It's the Consequences That Get You

Transcript:? Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting, Coral Shores High School, September 16, 2024, 6:00pm. Joy Webb Smith

It’s 21-21, 4th quarter, 3:51 left to play in an intense football game between interstate college rivals Miami vs FSU.? Miami quarterback back to pass, looks downfield and sends the football across 30 yards to his wide receiver who has jetted to the 8 yard line.? As a Seminole corner and the Hurricane wide receiver spring into the air the official nearby throws a yellow flag.? The crowd holds its collective breath.? Pass interference, #26 defense, 15 yards.? First down Miami.? The next play, Miami scores when their running back drives past the defensive line into the end zone.? Crowd goes wild.? That’s what happens, what doesn’t happen is a ref doesn’t throw his flag, and then once he determines the defense player is #26, he doesn’t say: ? “Inadvertent flag, I didn’t realize he was #26, no penalty.? Repeat 2nd down.”

Why not? ? It’s simple. ? We all know why not.?

In football rules don’t just apply to specific players on just one team or the other, the rules apply equally to both.? A rule, by definition, is the same - for both teams.

Consequences?? Now, that’s where things get blurry.? Although the rules are the same, officials aren’t infallible.? An official can’t see everywhere at once.? Officials miss things.? Of course, refs also have varying styles and opinions. Some refs may feel differently about a very physical game of basketball in the key, where others let you get away with the elbows to the jaw for a rebound.? Targeting to one football ref is just great defense to another, ask A.J. Pettiti.

Why am I up here talking about consequences?? Why did I wear shorts, for the first time to the field, today of all days when I’m going to be speaking to a group of athletes?? Why does my right leg look like a horror movie???

I’m going to get to that in a second.???

???

First, though, I know you guys.? I love you guys.? I know it’s a privilege to share the field with you every Friday night either here or at our away games.? I’m not one of your teachers.? I don’t work for the school district. I’ve never made even one dime during my six or seven years now of doing this because I volunteer.? I don’t charge your parents for any of the photos in the galleries because I think it’s important that you have them.? That all of you can have them, not just kids who can afford it.? And, that’s one of the greatest decisions I made because you know what happened as a result of me being a volunteer, and not your teacher and not someone that you think is just making money here, somehow I was afforded the privilege of being different.? We’ve developed these relationships, me and you, where I’m your cross generational friend. ? And, man, do I love it.? I really do. And, today, that’s why I’m here to speak with you. I know a lot about you guys, and maybe for my story to mean something to you it may help if you know a little more about me.

I’ll share my highlight reel, quickly.????

When I was 8 years old my family moved to the Keys from Ft. Lauderdale.? I started 4th grade at Island Christian School which is where I met Mr. Hammon.? I graduated from ICS in 1986.? Like several of you, while I was there, I lettered in 3 Varsity sports, volleyball, basketball and softball.? Unlike you, though, I went to a small school where if you were tall, willing, showed any spark of potential athletic ability, if you could even spell “sports”, a Varsity coach would pluck you out of your 7th grade PE class and put you in a Varsity practice.? Because of my height and, even though I may have been the slowest first baseman to ever graduate from ICS, I started on our Varsity teams for 6 seasons (from 7th - 12th grades).? I was a cheerleader for all of those years, captain most of them.? I was the senior class President; I was Valedictorian.? I had a great SAT score.? All this led to an academic scholarship with the University of Miami, where Coach Herbert James and I attended college together.? While he won three NCAA football championship rings, I discovered what it felt like to be a screaming college co-ed in the student section convinced our fervor mattered.? I learned to put my four fingers up at the beginning of every 4th quarter, which we owned by the way, while forgetting what it felt like to lose a football game - ever. Because of Coach James and his friends, I love football.? I hate losing football games.?

I’m spoiled by all the winning, on teams and in life.? I know I have it good.? I know how much I’m blessed.

