The tragic news that 24-year old Miami Marlins’ pitcher Jose Fernandez died in a boating accident the morning of Sept. 25 shook the entire sports world to its core.
I woke up to the news of his unexpected passing Sunday morning and throughout the entire course of the day I was shaken up.
When I was in the 12th grade, my English teacher Danielle Paul told the whole class when someone passes most of the people crying are crying for a selfish reason.
At the time I didn’t understand it but now I understand that it is possible that, was in fact, one of the reasons I took the death of Fernandez so hard.
He had only been in the major leagues since 2013 and he had already captured the National League Rookie of the Year Award and had been named to the NL All-Star Team twice.
Overall, he accumulated a record of 38-17 with an ERA of 2.58. By the looks of his numbers, he was on the fast track to a Hall of Fame career.
I think the slight selfishness on my part is the fact that we will never get to fully see what Fernandez’ career could have been. We will never see it fully flourish.
The other part of it is as a 21-year old African-American male, I now see that it is fully important to live your life to the fullest while you can.
In the past four months, I’ve had two middle school friends die and three either family members or family friends die.
When my parents got home on Sunday, my dad asked me to tell him how I was feeling because I was down about it and I couldn’t fully put it into words.
And it wasn’t until the following day when talking with journalism adviser Rich Cameron that I realized I was having trouble accepting his passing.
One reason for the trouble with the acceptance was one major thing: his age.
This is proof that death has no age and no preference. It can truly be unpredictable.
He was a 24-year old man that seemingly had everything that he wanted in his life. Family, money and the job of his dreams.
And despite all of that, his life came to an abrupt end that no one saw coming.
I think that if Fernandez would’ve left anything behind as a life lesson it should be to live life to the fullest and make the most of the days you were given.
On Sept. 1, 2015 Fernandez tweeted out a picture that read, “If you were given a book with the story of your life, would you read the end?”
While some of our answers may vary the fact remains that no one could have expected his life would end the way it had.
While the Miami Marlins’ season must go on, I think its safe to say that baseball has lost one of its youngest and brightest stars.
Rest in paradise Jose Fernandez.
