A Tough Couple of Days

Last night Cameron played in the weekly tennis league.  He was paired at singles against Northridge's best player.  Cameron lost 6-1, 6-1.  Even with the score we were impressed with how he played as his opponent was far superior to anyone else we had seen this summer.  Cameron walked over to me after his loss and just started sobbing.  I instantly knew that it wasn't tennis that was bothering him.  Thus, I wasn't surprised when he said that he just wasn't in the right frame of mind to play.  Cameron said that he cried all of the way over to Nappanee.  He couldn't stop thinking about Richard. Cameron had bought a new album from their favorite rapper.  We had listened to it this afternoon.  It had triggered a lot of memories for Cameron.  All I could tell him after his match was that I was sorry.  I had no words to alleviate the pain that he had been going through this past month.  All I could do was cry with him.  I was incredibly thankful that Daniel realized that the best solution for Cameron was to pair him with Breece for the next match.  The competition wouldn't be as fierce and Cameron would not have as much time to think.  It definitely helped.

 Cameron had a golf match this afternoon that didn't go his way either.  He played well, but had five balls out of bounds.  That knocked him out of contention for qualifying for the state tournament.  I felt awful for him.  He seemed to handle it well, but later in the day he said that he became extremely overwhelmed on hole number four.  Thankfully, he remembered a tip that one of his doctors gave him - "You can't control your emotions, but you can control how you react to them."  That was fantastic advice and I was glad that Cameron was able to remember it as it made a huge difference in his day.

This evening, Cameron and I talked a lot about his feelings over the past few days.  We had some great conversations from everything to gun control, to death, to life, to prescription drug use, to friendships.  We didn't solve any of the world's problems, but in the end we both came to realize that there was no shortcut to grief and from now on we wouldn't look for one.