Team, I am, also, a Christian.? God has been important to me since I was in the second grade.? Importantly for today, though, know that I’m a rule follower.? It’s in my DNA. If there is a rule, I follow it.? I didn’t set out to do this; I didn’t do it on purpose. From the time I was small, though, I started doing the math. In life, there are rules, there are consequences and there are the odds.? If I don’t love the consequence, and the odds aren’t great,? I don’t break the rule.??

Guys, let’s get real here.? I didn’t have sex in high school. ? There were two different girls at ICS that got pregnant when I was in school.? Even at that small of a school.? I did the math.? I knew if I had sex with my boyfriend in high school, there were likely consequences that I didn’t want to have to pay.? I wasn’t going to get an abortion; I didn’t want to put a baby up for adoption, and I didn’t want to get married at 16 or 17 years old.? The only way to avoid those consequences, from my perspective, I decided it wasn’t worth it to have sex in high school.? Birth control can fail.? It’s not that I didn’t love my long-term high school boyfriend.? I did, but I didn’t want to get pregnant more than that. ? I also saw a few popular seniors get kicked out of school their senior year for being drunk at a party.? I didn’t want to get kicked out of school and if you got caught drinking or drunk at ICS, you got kicked out.? Mr. Hammon doesn’t play, gentlemen, and? I’m a rule follower.? Better stated, I’m a consequence avoider.? I have an aversion to consequences. ? So, I didn’t get drunk in high school.?

Hear me, though, rules aren’t all bad.? Rules are, typically, created to protect people or make something better.? If you think about it, I also wasn’t driving around like an idiot on a Friday night drunk or with friends who were drunk.? You know what I’m talking about.? You have friends who are driving around every weekend.? Rules can be good for us, consequences - consequences suck.??

Hey, I know I’m blessed, but we’ve also already established that I’m not stupid.? Even when I was young, I knew that in everyone’s life, tragedy shows up.? I knew the math was going to catch up to me at some point.? Guys, tragedy shows up in different forms, wearing different disguises, sometimes he shows up and he’s ugly.? Sometimes tragedy shows up looking like the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, she shows up in the disguise of everything you’ve been waiting for.? Regardless of how tragedy arrives, results are the same.??

Tragic.

Where I was naive, and what I want you guys to understand today, is I somehow thought that you live with only the consequences you earn.? I thought once you pay your consequences or overcome tragedy well, it’s over.? Pass interference, defense, 15 yard penalty, everyone moves down the field.? The whole team moves back, not just Xico.? What I thought was once you paid the penalty it was over. ? Team, hear me.? That just isn’t true.? Consequences are like shrapnel. ? They produce a spray whose impact radius isn’t predictable.? It can’t be controlled.? Consequences reach across decades and pull you back in. ? Even when those consequences aren’t the ones that you earned.

Let’s turn a corner for a second and talk for a second about my husband, because my husband was you guys.? My husband graduated from Coral Shores.? He was a star football player. ? Jacques played defense.? He was mean on the field.? He was 6’2 and had a ridiculously high pain threshold. Jacques was wicked fast. ? He got offers to play football at the University of Tennessee, Clemson and UCF.? He went to UCF for reasons I don’t even know.? My husband, though, had a different relationship with rules than me.? Don’t get me wrong, Jacques had a ton of respect for rules.? Jacques later graduated from the University of Florida, and had a career in law enforcement that spanned three decades.? First as a Florida State Trooper and then as a Chief with US Customs and Border Protection.? His job was to enforce our state and federal rules. ? He was great at it.

Where Jacques messed up is he had experienced life in a way where consequences didn’t apply to him.? That’s not necessarily his fault, but Jacques understood rules were made for “other people.”? See in addition to being a great athlete, my husband was handsome.? He was smart with a degree of charm.? His mom spoiled him rotten. ? So for Jacques, he certainly had a healthy respect for rules - for other people.? He just never feared consequences.? When you’re that guy, and you know them - you cheat on your girlfriend, get caught, well, there is a line of six other girls willing to be the next one.??

