But Not The End ...

2026 began rather horribly for me. In the space of two months, three of my former colleagues lost spouses or passed away themselves. February rolled along, and I received a phone call that my brother-in-law is now in hospice because of mesothelioma. He can’t carry on a conversation without coughing through it, can’t do stairs any longer, and has since moved in with his youngest daughter’s family. But that wasn’t the end.

One day after his birthday, my son-in-law, Quaevon, received a phone call that his grandfather had passed away. This was a significant blow to Q because his grandparents helped raise him. While in high school, Q lived with them because he didn’t want to change schools after his mother moved to a different district. And to make it all the worse, his grandmother passed away exactly one year to the day Q received the phone call about his grandfather. In the time between both deaths, his grandfather lost his home because of a lightning strike and the resultant fire. His grandfather was blind, and the new home he was living in before his death was foreign to him. For a blind person, familiarity is key and comfort. 

Couple all of this to the deaths in Minnesota, the detaining of children and infants, and with many, their whereabouts being unknown. 

The beginning of 2026 has been difficult and ugly. But while ugly, it is not the end nor will it never not change. 

I am reminded of that each time my grandson, Mason, age two and a half, calls me Papa and asks his mom and dad when he will get to go to Papa and Ahma’s house. Or when I see my new granddaughter, Olivia, smile at me. I am also reminded that 2026 can still be a good year when I read an article or watch a video of Josh Allen visiting children in a hospital and the time he spends signing autographs and talking with kids. Many athletes do the same, but what I enjoy about Allen is that he does it with so much energy and enthusiasm. Each time an article appears, or a video pops up, it makes me smile.

There is one video I saw recently that brought happy tears to my eyes. It was of a middle school football team and what they did- on their own without their coaches knowing about it- that was special. 

My wife spent almost thirty years teaching middle school kids. I did my student teaching in a middle school way back in my early career for one semester, and more recently, worked in a middle school part-time for almost two years. Middle school kids can appear to be feral at times. Hormones rage. Kids acting without thought or reason. Middle school kids can be messy at times. Not all the time, and perhaps not all middle schools. But … 

This particular story I watched was a beautiful example of middle school kids doing it right, going above and beyond self to give a teammate and classmate a “moment.” 

The boy is autistic and has boundary issues. He hugs everyone. The kids, and in particular his teammates, are used to it. They hug him back. Some will even see him coming and say, “Hugs!” to him as a welcoming gesture. 

During a football game, the team came up with a plan, unbeknownst to their coaches. It was decided to get the ball as close to the goal line as possible and then end the play. Sure enough, at about the eight or nine yard line, the running back took the handoff and could have easily scored just by walking in. Instead, he knelt down at the one yard line. No one was around him. As I said, he could have easily walked in. 

But in his own words, in a quiet voice and with tear-filled eyes, he explained, “The score wasn’t important. My touchdown wasn’t important. It was a chance to give a guy something special.” 

That guy was the autistic teammate who seldom received the opportunity to play in a game. Timeout was called. The running back ran to the sideline and pushed and prodded the autistic kid onto the field and told him to run to the huddle. In the huddle, his teammates explained he was going to get the ball, and he needed to score a touchdown. 

He did, and his teammates rushed him and cheered for him. Probably for the first time in this kid’s life. “It was a chance to give a guy something special.” 

When I was principal at a small school in Wisconsin, there was a senior who had cancer. Because of his condition, and because of the many surgeries he had, David couldn’t play in a game. Until one time … 

The coach, a remarkable man, spoke with the opposing coach and told him about David and that his team wanted to get David the ball. The idea was for David to run a simple five yard stop, catch the ball, and then he would run out of bounds so he wouldn’t sustain injury. To make it fair, on the very next play, a senior captain, a tackle, would move before the snap, causing a five yard penalty, giving back the five yards David had earned with his catch. 

I don’t remember if we won or lost that night. It doesn’t matter. What mattered was that “it was a chance to give a guy something special.” 

Yes, 2026 started ugly. And just as in life, 2026 will have beautiful and memorable moments, too. That’s life, isn’t it? Highs and lows. Good with the bad. Joy with the pain. It’s life. We take it, live with it, and in most cases, grow from it. Something to think about …

Live Your Life, and Make A Difference! 

To My Readers:

I want to give you a heads up. I am no longer on Facebook or Threads. Someone hacked my account for the third or fourth time, and I’ve chosen at the moment to not build a new page. Maybe sometime in the future I will try again. I also have a new Instagram account. 

You can connect with me, though, on Instagram, BlueSky, Substack, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter). 

My Social Media Links are:

Website https://www.jrlewisauthor.com

BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/profile/joseph-lewis

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Joseph-Lewis/author/B01FWB9AOI?ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=df12fcfb-aff7-4dc6-9271-8964090b1abf

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18689711.Joseph_Lewis

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-lewis-67917b28/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thrillercrimewriterjrl/

TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@josephlewis1084

Substack https://tinyurl.com/2m5ckdvh 

X (formerly Twitter) https://x.com/JRLAuthor5364

BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/jrlewisauthor.bsky.social

I have two sales and signing events coming up for those of you in the Fredericksburg, VA area.

On Saturday, Feb. 28, I will be at Barnes and Noble in Central Park, Fredericksburg, VA from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. I will have all ten of my books for sale and signing. I hope to see you there.  

On Saturday, Mar. 7, I will be at the Howell Library (formerly England Run) located in Stafford County, at 806 Lyons Boulevard, Fredericksburg, VA from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. I will be in the library lobby, just inside the main doors. Hope to see you there!

