Hi everyone. I normally post on the Child Loss forum, but thought I would share this with you all since it is about sibling loss. I was looking at the New York Times online this morning and ran across an article that caught my eye. It is about Jeff Garcia, a quarterback with the Philadelphia Eagles. It is a touching story, here are some excerpts:
"Garcia said he was 7 years old in the late 1970s when his 6-year-old brother, Jason, drowned during a family camping trip in northern California. When Jeff was 8, his 5-year-old sister, Kimberly, tumbled out of the bed of a truck and sustained fatal head injuries.
“I think I’m very conscientious of how precious life is and how quickly life can be taken away from you, especially at times when it can be least expected,” Garcia said Wednesday in a brief interview."
“I’ve never seen a quarterback as fired up as him,” tight end L. J. Smith said. “From high school on.”
Ultimately, it is an intensity forged, in part, from tragedy.
“I can’t feel the things he felt from those incidents,” Mornhinweg said of Garcia. “However, I do know that he’s very, very tough physically and very, very tough mentally. He’s been through a lot, both in his personal life and his football career. He’s had some ups and downs, and he’s come out the other end, and it may very well have made him stronger.”
Of course, there are still melancholy moments. Last month, Garcia became emotional as he described to Philadelphia reporters the close bond between him and his brother, Jason, telling how they did everything together — wrestled, played soccer, everything.
“I still think about if we all would have grown up together, that we all would have been in high school at the same time and it just would have been a fun life,” Garcia said at the time. “Who knows if I would be where I’m at today, but I would give this up for him to be here with me.”
If time and distance can never bring complete healing, they have brought context and perspective. A defeat to the Giants on Sunday would hurt, but losing a football game is not the end of the world, Garcia said Wednesday, no matter how devastating it can feel at the moment.
“If this is the worst that we’re going to experience in our lives, then we’re living pretty good lives,” he said.
- By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: January 5, 2007
if you'd like to read the whole story follow the link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/sports/football/05eagles.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=thHis story touched my heart today.
Karen
proud aunt of Christopher
Author