When Jacques played football here, the football team had a team building exercise in the summer.? As I understand it, there was an overnight excursion in the Everglades. During Jacques’ junior year, he went on that trip with his friends but at some point he got pissed off at one of the coaches.? Jacques turned his kayak around, left it in the boat ramp.? Basically, that meant he quit the team.? Jacques got in his truck and went home in all his righteous fury.? A loss or two later into the season, one Coach or another came over to his parents’ house for dinner, and asked Mr. Smith if Jacques had “learned his lesson?”? The question implied if the answer was “yes” Jacques could come back on the team. ? Of course, the Smiths said “yes.”? Guys, hear me, the only lesson Jacques learned in that was if you were good enough, needed enough, consequences didn’t apply to you.??

Rules may be the same for everyone, but consequences, man, consequences can get slippery.? Jacques saw how he could manipulate circumstances. ? These differing philosophies of his and mine, well, they’ve had tragic consequences in my life, and the lives of our kids.??

Consequences don’t always show up on time.??

You can’t aim consequence.??

Believe me when I tell you, shrapnel is all too real.

There is another Coral Shores senior I want to tell you about while we’re talking this way.? Ramiro Suarez.? Ramiro was a senior in high school at Coral Shores in 2005. ? Ramiro had friends, he had a family. Ramiro also drove like an idiot. Kind of like friends of our football team that all of you and us, we all know.? If there was social media in 2005, Ramiro would have all the likes on the posts on his accounts, like your friends do.? “That’s fire! …….. Bro, I love your whip!”? Moronic, asinine comments from high school students just wanting to impress someone on a post.? Young adults trying to fit in. ? Comments on posts where some 16 year old, 17 year old kid,? is doing more than 100 mph on the stretch or on Card Sound Road or in North Key Largo, and as if that isn’t stupid enough, these morons are so idiotic as to be filming the speedometer as it moves over 100 on their smartphone.? I know you’re kidding me right now that you’re liking those posts?? What are you thinking? For real, what are you actually thinking?? You know what Ramiro was thinking in 2005.? He liked to go fast.? Ramiro got something like 7 speeding tickets just in his junior year.? In late August 2005, Ramiro was caught driving on a suspended license; he got in a fight with his Dad, left his house Friday night, August 26th, and he didn’t come home.? Ramiro went to Homestead to spend the night with his sister which is where mine and Ramiro’s story is going to intersect in a few minutes.

My husband and I got married in 1999.? We wanted to have kids right away.? Jacques was already 34.? I was 29.? We got pregnant in a few months.? Remember I told you that I knew everyone faces some sort of tragedy in their life?? Well, I knew it, but I wasn’t ready when tragedy walked up to me dressed in doctor’s scrubs to tell me we lost our baby.? He didn’t have a heartbeat.? I’m the girl that follows the rules.? That’s just not possible.? What? ? I told the doctor, Wait….? I’ve done everything right.? I’ve taken my vitamins; I’ve painted the baby’s room, we’ve bought all the supplies.? We have a baby shower planned.? I’ve seen the ultrasounds, they’re framed on my desk in my office. I’ll tell you right now, there is no way I’m having a D&C until I see for myself that there is no heartbeat.? With tears in her eyes, the doctor told me we could.? She brought me to a room with the ultrasound equipment and, worse than that, if that’s even possible,? as she demonstrated that my little baby didn’t have a heartbeat, she also explained I had a very rare condition where a genetic abnormality had created a tumor growing with the same blood supply as was providing nutrients to the baby.? I could see the two distinct balls of tissues on the screen.? There was no blip on the monitor of the little baby’s heart.

