The Death and Haunting of DP

Bane went and reminded me of this:

Before I had married my first wife, I was coaching Bantam hockey in Michigan. It seems like an eon ago. My charges were 14 or 15 and though I had grown up playing hockey, I had a new perspective on the profile of the team. I had young men and I had boys, I had first year players and I had player who would play highschool varsity when they turned Freshmen, I had players who were only staying in school so their parents would let them play hockey and there were those who wanted to be electrical engineers.

Like the fascii, they would be bound together into something that could not be broken. I think men are born to do this. In sports I have loved men I didn't like and sweat, bled and hurt with them as I covered their asses and they covered mine. It has been so long for those days, I'm crying at the nostalgia of those days. How I miss them.

I digress...

One of the better players was on my team in his second year as a Bantam. His mother was the league coordinator and his father was my assistant coach. I got to know their family well.

DP was a prankster. He'd hide your gloves after practice or have the one liner that would crack up the lockerroom. You just had to keep an eye on him because, if given a chance, he'd be up to something.

The summer after I coached him, he was at a family reunion at Lake Michigan. He and a cousin of his, both about 16 were incharge of watching the younger kids play in the water when a freak wave came in swamped everyone, knocking them over. His cousin was making sure that all the little ones were OK when he realized that DP was nowhere to be seen.

As his concern mounted, he climbed on a bouy to get a better view of the water. While on the bouy, a man in a suit got his attention and told him "not to be concerned for DP, that he was safe." He told the man that he had to find him and that it was not OK and turned back to searching the water for DP.

When the body was found, it was determined that the wave caused DP to hit his head on the one rock, on the otherwise sandy bottom, and be knocked unconscious. While unconscious in the water, he had drowned.

The cousin noted that the man in the suit had no way of knowing DP's name, but had referred to him by his name. No one else had seen the man in the suit and the suit had been dry, yet there was no way to get onto the bouy without getting wet and there was no boat around. When he turned to ask the man for help looking for DP, the man was gone.

DP had a sister, also in Junior High, and a little brother that was about 5 or 6 that he adored. I was part of the support infrastructure for the family and would visit and let them pour out their grief and talk themselves through the healing process in my presence.

Shortly after the drowning, the little brother would comedownstairs in the morning and tell his parents that "DP was tapping on the wall last night. He was trying to scare me." This was typical DP and his humor. There was an opportuinty and he made the best play he could for it.

When his little brother wouldn't run scared, DP would then talk to him and tell him things to tell his parents since he knew that his parents were taking his death so hard. DP's mom told me that the level of maturity, some of the topics, and the little brothers poise and stature were such that they were convinced that they were talking to DP, through younger brother.

This went on, night after night, morning after morning for months. It helped the parents through their grief and mourning.

Then one night little brother ran into his parents bedroom, terrified. Something had been knocking on his bedroom wall. Something that, pert near, scared the daylights out of him.

After that, the knocking on the wall occured no more. Nor did little brother have any memories of ever talking to DP after his death.

At this time, I was conflustered by Christianity. My solution was to turn my back on Christ (yea, that is a hard thing to admit) and not consider spiritual sides in the equation.

I had grown up in a 200+ year old house with a reputation (to put it mildly). This wasn't the first haunting that I'd experienced, and the fact that it was secondhand, distanced me from the creepyness of it. These stories didn't rock my boat any. It did, and does, support my theory (and I don't think that this conflicts the bible) that little children can see and sense things that adults can't.

Now, as a Christian, I know the 'communing with the dead' even though little brother didn't know what was going on, was not in anyone's best interests.

UPDATE:
While I miss the days of playing team sports, I wouldn't trade them for what I now have.