Patrick Mahomes misses the Masters. Me too, and we all miss something due to COVID-19
To those criticizing Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes for being tone deaf or trivial because he tweeted Friday, “Man im sad I’m not at the masters right now”: With all due respect, put a sock in it.
Only in 2020 America can you be guilty of saying absolutely nothing wrong, untoward or offensive and still get brickbats thrown at you.
Even if he weren’t one of the best role models around, and a model citizen to boot — during the COVID-19 crisis Mahomes has donated 15,000 meals to Harvesters food bank, and his 15 and the Mahomies Foundation committed $100,000 in aid to school lunch programs — the Kansas City Chiefs’ 24-year-old superstar quarterback would still have every right and reason to miss the iconic Masters golf tournament. Just like you’re missing the NBA, Major League Baseball, hockey, and just like your heart broke over the canceled NCAA basketball tournament or your kid’s prom, graduation, soccer game or debut as a woodland animal in the school play.
We’ve collectively lost a lifetime of unmade memories. There’s something every one of us is missing this spring. It’s real, actual, legitimate grief. And you have every right to it. Even if we’re blessed enough that it’s not the death of a loved one during this frightening pandemic, we can still feel others’ loss completely and utterly — and at the same time we can, and actually should, be mourning all the celebrations and events and institutions the coronavirus has separated us from.
Neither are our seasonal sporting and cultural events trivial. They are the source of unending joy in an often drab and, currently, cruel and intimidating world. They are the mile markers of our lives by which we chart the passage of time and moments of passing euphoria. And, as Kansas City just experienced with the Chiefs’ Super Bowl championship, they are unifying and community-building.
I miss the Masters too, for what it matters.
Having had the privilege of living and working in Augusta, Georgia, where the Masters is played every year during this first full week of April, I’ve caught some of the prior years’ Masters telecasts being played back on ESPN. It fills me with longing to be back there, to walk those hallowed grounds, to sit on the hill at the 16th green and hope for holes-in-one while enjoying the absurdly affordable food and drink there. I miss my friends and have been watching for their faces in the gallery during ESPN’s playback of past rounds.
As I watch, I wish with all my heart that what I was seeing was live. It’s like looking at a photo album of people you can’t visit anymore. You really have to have experienced it as a resident year after year to completely appreciate the deafening void when it’s gone.
Scott Van Pelt, thank you for appreciating it too, and standing up for young Mr. Mahomes.
“I miss being at an event I have covered for 20 years,” the ESPN anchor tweeted in defense of Mahomes. “I’m allowed to miss that while understanding the seriousness of the moment.
“People who insist on your way of looking at life are exhausting.”
Absolutely.
This is a very weird cascade of casualties we’re going through. All the events and institutions we’ve had ripped from us these past weeks create a mass deprivation, a multitude of bereavements. It’s a shared experience, and yet how we grieve is such a personal thing. How presumptuous and wrong for one person to tell another how to grieve, or what loss to lament.
To Patrick Mahomes and everyone missing someone or something today: Don’t ever let anyone else try to stop you from grieving any loss, however large or small. Even when shared by a throng, the loss is yours, and yours alone. It’s genuine, it’s appropriate, it’s human — and, most important, it’s healthy.
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 5:36 PM.