The next few years weren’t easy, as I had to undergo a cancer treatment regimen that was debilitating.? When you authorize chemo treatments, the medical team asks you to review and sign documents which basically say, this medicine can cause all these different damages to your blood or your organs, etc.? etc.? etc. Remember, I’m good at math.? Chemo, yeah, it can cause all these bad things, and you suffer and live, or you don’t take the chemo and you die. ? Easy math.? Give me the chemo.? Gentlemen, it’s not just when you do something wrong that you experience consequences, that chemo created a hole in my heart that we found when I was 40 and the doctors put in a little umbrella called a Helix to close the hole.? I have an autoimmune disease now that’s a connected tissue disease that impacts my ability to breathe well and is why my voice sounds hoarse some of the time because of the inflammation my body is fighting. ? I talk to clients or business colleagues for a living.? I’m a subject matter expert in my field, having diminished vocal capabilities that’s a consequence reaching across the years and impacting my livelihood.? My real life.??

Consequences don’t f…. around. Consequences aren’t only the ones we deserve.

Doctors told us to keep trying as it was so rare for something like this to happen.? The odds in the US at the time were 1 - 1,100 pregnancies end up being molar pregnancies, and even if you’re that 1, the odds then are 1 - 517,000 that the tumor is cancerous.? I was that girl.? I was the 1 of the 1.

Over the course of the next several years, I lost 6 more babies.? All the testing, all the doctors - they told us “keep trying.”? “It’s like getting hit by lightning twice.? There is no medical reason you two can’t have a healthy baby.? This happens, but you’ll have a healthy baby. Try again.” ? Jacques also wanted to hear those things.? We wanted a baby.? We kept trying.

Right up until medical technology caught up with reality.? ? The doctors asked, and Jacques said “Yes”, Jacques had taken steroids at UCF when he was playing football.? Because of that steroid use, there would be genetic consequences for every baby we ever conceived. ? There was never going to be a baby that made it full term.

Consequences, they don’t always show up on time.??

Consequences, they’re? not always experienced alone.

Consequences create shrapnel.

There is a promise in the Bible where God commits to making all things work together for good, for those who love Him.? If you’ve spent any time with me, Derek and Jessie, you understand that truth.? We’re living proof.? My husband and I were introduced to an organization called Bundle of Hope. Bundle of Hope is an agency that facilitates the adoption of babies whose parents make the difficult decision to give their child a better life, instead of having an abortion.? Most of the time it’s young people that are making this unselfish, brave choice.? In 2003, Jacques and I adopted our daughter Jessie as a newborn.? Similarly in 2005, we were in the hospital room when Derek was born and our family was complete.? I mean this with all of my soul, I would gladly go through all of those horrible days again multiple times if that was the path to bring me to these two kids. The tragedy that led me to be their mom, it’s worth every second of the pain.? I’m so hugely grateful for the path and these two remarkable consequences.??

And, like I said, I was naive.? Look, I felt victorious in this.? I thought we walked back our fifteen yards.? I thought I had proven myself strong, resilient and faithful.? We did it.? We paid the penalty.? We went through our tragedy.? I thought, now our life starts.? I wasn’t looking for him when tragedy slammed into my life again, 4 months to the day after Derek was born, this time going 107 mph.

Remember Ramiro, Ramiro was late for his job at Publix in Key Largo on August 28, 2005.? Remember, he was in Homestead because he was pissed off at his Dad.? He was furious about the consequences he suffered as a result of driving on a suspended license.? Ramiro got in a car he borrowed from his sister’s boyfriend and was driving 107 mph on the 18 mile stretch.? Ramiro and I both moved into the northernmost passing zone at 9:24am from opposite directions. ? I was driving back home to the Redlands from church in Key Largo.? Ramiro was late for work.? Ramiro grew impatient with the traffic on his side of the highway.? He crossed three lanes at 107 mph to meet me head-on. ? I had just enough time to swerve? so that the full impact of the collision was specifically lined up to the driver’s seat of my Volvo.? A Volvo’s engine is designed to drop down on impact, which it did and the force of that impact drove the engine into the front seat of the vehicle, crushing all the bones in both of my feet and pushing the steering wheel through my right knee pinning me to the seat.? My right arm was pushed through my right shoulder. ? When I looked down, my hand was pointing toward my chest and my wrist was where my elbow was supposed to be.? My whole lower arm had disappeared.? That’s called a distal radius fracture.

