i played poker tonight. i played at a bar with a lot of people i didn't know. none of that is unusual. sitting next to a guy that died in the middle of the poker tournament is, however, very different. i don't even know how to write about something like this. i witnessed a death tonight. i witnessed a death…
i don't know how to feel. i know how i felt physically, but mentally i think i'm a mess. the first thing i thought to myself was, “who is going to tell this guy's family?”. because many people, like myself, go to the place to play poker by themselves. they may know people there, but most people don't bring the wife and kids.
how can someone just die like that? one minute you're alive and playing poker. the next minute, 40 people are crowding you and the lone person trying to resuscitate you. so the second thing i thought was, “this is not the way to die”. this is not the place, not the crowd, not the atmosphere that i want to die in. and i could easily avoid dying in a location such as a bar if i knew when i was going to die. so that pretty much settles it. i'm never going back to a bar to play poker. some of you might say that i'm letting this affect me too much. to which i say: yes, i'm letting this affect me enough to want to change my life for the better.
i called everyone i knew to tell them about this. my mom said something interesting. she said, “it was just this guy's time to go.” so simple, yet profound. i guess that's kinda how i'm dealing with this. there's nothing that could have been done to save him, if it was his time to go. there's no use trying to change it. however, it brings up the thought of witnessing in my mind. i'm not going to try to start the predestination vs. freewill discussion. if you want to start that discussion, do it somewhere else. i do believe that they can coexist and i believe that it is my responsibility to share the gospel with those that don't believe. that said, i need to be doing it. i'm failing miserably.
i don't know this guy that died tonight. i barely noticed him. i don't think that i would have done anything differently if i had noticed him. i wished tonight that i hadn't seen him die. i wished that i hadn't been at the bar playing poker. i wished that i had stayed home and watched tv.
and then i realized that i had missed the point.
