Don Meredith

Sometimes you just don't know what to say. I can say that there are damn few games that I've ever watched that I didn't sing, "Turn out the lights, the party's over" during. Often prematurely, I wasn't near as good at it as Don was. But as I watched tonight's halftime tribute, and watched Frank Gifford verge on breaking down, and heard Boomer croak through his following voiceover, I too felt that choking in my throat. And for that moment, my plea to God was, "When does this end? When does the dying end?"

I am an adult, though; I know that answer without God responding. I've posted a lot of famous people dying this year. Sparky Anderson. Ernie Harwell. Jimmy Dean. Fess Parker. Tom Bosley. Edwin Newman. Phil Harris. Barbara Billingsley. And there were some closer to home as well, that by and large I've kept to myself. Some of them big parts of life; some of them just flickering images on TV. And some of them both. And I also know that there are more to come. And this is when I feel the saddest for people like my friend Joshua, because I do not know how a person goes on with life when death is the only thing you're sure to accomplish. If I could not turn to my Creator for hope, nothing in life would have meaning. But the sun also rises on all of us, and we all manage somehow to go on.

Still, sometimes it seems you spend half your life collecting the people and memories that keep you warm, and half of life losing them and watching that life get colder by degrees.

God rest you, Don. The party just begins.

3And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
4and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."
5And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new " And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." Rev.21:3-5