Guys, the laws of physics are the rules of the universe. ? There are consequences when you break them.? There is a Newton Law of Something, I think it’s Inertia.? A smarter person than me here can tell you what it is.? Ask Mr. Hammon.? But, that Law states something like - An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless an object of equal force is applied against it, and, an object at rest tends to remain at rest.? Ramiro’s body was traveling at 107 mph when it impacted my car going 60 mph in the opposite way.? Our vehicles stopped on impact.? Ramiro’s body didn’t.? Ramiro’s arms were blown off his body by the force of the collision.? Pieces of his body were left in parts of the seatbelt.? The rest was strewn about the highway, and Everglades.? Ramiro didn’t survive the accident.? He was 18 years old.? He was a senior at Coral Shores High School.? Ramiro was AJ, Jonathan, Xico.? He was starting his senior year.? The consequences are horrifying.? What Ramiro did was he liked to drive fast; what he also did was die, in an instant.

Remember me, I’m the rule follower.? I was driving in the slow lane of the passing zone.? I was coming home from church.? I had a 4 month old little baby at home and a two year old little daughter that needed her mom. ? My family depended on my job and my husband’s both for our livelihood.? I was stuck in my car with the car on fire and my body in separated pieces with a steering wheel acting as the tourniquet for 24 minutes until the helicopter arrived to take me to Jackson Trauma.? Look another day, we can talk about that journey,? the miracle from God that it is that I survived.? I’ve had 22 surgeries to put my leg back together.? My leg looks like a horror movie, but I’m not embarrassed by it.? I love this leg, it’s cost me a lot to keep it.? But, I haven’t been able to bend my leg for 19 years because at some point while we were waiting for the helicopter people were running back and forth across the passing zone to fill cups with canal water to pour on the fire in my engine, I got an infection. One that lived in my knee and we didn’t find it for about 4 months. ? We didn’t find it until I had already had seven surgeries.? I had already completed hours and hours of physical therapy and my knee could bend more than 40 degrees.? I had already suffered and fought to recover.? At about 12 weeks, the doctors discovered an infection that basically had eaten my Patella tendon.? It had to be removed and a hole had to be created in my tibia to put antibiotic medical balls in to fight the infection in my bones. Dr. James Hutson at the University of Miami Trauma Center saved my life and my leg.? About six months later, surgeons rerouted tendons in the back of my leg through my knee to fill? up the hole that was in my right knee.? All this took away my ability to bend my leg. ? But it’s still mine.

Remember me?? I was an athlete.? I need to bend this leg.? I’m 6’ tall.? It’s not easy to fit this long straight leg in some places.? I had little kids.? I wanted to ride bikes with them; I wanted to play kickball in the street.? I wanted to coach one of their teams. ? Guys, I had to learn to walk again, I spent months in a hospital bed, then months in a wheelchair and about 2 years with a cane.? Having your leg cut off hurts about as much as you imagine it does.? I’ve had my Achilles tendon cut, on purpose, twice to lengthen it through rehab so the doctors can try to give me more mobility.? None of it’s fun.? None of it’s painless.? You see me limping more than usual sometimes on a Friday night, that’s because it still hurts.? That’s because sometimes my ankles or leg don’t want to line up right.? It’s been 19 years since Ramiro liked to drive fast and reckless.

