i don't know when was bob's last sunday playing basketball up at the local middle school. i know i had not seen him in what had to be six or eight weeks. i have been playing basketball up at this school with a group of probably 30 regulars of whom about half show up on any given sunday for several years. the age range is about 25-55 and i can think of at least one player on the outside of both those numbers.
so on sunday i was late getting to the court because i got in that trap of thinking maybe this is the time roddick beats federer. when i arrived i warmed up on an adjacent court to where a group was playing three on three. when they finished and adjourned to a patch of shade astride the court, i moved to the main court to continue my pre-game shooting regimen.
as the players trickled back to begin anew, bob started walking away towards his car. "damn," i thought. i miss bob and have not seen him in a while. at the risk of sounding trite, bob was the nicest guy of all the regulars. he was affable, amiable, and easy to get along with though not necessarily easy to know. he mixed his basketball with a light-hearted banter of regular conversation and guy jokes.
bob must have been 6'4" so he was never missed. in my mind he was wearing alight blue t-shirt when he walked away though i do not even know if that is true. maybe i am just painting him in the color of sky because he was a soft touch amidst a bunch of creatures who fart and talk about it and make 10.3 gay jokes per hour and occasionally make a crass reference to some aspect of women's anatomy. (yes, i am guilty of this juvenile behavior, too.)
bob was as cool as light blue though. he came out and typically stayed to the end. he played hard and had fun at the same time. he had guys up to his house in the hills to play poker and attended when it was at someone else's house as well.
so when he reached half court of the other court between the court we played on and the gate out of the playground, i yelled out, "see ya bob!" bob pushed his hand into the sky and yelled back, "see ya," without turning for a peak. i came to discover bob had just told someone in the shade that he was feeling kind of sluggish, as explanation for his premature departure.
the next morning i got to work at 7am and got a phone call from one of my buddies who said bob had passed away after leaving the hoops action on sunday.
"what?" "do you mean he is in a coma?"
no. he's dead.
what?!
bob had gone home and began vomiting, my friend revealed. he had taken a cold shower and vomited some more then told his wife they should go to the hospital. on the way to the hospital bob had stopped breathing.
i later found out they had worked on bob in the emergency room for about 45 minutes. i still have no idea what the killer was.
my friend asked me to call another friend, which i did.
"what?! "are you serious?! "from what," my friend barked in a mix of anger and disbelief? "bob died," he said to his wife. bob's son had just finished the fifth grade, where my friend was his teacher all year and his wife had a group of his peers in the next classroom.
at the end of the day's hoops on sunday, there had been a schism. one group of guys agreed to come out and play on wednesday evening. another guy who could not play on wednesday lobbied for tuesday and seemed to generate some interest. as word went around about bob's demise many of the regular sunday morning hoopsters agreed to show up on tuesday night to play some ball and honor bob.
i think i counted 13 guys who showed up that evening. two guys came in street clothes who could not play but wanted to be there. this group usually just plays basketball and that is it. when the games are over they go their separate ways, back to their families and their jobs. on tuesday night they brought beer. when darkness fell they stayed and cracked open the cold ones. they conjured bob in all his incarnations. they wondered aloud about the future for his family. they invented possibilities for what had smitten bob.
after dark in the deep blues of night these weekend basketball warriors put the jokes and machismo aside. they discussed ideas, from the meaning of life and the meaning of mortality to how the fathers among us just have to, at all costs, work to be active, involved and memorable in the lives of our children.
at 45 and leaving behind his wife, high-school aged daughter and sixth grade son, (among others i am sure,) bob went to his reward way too soon. it is heartbreaking that this tragedy has occurred. it is heartbreaking in our basketball community and to others every day, everywhere, who endure. it is the melancholy of life. it is the south pole of emotion and that which every other feeling is measured and contrasted by. kahlil gibran said joy and pain were opposite sides of the same stone and we could only know the two in equal, (though opposite,) measures, even if we do tend to get them in disproportionate amounts. this is the pain.
bob's death will color our competitive basketball struggles evermore. our appreciation of being able to play with these guys, these salt granules of the earth, will be heightened by this depth we find ourselves mired in today. the amount of joy we gain from the camaraderie and the workout and the routine, the little lessons we learn from the winning and losing, the active friendships that will bloom into fullness, these things have new boundaries now. its like bob's final contribution to our sunday morning basketball ritual.
and this is where i do say something trite because i am a part of all i have known and i think when we break out the ball even this sunday, three hours before bob's memorial service, we'll honor bob by remembering him and by carrying a bit of him with us and by stretching tired limbs and pushing ourselves to play and compete.
rest in peace bob.
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