In my last post about Loyalty, I professed my enduring love for a team that has fallen on hard times. I wrote this post sitting in my living room with the TV on, keeping one eye on the slosh-fest that served as this week’s installment of Monday Night Football, and one eye on my laptop screen as I typed away. Just as I finished up explaining that my loyalty to the Skins reflects my loyalties to the other things I love in life, I caught wind of the shooting-injury to Washington Redskins’ star free safety, Sean Taylor. I focused in on the word “critical,” to describe Sean’s then-current condition, and I instantly knew the situation was grave.

I stayed up a little bit after the game to hopefully catch some encouraging developing news, but eventually went to bed worried, like many Redskins fans.

It’s difficult to discuss losing people, especially people like Sean Taylor, whom I obviously didn’t personally know. And it’s even more difficult to explain the magnitude of the loss I felt when I awoke the next morning to learn that Sean had indeed passed on. Frankly I felt strange, caring so much about a young man I never met. Was this my Monkey, seeking drama in my life to cling to, or was this sinking feeling I had in the bottom of my gut a genuine sense of loss?

Perhaps what best defines the feeling of loss we have for people who have passed on is the very “senselessness” of it, the rollercoaster of emotions, the subtle moist teariness swelling within us, the earnestness in which we wish to express our loss, and our yearning to reach out to others and hold on to those we love.

In a way I guess you could say I loved Sean Taylor. I loved his fury, his aggressiveness, his reckless abandon, his zest for life that he embodied on the playing field. Those are qualities I wish I could express in my own life to the degree that Sean so effortlessly expressed on the fields of friendly strife. And I say that fully knowing the dualistic nature of aggression, violence, and fury, along with the double-edge aspect of living by the sword, so to speak.

When my wife came down and noticed tears in my eyes I told her about his death and then, in the only way I knew how, I sought to describe to her what kind of player Sean Taylor was. So I logged onto YouTube to show her a video collection of Sean’s ridiculously punishing hits, acrobatic interceptions, and amazingly defensed passes. Even my wife, who seriously loathes football, couldn’t help but notice the boundless energy and joy with which he played the game. His playing style was a thing of furious beauty that will be sorely missed.

I’ve been hearing a lot of commentators and callers to the various radio sports shows continue to mention Sean’s past tragressions and trouble with the law, intimating that one can’t escape one’s past. And let me tell you, my Monkey is fully on board with this line of thinking, in which we’ve been hearing words like “gangster,” and “thug,” thrown around in regards to Sean Taylor.

Some have even called for us to hold back on our grief a little bit until all the facts come in about this case, because who knows, maybe this was payback for something Sean had done to someone else. Maybe he got what he had coming to him! Yeah!

I feel that this disrespects a simple fact. Another young man has lost his life. More specifically, another young black man has lost his life, with homicide being the leading cause of death for black men aged 15-24. And your take on Sean Taylor’s murder and his troubled past all boils down to whether you subscribe to the “Society of Death,” which I briefly touched upon in my previous post, Making Mike Vick Wrong, or Why I’m a Vegetarian, or if you subscribe to the “Society of Life,” in which every death is a tragedy, a failure of us, we imperfect humans, to sustain our greatest gift.

I heard another yahoo wonder why we have to hear so much about Sean Taylor when two soldiers died in Iraq the same day? The Monkey in my Mind wants to create a hierarchy of grief, as if one life is worth more than another, or that the reasons why the person died indicates the level of grief that people are supposed to feel. The reality is that all three of these deaths are tragedies, it’s just that Sean was a star player on a famous sports franchise and it’s only natural for communities to discuss the passing of a public figure. And I don’t even want to imagine what the airwaves would look like, if god forbid, some famous squeaky-clean white NFL player were murdered. I can assure you that that hypothetical tragedy would be receiving enormous airtime and would be on the lips and thoughts of nearly every American.

And finally, there has been talk about rescheduling the Redskins upcoming game against the Buffalo Bills, as this has clearly been an enormous distraction for the team. It’s difficult for us spectators of the sport to conceive of how his teammates, the coaching staff, and the entire organization can even begin to focus on the X’s and O’s of an upcoming ball game, when one of their brothers has fallen. Co-workers dying is not an everyday occurence (except of course, in the current military, which is another conversation entirely). Can you imagine preparing for the big sales conference when the head of sales department was murdered five days prior to the presentation? From a perspective of sheer practicality it would be difficult and heart-wrenching, to say the least.