If my story tells you anything today, please remember………. Rules may be annoying but consequences suck.? They’re real and you don’t get to pick who receives them or for how long. ? What neither me or Ramiro knew that day was if he had picked someone to crash into on the stretch, it wouldn’t have been me. My mom is in charge of the Guardian Ad Litem in Monroe County.? That’s her job.? She protects kids. ? After Jessie was born she told me about a client she had that had been abused by her husband.? She left him, but this woman just had little twin girls and she couldn’t afford food or supplies.? My mom wanted to help her more than her funding allowed, so she asked me if I could give her things that Jessie didn’t need anymore, clothes, supplies.? And, of course I did.? I was happy to.? That woman was Ramiro’s sister that he loved. The little nieces he adored.? Guys, we didn’t know it then, and we didn’t realize it until much later.? But, hear me guys, if Ramiro would have picked who to almost kill on the 18 mile stretch, it wouldn’t have been me.? It would not have been me. ? His family needed me to be ok.? His little baby nieces depended on me. ? He loved his sister.? It’s where he ran to when he was in trouble.? He would have wanted me to be at work to have the money to share materials with his family.? Guys,? you don’t get to pick who experiences your consequences.? Life doesn’t work like that.

Remember my husband, Jacques, he retired and we had moved back to the Keys.? I am the Sr. Director for Compliance for a $1B company in Boston, Agero, I can live and work from anywhere. I’m also hugely blessed that the company highly values volunteering, especially at schools.? They want me to be here taking the photographs of your games and impacting students as long as I’m still getting my work done.? I work at the best company in the world. God is good.? Now, look guys, once we moved back, Jacques volunteered as a substitute teacher at KLS.? Herb also convinced him to volunteer as an official for Monroe County sports.?

Covid happened.?

Jacques was at the school a few days a week because so many teachers were out sick.? One Friday night in September 2021, Derek’s junior year, Jacques was the ref of a Coral Shores football game.? Some of you guys were on the field, too. ? It was his first game as ref; he loved it. ? It was fun - him and me sharing the sideline with you guys.? We were leaving the field in his truck and talking about how one of the CS football players told Derek during the game, “Hey, go get that ref away from your Mom.? He keeps hitting on her.? I don’t like it.” ? We were laughing until a text message came in.? It was a message confirming Jacques had Covid.? Jacques read it.? Showed it to me.? Then decided to go and stay at our house in the Redlands over the weekend so he wouldn’t be contagious to me, Jessie and Derek.

Jacques said his doctor told him to go to the hospital if his blood oxygen level went below 90 at any time over the weekend.? Seems like a reasonable enough rule.? He said he’d do it.

I didn’t listen to him, though, I drove up on Sunday anyway to make sure for myself that he was doing better.? I made him chicken soup.? We watched Netflix.? He was coughing but he seemed like he had a bad cold.? He seemed a little bit better than the day before.? On Monday morning, though, Jacques called and asked me to meet him at Mariners. ? He said he was feeling worse and just wanted to make sure he had the right medicine.? ? What I didn’t know was Jacques’ blood oxygen level had gone down in the low 80s over the night on Saturday night.? Jacques thought he could push through it.? He didn’t go to the hospital then because he felt a? little better on Sunday morning.? On Sunday night when the blood oxygen level went down to 54, he drove himself to Mariners hospital when he woke up again and told me to meet him there. ? I didn’t know any of this until I got a text once they admitted him and were transporting him by ambulance to Baptist in Miami.?

Jacques texted me that he was sorry.? He asked me to forgive him, and guys - he’s not that guy.? These were weird texts to get from my husband.? He told me he waited too long to go to the hospital.? He no longer qualified for the infusion treatment that people were getting because the treatment may not work on someone with a case so advanced.? The doctors made it clear to Jacques that the damage to his lungs was now too severe and he was going to, most likely, die.? He said they told him he had a small chance to survive but it was going to be a fight.? It would be a long and painful journey to get there, and the higher likelihood was that he wasn’t going to make it.? They told him he should get his affairs in order.? He texted me all this and asked me to go to our lawyer and make sure our will was how we wanted it to be while he was able to still sign the papers if we needed any adjustments. ? He texted me how sorry he was over and over again.? 57 years old. Completely healthy otherwise.? Running down a football field just 72 hours before.?

