I am Keith Hernandez

On Death and Football

Five years ago, my younger brother died during the Super Bowl. He had complications with his epilepsy medication which resulted in a heart attack, ceasing his life at the way too young age of 23. His final breaths came while I was dicking around with friends, drinking beer, eating way too much food and rooting on superhuman strangers bashing into each other to score the most points. At 25 years old, I was way too arrogant to think anything like this could happen, way too caught up in my own shit - which was drinking and partying - to care about family and it cost me an opportunity to see my brother one last time. He just got out of the hospital the month before and I promised him I’d swing up and drop off my old ipod, full of music, since I just got another the latest one and didn’t need my older model. Instead of taking the time on Super Bowl Sunday to visit him, I opted to grab a quick pre-game drink with buddies and told him I’d drop by the following week. Little did I know the small hint of dejection in his voice saying “No doubt, see you then” would be the last time we would speak. 

It took the 7th or 8th phone call from my mother for me to finally pick up, her voice soft and filled with the anxious false calm that terrifies when on the other end. She could barely get out the words before falling into a sobbing plea for me to hurry. Too drunk to drive myself, a friend sped me from one end of town to my mother’s place. I honestly can’t remember what I said to the police officers and ambulance workers who filled my mother’s apartment. It was a cold shock that left me numb. The hours turned to days as we sat there on her couch while coworkers, old friends and neighbors poured in with platters of food we let rot in our kitchen for weeks. In a random coincidence, the first ever Epilepsy Walk in Washington DC was scheduled for March that year, finally giving my mother and I something positive to focus on, raising money and awareness for my brother’s illness. We drew signs, gathered friends and family to travel down to our nation’s capital. The walk was the first time we laughed in a long time.  

Everyday, I think about my brother and what could have been. The biggest lie anyone can tell you when grieving is the pain will go away. It doesn’t. It never will. You are able to compartmentalize it, force it to one side for awhile and carry on, but then it blasts back into your thoughts, slamming you to the ground when you least expect it. Everyday, I think about my brother. He was 23 and just starting to move into the adult phase of his life. The silly fights we got into as kids were slowly turning into smart conversations. He started reading more and wanting to talk about the stuff I was reading in college. He didn’t go to college himself, took more of the scoop as many books from the public library as you can approach to learning instead, and loved to make fun of my $40K debt compared to his 40 cent library fines. Life was just beginning for him and in an instant it was gone.

The darkness of that day hung with me for a long time. Stupidly, I thought drinking would be my salvation, instead it destroyed many relationships and turned me even further inwards. I always was a tough nut to crack, hardly sharing my upbringing or personal past, so this brought me to new emotional lows. Finally, I found running to be a better physical activity than drinking to clear my head. Starting with 5Ks, I eventually built enough strength to run my first marathon, it was easily the thing that saved me.  I will get deeper into the running later on this blog, but it was another event almost a year to the day that helped provide a little more closure for my family: the Super Bowl. 

About 11 months after my brother passed, the NY Giants (my brother and I’s favorite team) were in the midst of an improbable run. Slaying off much better opponents on their home turf. I watched as they handled the Bucs, then upset the Cowboys and forced an insanely talented Packers team to overtime to pull of the victory. Here we were, one year from my brother’s death and our childhood team was in the Super Bowl. At that moment, football meant everything and nothing to me. It was the bridge to our childhood, the memories of my brother and I tossing a bowl of chips when Scott Norwood’s kick went wide right, exultation in the form of an improvised jig. The pick up games in front of our apartment where even though I was the older brother, he was 5 inches taller and threw punishing blocks to let me break free. It was the common bond that brought us together, even in the moments where we were the most distant, we could still talk about sports, we could still laugh at how horribly goofy Manning’s face is. 

Before this run started, I had agreed with my mom to fly down to Jacksonville and be with my sister and her two kids for the Super Bowl weekend. We felt family first and it’d be a great way to reminisce on his life. At first, we thought we can ignore the Super Bowl. But, my 11 year old nephew is a pretty stellar quarterback and running back for his pee-wee team, what most would call football obsessed, so not watching the game was out of the question. And then the Giants went on the fucking tear to end all tears, winning three straight on the road to set up a matchup against the undefeated Patriots. I don’t have to get into details of what happened in the game, you know the amazing story. To see my mother wearing my brother’s Strahan jersey, crying as the real Strahan hoisted up the trophy was like no other moment in my life. We knew it was just a game, a silly over-produced, over-marketed game. And we knew these players knew nothing of our story, of the intense year we have had leading to this day. Sure, we were redistributing our emotions into something else, making them carry more weight than they really should. But for that fleeting moment, the tiny little spot after the game where we all spontaneously were dancing and throwing chips in the air, we felt a connection stronger than ever before. I think about my brother everyday. And this is why football means everything and nothing.