A friend til the end
If you are reading this then you are alive. Sean Taylor can never be with us again, he died and was put in the ground in accordance with western tradition. While 'closure' is a convenient rhetorical device, moving on, going forward, getting over, there is a part of us that never moves on.
I can't swing a dead cat on teh internets without someone telling me that it is ok as a Redskins fan to mourn Sean like he was family because even though I will never feel his loss the way his fiancee, father, mother, siblings, extended family and closest friends will, human nature bonds us to those with common affiliation. There would be no such thing as TMZ or People magazine if the we did not feel that one way bond between us and the famous or notorious. Although they never reciprocate we still find something in common: compassion, pride, ability, attitude, ethic, appearance.
Just yesterday in the Washington Post I read about the murder of another young person, a 19 year old outside Springfield Mall. It is a tragedy and it is also tragic that the District's murder rate has exceeded last year's with a month to go in 2007. I can only feel generic loss and compassion for that family, and I am more sensitive to that loss in the context of the loss of Sean Taylor. That does not mean I am insensitive to the plight of unknowns, but rather more like the compassion I feel for my grandmother's nursing home roommate. I would not be sensitive to her plight without the circumstances of my grandmother.
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More media coverage of Sean's funeral:
Mike Wise at the Washington Post muses on the fact that we know more about Sean in death than in life, it just amplifies the tragedy.
Ryan O'Halloran, the Redskins beat writer at the Washington Times, notes that the ceremony featured both tributes to Sean's maturation and passionate railing against the gun culture of black on back violence.
Dan Daly, Washington Times columnist, has a particularly nihilistic view. He goes from two dead NFL players to Len Bias to Columbine to Virginia Tech, finishing up with:
it's hard to imagine his death having much of an impact on our violent, gun-toting society. That's just not the way these things work. What usually happens is this: An athlete dies, another athlete takes his place and the world keeps spinning. Madly.
Skin Patrol at Hogs Haven reminds readers that he is a football blogger, and football blogging is not that important in the grand scheme of things. It is an understandable sentiment, when I decided to create The Curly R I certainly had no expectations of this and as such I was a little unprepared.
A guest blogger at Redskins Insider thinks it is crass to attack the Redskins for the loss to the Bills, or the manner of the loss or the heart or lack thereof with which the Redskins played. I am not sure I agree, I have a reflexive resistance to 'now is not the time' exhortations, this is to be addressed when I get all the Sean Taylor out of me.
Anthony Brown at Hog Heaven has a piece on the funeral and the aftermath of Sean's legacy.
Master4Caster at Running Redskins, Sean Taylor: Requiem.
SportzAssassin at Redskins AOL Fanhouse says the Redskins organization represented respectfully. Noted without additional comment.
Michael David Smith also at Redskins AOL Fanhouse notes that there was loud applause on the 'the media should be ashamed' themes at the funeral. This will be a topic for later discussion on Curly R.
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The investigation into his death continues, that rumored fifth suspect is coming into play, a 16 year old that was driving the getaway car.
Clinton Portis leaving the podium at Sean Taylor's funeral: uncredited photo from here.
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