Death sentence.?

I know 57 sounds old to you.? It’s not.? It definitely doesn’t feel old enough to die. ? Look guys, I’ll be honest with you.? I was super sad for him not because I believed he was going to die, but because I knew he was scared.? I was super nice to him, of course, but I also thought he was being a little bit dramatic or he was just nervous.? I didn’t think that the doctors could know already that Jacques was going to die.? It had been too fast, they couldn’t possibly know that in the two hours since I watched him be admitted at Mariners. ? I knew that just couldn’t be true.? I believed in the long journey part.? I believed the hard part.? I just didn’t believe the going to die part.

Guys, I was sucked into the myth.? Consequences don’t apply to Jacques Smith.

Until they did.

My husband, Derek and Jessie’s Dad, died on November 1, 2021, complications as a result of Covid.? And, it could have been avoided if just this one time he followed the rules.? But, look guys, I’m not mad at him.? I’m not upset at him that he didn’t go to the hospital on time.? He didn’t do that on purpose.? He didn’t want to die.? But, hear me, guys - that’s the thing about rule following.? Habits are made.? Jacques had a lifetime, including time spent on this field, where consequences just didn’t apply. At 2:35am on September 16, 2021, it wasn’t even a conscious thought to start following the rules then.? He felt super sick. It takes energy to get up, get dressed, get to the hospital.? He wanted to go back to sleep.? Guys, he rolled over because he thought I’ll just go to the hospital tomorrow morning.? Then tomorrow became the next day and he was that much too late. The difference between life and death was one rule not followed. The reason he didn’t follow the rule is because he’d always skirted the consequences.? If his death can mean something, don’t be that guy.? Do better.

A few months later, on July 28, 2022 Derek was about to start his senior year of high school, and the next day we were leaving on vacation.? I pushed my chair back from my desk done with work, and sat on my bed.? ? What we didn’t know is that all those years ago when Ramiro’s car met mine, that impact, the physics, Newton’s Law of Inertia,? that impact created a condition in my brain where one of the main arteries in my forehead became crossed with a vein.? It’s called a fistula.? As I sat on my bed, 17 years later, that fickle lady Consequence walked into my bedroom, and the blood got caught in that fistula and then exploded arteries in the back of my brain.? It’s called a subarachnoid hemorrhage.? The short story here is Derek and Jessie watched me dying as they waited at Mariners for air rescue transport to take me to Miami so I could undergo brain surgery in Baptist. ? What I remember from that night is having tunnel vision, just like I did in the car accident, and this time all I could see was Derek next to my hospital bed, telling me to fight.? That he needed me to live.? Mom, you can do it.? Just keep fighting, Mom.? I need you to live, Mom.? I can’t lose you, Mom.? We don’t have Daddy.? You can do it.? Keep fighting.? Over and over and over. Jessie was so scared she had left the room to cry in the hall. ? When the helicopter landed at Baptist, rescue told my family I was brain dead.? Fortunately, my sister authorized a risky emergency surgery that drained the excess blood from my brain.? A second surgery a few weeks later was successful in repairing the fistula. I survived with all of my capabilities.? I’m here today.? I’m so hugely grateful.? I’m so blessed.? I know I am.? A few of you who were freshman at that time, remember me coming to the first game, bald, straight from three weeks in the hospital, I wasn’t even strong enough, yet, to stand up for any amount of time or hold my camera. But, I wasn’t going to miss your first game.? The first game of Derek’s senior year.? No way.? Here I am, perfectly fine because God is so good.

But, I tell you this to say, the resounding shrapnel from a decision that a Coral Shores senior, Ramiro Suarez, made in 2005 stretching still into my life and yours twenty years later.