Of course, you can always find all ten of my books, including my two latest books, Fan Mail and Black Yéʼii (The Evil One) on my website at https://www.jrlewisauthor.com

Picture of Football Players Courtesy of Mike Benson and Unsplash

Pictures of Mason and Olivia Courtesy of Joseph Lewis 

 

 

 

 

A Life Lesson

 Like many of you, I watched the bowl game last night between Oregon and Indiana. A heck of a game, and to be honest, I vacillated on who I wanted to win. Both are from the Big Ten, with Oregon being a recent addition. Indiana had been at the bottom for so long, but this year, they turned it around and went undefeated. They have an opportunity to win the College Football Championship. From the very bottom to the top of the heap!

But one team had to lose. No ties. One winner and one loser. 

As a high school basketball coach, I’ve been there. One team I coached won a state championship- the second smallest school in the state of Wyoming! The year before, we had played for the championship and lost. It happens. 

I changed high schools after a two-year stint as a graduate assistant at a university, and I taught and coached at a moderately large school in Wisconsin. Loved it. In my last year, I resigned at the beginning of the season, effective at the end of the season, because I wanted to end with my seniors, a great group of young men. We didn’t go as far as we had wanted, like Oregon, last night. I felt for the coach, and I felt for the team. Been there. Felt it. It hurts.

What impressed me was what head coach Dan Lanning said after the game. I’m going to cut and paste it from an article on MSN.com for you, because I don’t want to misinterpret his words and inject my own. It would be a disservice to him and to you who read my posts. This is what Coach Lanning said: -- 

The Hardest Part of Being in the Locker Room Right Now:

“Man, you hurt for those guys because the world is going to judge everybody in that room based on the result tonight. I’m going to judge those guys on the kind of fathers they become someday, the kind of husbands they become someday. But in this moment, you feel like a failure, right, for them, and they’re not. They’re not failures. These guys won a lot of damn ball games. They’ve had a lot of success. They’ve changed some people’s lives, but right now, that moment is going to hurt.”

“And the hard part, you know, you got guys like Bryce (Boettcher) that they don’t get to be a Duck anymore. They will be a Duck forever, but he does not get to go wear that uniform and go play a game for us again. I really wanted that for them, really wanted them to be able to enjoy that and experience that, and they don’t get to.”

“And I didn’t do a good enough job of getting them there. They set the stage where there might be an opportunity down the road where somebody in this program is able to create something like that again, but he won’t get to share that. But he will be a part of that if we’re able to accomplish that moving forward.”

What Quarterback Dante Moore Can Learn From This Experience:

“I think every man can learn from adversity. I just told that whole locker room, right, this is going to be about how you respond in life. This is going to be a life lesson that a lot of people never get. We just got our butt kicked. Right? That’s going to happen in life, right, and not just Dante. Every single person in the locker room, every coach, every person can learn, ‘Hey, how do you respond to that?’ Some people crawl into a hole, right, don’t face the music.”

“Some people say, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out. Let me challenge myself so I can be better. Let me be an example of how you handle moments like this.’ I think there is a way to handle that. Dante has been exceptional. Bryce, these guys have been exceptional, stewards of what we wanted to look like all year long. And it’s gone right for us 13 times. Didn’t go right tonight. And you can’t let that overshadow.”

“Every one of us has unbelievable disappointment. Learn from it. But there’s a lot of lessons to be learned for everybody in life, and we’ll learn the hard lessons here. And you know what, most people will never be in the position where they get to learn that lesson that we get to learn on. These guys were in that position.”

His (Coach Lanning’s) Opening Statement:

“First off, all the credit in the world to Indiana. Said it before that they’re an unbelievably well-coached team. I think that was really apparent tonight. They started off hot, and they really didn’t slow down. They were able to run it and have success. Passing at their defense played outstanding. We were able to generate a little momentum there at times, but we were so far in the hole that you really couldn’t create yourself out of that.”

“And the takeaway is obviously they were able to create some. We didn’t create those. They won average starting field position throughout the night. Their special teams were special. You see a really complete team. And I think they obviously have a great chance to keep it going and have unbelievable success. Credit to the coach Cignetti and credit to those players. They’ve got great leadership and a veteran team that really showed up.” --

I think we can learn a great deal from Coach Lanning’s comments. To say what he said in the way he said it is the mark of a humble, compassionate, and wise leader. Those young men who played and will play for him, those coaches who coached alongside him, will be better human beings from having been associated with him. Honestly, his comments, his actions, and his demeanor on the sideline make me want to get to know him. Even more and even at age 72, it makes me want to grab a helmet and some shoulder pads and play for him. Hell, I’ll even be the ball or water boy. If I had a son, that’s the man I’d want coaching him, learning from him. Something to think about …

Live Your Life, and Make A Difference!

To My Readers:

I wanted to make sure I shared the following promo code for the Holiday Season! 

Use the promo code: SEASON20

To get 20% off on the Black Rose Writing site until January 31, 2026, go to https://www.blackrosewriting.com/home

You can find all ten of my books, including my two latest books, Fan Mail and Black Yéʼii (The Evil One) on the Black Rose Writing website. But even if you miss this promotion, you can find all my books on my website at https://www.jrlewisauthor.com  

For those of you in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, area, I will be at a sale and signing for all my books at the Howell Library (formerly England Run) located in Stafford County, at 806 Lyons Boulevard Fredericksburg, VA 22406 on Saturday, January 24, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. I will be in the library lobby just inside the main doors. Hope to see you there!