The Portland Trail Blazers Show Compassion For A Young Dying Fan

Today didn't really start out very well for me. I was exhausted, hadn't been feeling very well, and to make matters worse I was awakened by my sister wanting to know about using my car.

I tried going back to sleep, but it was too late. I was up, so I went downstairs to read the sports section of The Oregonian. I rarely pay attention to the sports commentary by John Canzano, but today I saw the photo and immediately recognized the person in the photo. 

The story is also online, titled "Night Comes For a Brave, Young Life." There's a precursor to the commentary that came out on Dec. 25, 2008, titled "One Holiday Wish: A Last Game to Cheer." 

Anyway, onto the first point, which is the recognition of the young woman in the photo. It was someone that I went to school with. She was a grade below me and it's not like I was friends with her. We may have had one or two classes together and that's it, but for some reason the story hit me like a load of bricks. 

It definitely changed my perspective on Saturday's game between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Golden State Warriors at the Rose Garden Arena. Instead of being disappointed that the Warriors lost to the Blazers, I'm actually happy the Blazers won this game. 

Why? Well, the person I went to school with died at the young age of 24 from melanoma, and what she went through over the past two years is unbelievable. During her two-year battle with the disease, she had surgeries to remove lymph nodes from her groin, had a piece of her intestines removed, and tumors carved out of her body. 

After the game on Saturday night, coach Nate McMillan didn't even bother to talk about the game itself. Instead, he's quoted as saying, "She knew this was coming, but she's not doing well and we just want to say that we are thinking about her tonight." 

Even before she got the best Christmas present ever, she first got to sit courtside. Next, she got to go into the referees' dressing room, where they gave her a whistle. Lastly, after the game, she got to go into the locker room and meet with Blazers players and team executives.

As mentioned earlier, reading about what happened to a former classmate really hit me hard. Maybe it's the fact that just over a year ago my grandma died, and eight months ago my other grandma died. It was just something that affected me. 

With the Blazers organization and what they did to give a dying young woman a last chance at joy will make me a Blazer fan for the rest of my life. Not that I'm going to turn on my Warriors, but there's something that can be said for an organization that would spend the time to do what they did.

It stated in the article that throughout Saturday night's game, team officials even bothered to keep tabs on how she was doing. 

I think what can be taken from this is that you never know when your time is going to come, that you can't really take life for granted. And even though I'm not a huge country music fan, maybe take the advice of Tim McGraw from his song "Live Like You Were Dying."

I believe too many people, including me, think that life is a long process and that things we want to be abe to do will happen in time. Yet, you never know when something could drastically change your plans and cause you to miss the chance to do what you've always dreamed of.

It also shows that sports have a therapeutic ability to them. In this case it helped a young woman be able to see her favorite team one last time, meet the officials for that game, and even more importantly got to meet the team.

 It also reminded me of an article I read earlier on Bleacherreport titled A Grandson's Reflection.  It was written by Jonny Solovy. 

The other therapeutic quality that sports have is that it takes you away from reality for at least a few hours. If you're at home watching your favorite team you can scream at the tv, computer, or radio if you don't have tv, you can cheer for the good plays made and boo at the horrible plays made, you can punch your pillow, etc....

After the game ends though it brings you back to what has happened, but at least for those few hours there's an escape. You can show your true emotions and not take it out on anyone you love. 

To my last point and that is if you want to do something don't be scared to do it because in reality life is short. Don't put things off to the last minute go do it now. Too many people take life for granted including me, but hopefully after reading those two commentaries you'll be able to go and do it.