Kids have made fun of Derek about why his mom is “white?” Why does she walk so funny?? Why is she so old?? First, let me tell you, that God is still working in my life, because I can assure you I’m not far enough in my Christian faith to like any of those kids. I may still erase embarrassing pictures of theirs in the galleries, but I don’t like them.? I’m not that good of a person. God’s still working on me.? ? Second of all, let me say, when I get bothered by it or embarrassed, Derek always says to me, “Mom, they just don’t know.? They don’t know that I hit the parent lottery.? How could they know, Mom?? You don’t tell everyone about all the stuff that happened to you.? Mom, they don’t know why you limp, they don’t know what you went through.? If they knew, they wouldn’t say anything about your leg.? They think I’m a kid that had a really bad life before you found me.? Mom, that’s not me and that’s not you.? They just don’t know Mom. ? You are white, and I am brown and you’re not old.? Who cares what they say, Mom, I don’t.”??

That guy is a better human than me.??

And, shrapnel?? It shows up in different ways.

Why do I stress that so much?? Because, guys, all of us are Ramiro.? All of us make decisions every day that will impact our lives and maybe other people’s lives for decades to come.? Have you ever texted and drove, I have.? Do any of you vape?? Do you think you’re not as bad as some of the kids around you because you don’t drive drunk, you just smoke weed and are a little high.? Everyone knows it’s way better to drive high.? I’d never drive drunk. ? Guys, that’s not me - but it might be you.????

The time to make a decision not to drive drunk is before you go to the party.? Get a designated driver and give your keys to someone else.? You don’t make the right decision when you’re actually drunk.? Everyone thinks they’re a great driver when they’re drunk.? There is no drunk guy that has ever, in the history of the universe, made a better decision than when he was sober.? The time to decide not to get your girlfriend pregnant is when you buy birth control before you go to that party or on a date.? If girls in this high school are telling me or my friends about how they’ve had abortions, I know you guys all know, too.? And, guess what, they’re not getting themselves pregnant.? The time to decide not to get a girl pregnant is when you purposefully go buy condoms and decide to use them.? Not when she’s taking off her clothes.? All common sense goes out the window for you guys when a girl takes off her clothes.? I get it.? But, the time to do things differently is today.? The time to stop driving like a complete and total ass is right now.? The time to stop thinking it’s cool when your friends post themselves driving like an ass is right now.? It’s today.? You don’t get to pick who suffers the consequences of their actions.? It could be your mom, your girlfriend, your friend.? It could be me, and I don’t want it to be me anymore.? Neither do you.? I know that.? The time to behave differently is today.??

There isn’t always a tomorrow.

There is one more consequence that is coming for all of us.? Death.? We’re all going to die someday.? And, here is what we know.? We don’t know what happens next.? No one comes back and posts pictures.? You can’t check out the post on Instagram. No one tells us after.? What I believe, as a Christian, is that God created us.? The world isn’t perfect because sin got in.? God sent his Son as the sacrifice to pay the cost for our lives.? If we believe that is true, when death comes, and it will, we are promised a future with Him.? That’s our consequence.? A future that is more than any human mind can even imagine.? That’s a promise God has made.? If we don’t accept that promise, the consequence is eternal separation from God.? We also don’t know what eternal separation feels like.? But here is the math on that one,? it has to be way worse than perfect if with God is better than anything we can imagine.? Anything less than that sucks.? The better of the consequences is clear.

Look, if you want to know any more about any of these things or for us to help you, we’re here.? You have my number.? It’s not a coincidence that in this public high school, you’re surrounded by a group of Christian men and women who love you so much. God loves you, too.? And, so do I.? And, if even just one of you, lives differently and suffers fewer consequences from hearing my story, it will have been worth it.

Now I told you I hate losing football games, and you heard Coach Holly talk to you about the importance of tomorrow’s practice.? Your job now is to go home, come back tomorrow, practice hard and win Friday’s football game and then the game after that and the game after that because we’re on our way to an undefeated season.? And, remember, I hate losing football games.

Thank you for hearing me.

I love you guys.