Quiet Strength (34 page)

I had always said that trusting in the Lord was the answer. Now, facing my own tragedy, I knew I needed to accept the truth that God’s love and power
were
sufficient. If I really believed it, I needed to use this personal and painful time to validate that belief. God would work for the good of those who love Him, even if we didn’t understand how He was going to do it.

In those days following Jamie’s death, I found great encouragement in the Old Testament story of Job.

Job was a godly man who was beset by a string of hardships that seemed to come for no reason. Some of Job’s friends offered trite and unhelpful answers, but God let them know that they didn’t—and couldn’t—understand His ways. In essence, God is God, and we are not. God’s ways are beyond our comprehension and our ideas of “fairness.” He can see the entire picture even when we cannot. As Job grew into a deeper understanding of God, he trusted God enough to lean back into His everlasting arms.

Why do bad things happen? I don’t know. Why did Jamie die? I don’t know. But I do know that God has the answers, I know He loves me, and I know He has a plan—whether it makes sense to me or not. Rather than asking
why,
I’m asking
what.
What can I learn from this? What can I do for God’s glory and to help others?

I’m definitely my father’s son—his influence guided me through those days. I had two choices: I could either vent at God or I could try to determine where to go from here. I knew I needed to figure out what good was supposed to come of this, even if it was still painful.

We had buried both of my parents not long before Jamie’s death. Their deaths were traumatic for me but not totally unexpected. Sons and daughters, in their lifetimes, often bury their parents—but shouldn’t have to bury their children. Again, those cards and letters from people dealing with the same issues I was facing poured in. People heard about our situation through the media coverage, but I was hearing from people who were going through the same thing we were but without the encouragement and support we were receiving. I’ve since written notes to grieving parents and visited those who are down.

In an effort to bring some good out of this, I have tried to assist others, to encourage people the way Trent Dilfer encouraged me. We began by donating Jamie’s organs. Today two people can see, thanks to his corneas. A businessman wrote me after the funeral to tell me he’s working less in order to spend more time with his son. A young girl wrote a letter to us, saying that although she’s always attended church, she dedicated her life to Christ after watching our family at Jamie’s homegoing service.

One worried father asked me to call his son, who he thought might be contemplating taking his life. We spoke several times over the next few weeks. “Why are you taking the time to call
me
?” the son finally asked.

“Because if someone had been able to help my son with a phone call, I hope they would have taken the time.”

His dad called me later to thank me for helping his son get through that tough time. I was happy to know that our experience, as unbearable as it was, had actually helped another family.

That’s the answer, I think. It’s the best I can figure out at this time, anyway. God’s grace is all I need; His power works best in my weakness, as 2 Corinthians 12:9 says. We live in a lost and hurting world, and God wants us to get beyond ourselves, whether it’s to help hurting kids or grieving parents or artistic inmates or striving fathers. I’m not doing anything extraordinary. I’m just trying to do the ordinary things—as directed by God—well.

People sometimes ask if I went through a typical grief cycle and what I learned from having gone through it. I learned two primary things from our experience and from talking to countless other parents. First, there is no
typical
grief cycle, and second, it’s not something I
went
through. I’m still grieving, as is Lauren. I don’t know that I’ll ever look at this in the past tense, as something I’ve emerged from. Getting back to work certainly helped me heal, and seeing the strength of Gary Bracket and Trent Dilfer and all those other parents who reminded me that we’re not alone has certainly helped the process.

Pressing on to help others is all I can do. It’s all any of us can do. I’m certain it’s what God wants us to do, and He will use it all for good because He loves us. God’s Son died too, but God willingly allowed Christ to die on the cross so that He could restore sight to the blind, heal broken hearts, and bring His children to Him for all eternity.

God so loved the world—and He still does.

We still weren’t finished with the 2005 football season. We were the top seed, and after the bye week, we were preparing for Pittsburgh. The Steelers had beaten Cincinnati in the first round of the playoffs, and we were definitely not taking them lightly. We had beaten them during the regular season—soundly. But we had also had recent experiences in which we lost a regular-season game but beat the same team in the playoffs. We didn’t want the Steelers to do that to us.

As the game began, we realized we had reason to be concerned. The Steelers jumped out to an early lead, and we started slowly—again. Even after a dramatic comeback, we trailed late in the game, 21–18. With less than two minutes to go, we were forced to go for it on fourth down. A sack by the Steelers seemed to end our chances. Pittsburgh had the ball on our two yard line with just over a minute remaining. As the defense took the field, I told middle linebacker Gary Brackett, “We’ve got to knock the ball loose.” On the first play, Gary did just that, causing Steelers running back Jerome Bettis to fumble. Our cornerback Nick Harper caught the bouncing ball in the air and headed off toward a go-ahead touchdown, but their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, made a great tackle on Nick at midfield. We moved the ball but couldn’t put it in the end zone. Even so, we were in field goal range and, with Mike Vanderjagt kicking, we were sure we would be heading into overtime. With seventeen seconds left, we sent Mike out to complete the miracle comeback. He missed.

It was an unbelievable end to an unbelievable year—the most accurate kicker in history missing a field goal to end our season when we were prohibitive favorites to go to the Super Bowl. The season was over. It had been a season of heartache, both on and off the field.

