nearly every single day, and that to find reality in all of it, you have to look, and you have to care.
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This situation is staring us right in the face, and we’ve got to get our priorities in line and give a damn.