#9: Commitments, Decency, and Lies

Sorry the posting has been so light the last few days, I’ve just had a few things come up that were a little more important than blogging. Work has been rough and hasn’t allowed any time for me to even keep up with the news, much less to comment it. Besides the war has now entered a consolidation phase before the next big push. There’s no sense in rehashing the same “there was a firefight today” or “the Iraqi Army committed atrocities” stories. I’ll almost always be a day late and a dollar short for those.

But really, I’ve been much more concerned with something else these last couple of days.

One of my pet peeves is people deliberately breaking commitments without the decency to explain themselves. That, in my opinion, is one of the most foul and evil things a person can do to another human being. And when it is a commitment that was made at a funeral service - well then you deserve the worst someone can bring down on you.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine – and my sister’s best friend – made a horrible decision and paid for it with her life. She was 18, with her whole life in front of her, and after a night of drinking, she decided to drive to the beach. She didn’t make it.

This girl was like my “other” sister. Our families had been friends for nearly 15 years. I had coached her sister in softball and watched the two of them grow up along with my sister.

But that one morning in July, she was gone. I saw from the outside a small glimpse of the pain it caused her family; I felt up close the pain it caused my family. The devastation all around was incredible.

The young lady had been a star softball player at my high school alma mater. She had graduated two months before her death and was looking forward to going to a local community college. The night of the viewing, I was there as the high school softball coach brought in her jersey and proclaimed that no one would ever wear that number again for the high school softball team.

It was a very generous offering and the girl’s family accepted it. It seemed as though the coach truly felt compassion for the family. Everyone in attendance - myself included – took her commitment at face value.

The following softball season my sister and her sister discovered that there was a player wearing the “retired” number. Meetings and consultations ensued, with the coach saying basically that it was a mistake. And her commitment was taken at face value.

The next year, it was again discovered that the number was back on the field. Again, more discussions and explanations and apologies. And again, her commitment was taken at face value.

A few weeks ago the girl’s sister, who works with me, came in almost in tears because the number was on the field again – for the third year running. Her sister and my sister worked extremely hard to resolve this without involving her parents (she was afraid of the pain it would cause them). They offered to buy a new uniform to replace the one with the “retired” number. They were willing to accept a zero being appended to the number – anything but that single number.

It eventually filtered back that the coach was not going to honor her commitment, due to beliefs based on hearsay. The comments that she was making to everyone except the people involved were baseless and probably slanderous. If she had tried, she could not have come up with another lie that would cause as much pain as what she spoke. She attacked the memory of a dead girl with the most vile and repulsive BS I have ever heard. The girl’s sister is a very stoic person and what was being said reduced her to tears. And the coach was afraid to say it to anyone who really mattered – the family to whom she had made the casket-side commitment.

Yesterday was her mother’s birthday. They’re having the birthday party tonight. Today, we got a phone call from the school principal who promised to honor the commitment. The agreement was informally put in writing and the girls are going to getting together the money to make it happen. But most importantly they get to give her mother one of the most beautiful birthday presents, a defense of her daughters honor.

I’m very proud of what the two girls did (with some help from my mother). They faced down a despicable liar and they did with class and brutal effectiveness. They learned how to handle to absolute worst possible situation and to come away with what they wanted and their pride still intact.

I just wish they could have learned the value of principle and the importance of commitments an easier way.

I know they’ll both read this over the weekend. I was as offended as everyone else. I don't think I could have handled it as well as you two did. You know I could never say it in person, but I’m proud of both of you. And so is she.