The kid next to Benster

I have the picture in my hand -- a Little League team photo from 2008, really not that long ago. There are nine kids in the photo, enough to play a game. There are five kids in the front row and four in the back, flanked by the coaches. Benster is in the front row, the second kid shown. I'm standing in the back row, along with my friend, the head coach. I'm standing directly behind a different kid, who died on Friday.

I don't know the circumstances of his death, but I do know that, at the age of 18, his life ended way too soon. I remember the kid well -- he played infield for us, mostly second base and sometimes the outfield. He is a year younger than the Benster, a class younger. He would have been 11 years old then. Once we got past that year, we didn't see much of the the kid next to Benster; he was on a different team and played against us one year, and we greeted him then, but he wasn't a kid that was part of the Benster's social circle. The short obituary online says that he played football and lacrosse for his high school. He was a scrappy kid back then, on a team with a lot of scrappy kids. This team wasn't very good and lost most of its games, but it was a team that had a great run in the midyear tournament and won second place, defeating a team along the way that had earlier edged our squad 43-2. I still have the trophy from that tournament in my office, along with a baseball the kids all signed at the end of the season. They all signed balls for one another.

In a metropolitan area of 3 million people, it's a statistical certainty that some kids will die during the year. We live in a stable, relatively prosperous area, a place where kids have plenty of opportunities and generally get to adulthood without too much difficulty. The kid next to Benster made it to the age of 18. Technically, he made it to adulthood. I look at the picture in my hand, then look at the picture that accompanies the obituary. He was a handsome young man with his life in front of him. Or so one would think. I don't have a tidy summation or a moral lesson to share this morning. Some situations don't lend themselves to such things. I do know this -- it's a horrible thing to read an obituary for a kid you've coached.