by Tim Mettey
“Nicholas, are you okay?” Coach Miller asked. I was sitting in the locker room after practice, staring at my old locker and thinking. I didn’t answer him, still suspended in deep thought, looking at my reflection in the Plexiglas.
“Son, are you okay?” he asked again, but this time more firmly.
“Oh yes, sir. I just have a lot on my mind. Sorry, but I better get going.” I tried to escape him, but he sat down next to me.
“So what’s troubling you?”
It would have been so nice to be able to tell him about everything, but I couldn’t. Like every other situation, I would have to lie to protect him. I was getting ready to tell him some story when he spoke.
“Nicholas, I would like to tell you something about myself, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Great. Another secret.
“When I was your age, I started dating a girl named Lillian Grace Gartner. She was my Lilly. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. It was love at first sight. We went steady most of my junior and senior years. You may have heard that I played football here at Winsor. I was offered several scholarships to play in college. Lilly planned on going to the same school as me, but her mom got sick, so she couldn’t go away to school. Lilly couldn’t leave her. I remember thinking to myself how amazing it was that she was willing to sacrifice going to school for her mother. So her act of sacrifice inspired me to do the same. I stayed home, forgoing college to be with her, which also allowed me to help take care of my father, who was getting older.
“Under the biggest oak tree in the center of our farm, I asked Lilly to marry me one year and two days after our graduation. It took me that long to save up enough money to buy a ring and put money down on a house. The ring wasn’t anything fancy, but Lilly loved it.
“Prior to our engagement, I joined the volunteer fire department. One of my friends, Brady Metzger from the football team, asked me to join because they needed help. It wasn’t like the fire department we have today here in Winsor. It was just a bunch of guys with one very basic water pump truck and that was it. It turned out that I was a pretty good fireman. My football talents turned out to be just what I needed to do my job well.
“On June 15, two weeks before we were planning to send out invitations to our wedding, Lilly went to our house around 11:00 a.m. to continue working on getting everything ready for us to move in. I was in the field with my dad when I heard the bell ringing to call the firemen to the station. The closer we got to the fire, the more I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach. The truck entered Lilly and my neighborhood and stopped outside of our house. It was fully engulfed in flames. I looked back and forth to find Lilly, but she was nowhere. The guys were trying to get as much water onto the house as they could. Without thinking, I ran straight for the front door, which was in flames, knocking it down with my axe. I screamed for her but there was no response. The house was filled with a dark, dense, black smoke. Right next to the back door, I found her with one hand on the door, lying on the ground covered in burning pieces of the house. I kicked the debris off her and scooped her up. I knocked down the back door and got her away from the house. I was immediately mobbed by people who tried to help me revive her. She didn’t respond. In her arms she was clutching a photo of our families that she had wanted to keep on our night stand.”
I was shocked that he had just shared this with me. He cleared his throat.
“The reason I’ve told you this is because I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. You saved all of those people while your parents died. I, too, have saved people both before and after she was gone, but I was not able to save the one who meant the most to me. But instead of living each day regretting that I wasn’t there in time, I live each day remembering who she was and what she meant to me. Every day I work hard to honor her memory. Nicholas, you and I are a lot alike, so please learn from this old man. I spent years trying to run from it all too. But don’t make the same mistakes, because all the running in the world can never get you far enough away or bring them back.”
He patted me on the shoulder and left.