The first one always seems to be the hardest

I grew up as a fan of the Cincinnati Reds during the Big Red Machine.  Those were great years, and the eight starters were quite a collection of Hall of Famers (they should ALL be in the hall) and were know as the 'Great Eight'.  I remember how awful it felt when Joe Morgan died, not just because it was sad he had passed away, but because the Great Eight could never be together again, at least on this side of Heaven.  I felt the same way when Matthew Perry passed away in October.  It was not just losing such a part of our culture, but the six Friends could never be together again.  It is happening again, although on a far more personal level.  In high school, I was a stat for the boys' soccer team.  Our team had quite a dynasty going at the time, and was even ranked first in the state at times.  We made it to the state final four twice, regional finals (final 8) our senior year, and regional semi-finals (final 16) once.  Several classmates of mine played varsity as freshman. and the best player on the team was Scotty.  He was was named second-team All American our senior year and went on to play college soccer.  The last regular season game of our senior year, a photographer captured a picture of the nine senior guys who played that year, and they grabbed me to join in the pic.  I love that photo, and it hangs on my wall to this day.  Over a decade after we graduated, Scotty was named head coach, and eventually coached a team not only to the state title game, but to the first state soccer title in school history.  As a teammate said, it was only fitting that the title team was coached by the greatest player who ever wore the uniform.  Two weeks ago, Scotty had an incident that led to him being in a diabetic coma.  We were all encouraged by the progress that was being made, but overnight he had a cardiac event.  He was revived, but doctors confirmed today that he won't be able to recover.  It's heartbreaking.  His father passed away just last week.  I can't imagine how his brother is coping.  I keep looking at that picture from our senior year.  Even though we haven't all been in the same place since the day we graduated, knowing that it can never happen again adds to the sadness.  Prayers to his family.