Another idiot on a radio call-in show said the NFL would be dealing with a publicity nightmare if they rescheduled the game and then later found out that Sean Taylor was somehow responsible for his own murder, or the tragedy of his death was nullified by some sort of justified retribution.

This really upset me when I heard it. But it was the Monkey making me angry. I must admit, the Monkey is a wiley one, suddenly flipping sides on me, making me feel that not only was this guy wrong (and racist), but that the NFL should definitely postpone the game, out of respect for the people dealing with this loss. I stewed and brewed on this and allowed some time to pass, before finally stumbling on a realization. There’s a simple answer to this question, contained in another question:

What would Sean want?

Now I don’t know the guy, but I’ve seen him play, and you can tell a lot about someone’s character when you see them perform in high-pressure situations. And I can tell you with total certainty that Sean would say, “Play on, boys. Play on.”

And he might add something else:

“Don’t do it for me. Do it like I would do it, but don’t do it for me. Do it for yourselves, for your team, and for all those fans whose hearts swell with pride when the Burgundy and Gold take the field.”

Rest in peace, brother.

I moved up to New England in January of 2007, after living in New York City for about six years, and let me tell you, the Monkey in My Mind wants me to jump up on on the bandwagon that is New England sports in 2007. What a time to move here if you’re into the game: the Patriots are currently undefeated, the Red Sox seem to have put the curse behind them for good, the Celtics own the best record in the NBA, and Boston College is in the mix over at the BCS, ranked 11th in the nation.

Like the Monkey, my wife, who was raised in the Boston area, often wonders why I don’t just adopt the Boston teams and abandon the frustrating lot in life that is being a fan of a losing ball club. I mentioned I moved here from New York, but prior to that I was an army officer stationed in Vicenza, Italy, and before that, an Army brat growing up all over the map.

And yet, during those globetrotting years, I forged a connection with a professional sports franchise that endures until this day.

And it all began with a lunchbox.

Burgundy in color, trimmed with gold and white piping, and emblazoned with a logo depicting the mug of a stern-looking Native American. I’m talking about the Washington Redskins and I carried that lunchbox every day to school during the late 70’s, defiantly enduring the ridicule of my school chums, who were all aboard the crowded Dallas and Pittsburgh bandwagons and couldn’t understand my steadfast loyalty to a team that wasn’t a contender.

Later, when my dad was reassigned to the Pentagon, I got to marry my love for the Skins with bonafide success on the field, as they won their first Superbowl during our first year in the DC area. If I had any doubts about my loyalty to the Skins during the lean years, the deal was definitely sealed when my brother and I took the day off school to attend the Redskins Victory Parade in Washington, DC.

Nearly a quarter century later, I am still that little boy who marveled at The Riggo shaking off a Miami defender enroute to the go-ahead touchdown in Superbowl XVII, even when the local boys are killing my team, like the Patriots did 52-7 back in Week 8.

Recently the Monkey has insisted that I flirt with the possibility of dropping my beloved Redskins, squawking, “What have they done for you lately? Look at the handsome Tom Brady, the evil-genius coach, and the long-armed Randy Moss. Wouldn’t you rather cheer for a winner? Your Sundays will be yours again!”

No kidding, my wife literally rolled over the in the middle of the night last night, knowing the Monkey was playing reruns of the Redskins latest heartbreaker, mumbling, “You really should at least think about becoming a Patriots fan,” before trotting down the hallway to retrieve our crying one-year old.

I awoke this morning and told my wife (and the Monkey) that my loyalty to theRedskins reflects my loyalties in my personal life. My loyalty to my beloved. My loyalty to my daughter. My loyalty to my values.

My relationship to the team that I love is a lot like my relationship to people whom I love. I might get frustrated. I might get angry. They might let me down and I might do the same. But I’ll always be there. Sometimes defiantly, sometimes petulantly, sometimes suspiciously, sometimes reluctantly, I’ll be there. With my burgundy ball cap.