The Final Lap
I will rethink this 20 or 30 minutes in my life for such a long time. Trying to analyze, trying to understand it. To watch the life drain out of a body that was moments before running at a speed I can hardly fathom to do on a bicycle. I have not seemed to process the whole event as a sequential series of minutes, of activities, but rather instead I am focused on certain segments with a cl
arity that feels as if I have been transported back in time. Back to standing on the track … watching the final moment of Steve Larson, a super hero athlete in my already overly athletic community. (Super hero means your sports resume includes a list of sponsors who provide regular paychecks and you have won enough trophies to sink a battleship.)
The play by play analysis is rather simple: I was running on a track, Steve was a little ahead of me. (Ok, I was on my first lap and he was on his second lap of a workout.) I watched him go down ….I knew it was serious from the very start of it and I immediately started to yell and scream for help. There were lots of us on the track so we had an incredible team organized within seconds. We did everything we could to keep him going until the ambulance took him away. In the end, he didn’t make it. And in the end, I don’t think it mattered what support we could have, should have, would have had done. He died. 39 years old. Five kids and a wife. And a business that depends on him to survive.
But this story is not really about Steve, nor is it about the specifics of the rescue which the entire running group witnessed in great horror. Nor is it about the odd slow motion feeling to the entire event, listening to fire sirens off in the distance and thinking it would take forever to arrive.
This story is about his watch …
The ambulance had just left and we had been left with the
impression that they found a faint rhythm in his heart. That alone was a miracle given the number of people who frantically worked on his lifeless body that was turning unique colors of blue, white, maybe yellow. None of it had looked remotely hopeful. So it was right after the ambulance took off that one of the remaining medics walked up to the group of 30 or so shocked runners standing on the track and asked us if one of us would take his watch. I remember the very first thought was to see if it was still running but honestly I was terrified to touch it. There was something so personal about his watch and so wrong about it not being kept on his arm.
I am sure his watch meant everything to him. A guy like Steve spends his life focused on the exact mechanics of how to do everything in less time. Seconds are the difference between first and a place that
nobody cares about; including the long list of watch vendors who I am sure paid dearly to make sure he wore their watch. After all, if Steve crossed a finish line wearing their expensive sporty watch, then he became an advertiser’s dream. Dollars would flow into the company as idiots like me dashed out to buy the exact same watch, all on hopes that we would become a little more like Steve. A little leaner, younger, cooler, and absolutely faster.
As the medic leaned forward to see who wanted to take the watch, I found myself for the first time in the whole nightmare stepping back and trying to hide within the crowd. I could simply not imagine locating Steve’s house, seeing the small five children running around the front yard, and knocking on the front door so I could hand back the watch. I was so thankful when someone else stepped up.
So let me send this message out to Steve Larsen tonight … while I know your time is over here in Bend as we knew you, may it continue to speeding along in another dimension. And to those of us left behind in this desperate attempt to understand your departure, might we stop to realize that while we want to believe that we can live forever, eventually our own watch will stop, regardless of which one we were wearing. Even if we were wearing the exact model that promised to make us leaner, younger, cooler and absolutely faster. We too might not reach the final lap.
I can only hope that one of Steve’s five children wears this watch proudly.
arity that feels as if I have been transported back in time. Back to standing on the track … watching the final moment of Steve Larson, a super hero athlete in my already overly athletic community. (Super hero means your sports resume includes a list of sponsors who provide regular paychecks and you have won enough trophies to sink a battleship.)The play by play analysis is rather simple: I was running on a track, Steve was a little ahead of me. (Ok, I was on my first lap and he was on his second lap of a workout.) I watched him go down ….I knew it was serious from the very start of it and I immediately started to yell and scream for help. There were lots of us on the track so we had an incredible team organized within seconds. We did everything we could to keep him going until the ambulance took him away. In the end, he didn’t make it. And in the end, I don’t think it mattered what support we could have, should have, would have had done. He died. 39 years old. Five kids and a wife. And a business that depends on him to survive.
But this story is not really about Steve, nor is it about the specifics of the rescue which the entire running group witnessed in great horror. Nor is it about the odd slow motion feeling to the entire event, listening to fire sirens off in the distance and thinking it would take forever to arrive.
This story is about his watch …
The ambulance had just left and we had been left with the
impression that they found a faint rhythm in his heart. That alone was a miracle given the number of people who frantically worked on his lifeless body that was turning unique colors of blue, white, maybe yellow. None of it had looked remotely hopeful. So it was right after the ambulance took off that one of the remaining medics walked up to the group of 30 or so shocked runners standing on the track and asked us if one of us would take his watch. I remember the very first thought was to see if it was still running but honestly I was terrified to touch it. There was something so personal about his watch and so wrong about it not being kept on his arm.I am sure his watch meant everything to him. A guy like Steve spends his life focused on the exact mechanics of how to do everything in less time. Seconds are the difference between first and a place that
nobody cares about; including the long list of watch vendors who I am sure paid dearly to make sure he wore their watch. After all, if Steve crossed a finish line wearing their expensive sporty watch, then he became an advertiser’s dream. Dollars would flow into the company as idiots like me dashed out to buy the exact same watch, all on hopes that we would become a little more like Steve. A little leaner, younger, cooler, and absolutely faster.As the medic leaned forward to see who wanted to take the watch, I found myself for the first time in the whole nightmare stepping back and trying to hide within the crowd. I could simply not imagine locating Steve’s house, seeing the small five children running around the front yard, and knocking on the front door so I could hand back the watch. I was so thankful when someone else stepped up.
So let me send this message out to Steve Larsen tonight … while I know your time is over here in Bend as we knew you, may it continue to speeding along in another dimension. And to those of us left behind in this desperate attempt to understand your departure, might we stop to realize that while we want to believe that we can live forever, eventually our own watch will stop, regardless of which one we were wearing. Even if we were wearing the exact model that promised to make us leaner, younger, cooler and absolutely faster. We too might not reach the final lap.
I can only hope that one of Steve’s five children wears this watch proudly.