In the locker room, I faced a devastated group of players. I made it clear that we couldn’t blame Mike. We had just dug ourselves too big a hole to climb out of. “And we almost
did
get out,” I told them. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Pittsburgh win it all; they were confident and hot. We’re just going to have to be better next year. Better in what we do, better in how we play. We’re not going to change our approach. We’ll stay the course, both on and off the field.
”

Sometimes you get everything set up just right. We had worked so hard to earn a bye in the playoffs. To me that seemed even more important than the home field advantage, since winning only twice to get to the Super Bowl gave us more of an advantage than being at home. We’d had both. But having it all set up perfectly isn’t enough. We had to go out and do our job when the time came, and we hadn’t done it. So now we were going to push ahead to the next season. We were going to do what we do and see what happened.

Maybe 2006 would bring us another unforgettable season for different—
much
different—reasons.

Chapter Nineteen: Staying the Course

Leaving the game plan is a sign of panic, and panic is not in our game plan.

—Chuck Noll

SHOULD I COME BACK to coach the Colts in 2006? I spent a couple of days considering that question. After all that had happened, I wanted to make certain that I could focus and lead the team at the level the players deserved. I told Jim Irsay that although I planned to be back, I wanted to see how my mind and my spirit held up once the adrenaline of the 2005 season had worn off. And deep down inside, I wanted to show people that all the things I believed about hope and faith and dealing with heartache were more than just lip service.

Lauren and I prayed about it a lot before the playoff game against Pittsburgh. After that, I was sure I wanted to come back, and Lauren wanted me to as well. We felt it was the right thing to do for our family. I wasn’t ready to give up coaching yet, and we needed to press on if we could. Within a week following the end of the season, I told Jim I was sure I’d be able to do it. I was coming back for 2006.

There had been remarkable similarities between my first few years in Indianapolis and Tampa. Both teams had shown improvement, both had stretches of great play, both had reached the playoffs . . . and both teams had ended year after year with disappointing playoff losses. Just as the Bucs hadn’t been able to get past Philly, the Colts had come up short against their nemesis, New England. The Glazers’ response was understandable, and it’s really the norm in the NFL. They decided to make a coaching change in hopes that something new and different would get the team over that hump. Jim Irsay’s response was to stand by me. He never lost his belief that we could do it. Both strategies produced the same result the following season. I don’t know what the lesson is in that, but I loved Jim’s approach. With all the disappointment of the previous year, I really needed the support of my bosses, and it was great to know that he and Bill Polian were solidly behind me.

I remained convinced that we didn’t need to change the way we did things. In the meantime, however, we were hearing talk from the experts that our “window of opportunity had closed,” that we would never win the big one. This time, I fought the urge to do what we had done in Tampa—making short-term changes in an effort to get over an imaginary barrier. We had been putting ourselves in a position to succeed every year; we just needed to play up to our potential in the postseason. But even though I knew this, I also knew it would be a hard sell when so many people were telling our players differently.

During the off-season, we lost about 40 percent of our offense when running back Edgerrin James decided to sign with Arizona. The media saw this as the latest and clearest sign of the apocalypse—the Colts were finished. Inside the building, however, we were comfortable because we had Dominic Rhodes. We also believed that in time, Joseph Addai, our new first-round draft pick, could fill the position Edgerrin had handled for six years.

Mike Vanderjagt was a free agent as well, and he signed with Dallas. Ironically, we signed Adam Vinatieri from our archrival, the Patriots, to replace him. That miss against Pittsburgh had been Mike’s last kick for the Colts, and unfortunately, even though he made so many big kicks for us, he’ll probably be remembered for the one he missed.

Throughout the off-season, Lauren and I continued to work through our own feelings of loss and grief. Grieving parents and counseling pastors had told us that the death of a child can wreak havoc on even the best of marriages, but we were bound and determined that this wouldn’t happen to us. Having said that, we quickly realized why losing a child is so hard on a marriage. No two people grieve in the same way or recover at the same rate. I don’t think Lauren had very many good days at all during those first few months, and when she
would
finally have one, I would be having a bad day. And different things sent each of us into tailspins. Things that bothered her didn’t always have the same effect on me, while some things that tore me up weren’t a big deal to her. But gradually, we began to have some more normal days—together. Eventually, we began to return to the days when we could just talk and interact as husband and wife.

Eric and Tiara seemed to be healing a little more each day as well. Jordan and Jade talked about Jamie the most, often asking where he was and when they would see him again. This gave us plenty of opportunities to talk about heaven and God’s gift of salvation. Although their young minds couldn’t understand why Jamie wouldn’t be coming back to see us, they could understand the concept of a beautiful place and a God who loves them.

In spite of our pain over losing Jamie, Lauren and I understood that we needed to keep living. In the summer of 2006, we went ahead with our prior plans and adopted Justin. When I see my in-laws, now in their eighties with a high schooler and middle schooler at home, I’m sure that I’m seeing my future.

Justin was born while Lauren, Tiara, Jordan, and Jade were in Pennsylvania visiting Lauren’s family. Eric and I were in Indianapolis as the team finished its off-season workouts, and we were just about to join the family in Pittsburgh when we got the call that Justin had arrived in the world.

“Tony, just go by the hospital, pick him up, and bring him to us.” Lauren tried to make it sound routine, like it was the kind of thing people do every day. She couldn’t fool me.

“What? Does that seem like a good idea?” Lauren’s plan seemed like a good idea to her, but I wasn’t so sure.

“Of course it does. It makes perfect sense.” Lauren’s calm demeanor is tough to counter, especially when she couples facts with logic. I was valiant, but I could feel defeat right around the corner.

“But he’s a brand-new baby. What if he cries or something? What do I do?”

“He’ll need three things: to eat, to be changed, and to sleep. He’ll probably sleep all the way, anyway. Just put him in the car seat and start driving. And if he doesn’t sleep all the way here, I’m sure a fifty-year-old father of five and his fourteen-year-old son can figure it out.”