This past September I received a call from some of the young football players at Pacific Lutheran University saying that Nellie was in bad shape. When I got to his room at the care facility where he lived, the door was shut and the players outside were looking scared, sad, and confused. I went inside and sat at Nellie’s bedside.
One-by-one I motioned for the young men to come in and say good-bye. I encouraged them to hug him, touch him, kiss him and speak to him. I had them tell him their names because he wasn’t visibly alert, but his body and face reacted to the stimulus of their touch and their words. Fifteen minutes after I arrived Head Football Coach, Scott Westering, arrived. He sat at the foot of Nellie’s bed and rubbed his feet and legs. He spoke to him fiercely and tenderly. He wept, for not only was he losing a valued assistant and friend, but this would be the third member of his teams that he would have to say goodbye to in the past four years.
His father coached 50 years and never lost a player or coach. I ushered the 30 to 40 young men and women into the room and each put their arms around each other. I whispered to Scott that he should give Nellie an “At-away” cheer (something that his father, Frosty Westering, has made famous and is a trademark of the team). Scott dropped his head and then looked at me with tears streaming down his face and said, “You’re right.”
He gave the most impassioned cheer I had ever heard that echoed throughout the facility. I had the chaplain lead us in prayer and then Nellie was gone. I am of the opinion that the fruit of our lives is best borne out through our death because it is in that moment that the message of our life will come full circle. For Nellie, the brilliance of his life well lived was in reaching across barriers and chasms that have separated some and drawn them to a place that says, “Choose life.”
