Aching for answers

An outpouring of pain at Sean Taylor's funeral has familiar feel.

By JOHN ROMANO, Times Staff Writer
Published December 4, 2007

Sean Taylor's casket is ushered out after the funeral in Miami. About 3,000 attended, including many from the NFL.
	[Getty Images]

ADVERTISEMENT [Getty Images] Pedro Taylor is escorted into the funeral for his son, an NFL star who became the third University of Miami football player murdered since 1996. [AP photo] Asleep at her father's funeral, Jackie, 18 months old, was just one example of how Sean Taylor was maturing. [AP photo] Steve Hoey, Sean Taylor's high school football coach at Gulliver Prep in Miami, kneels before the casket. The entire Redskins team attended the funeral at Florida International University.

MIAMI -- The truth lies somewhere beyond the headlines. Beyond the handful of words that sum up the story of a man, and beyond the snap judgments that inevitably follow.

Sean Taylor was far from perfect. You heard of enough incidents, and read enough headlines, to know this to be true. He could be reckless. He could be insolent. And he had the fines and court dates to prove it.

So who was the man lying in the flower-draped casket and grieved by thousands Monday? Who was the brother, the son, the fiance, the friend, the teammate and the father they spoke about and cried over?

Sean Taylor was more than you know. More than an All-American at the University of Miami, and more than a Pro Bowl safety with the Washington Redskins.

He was the son of a police officer. A son proud to have attended his father's swearing-in ceremony as the chief of police in Florida City.

He was a friend in the old neighborhood. Enough of a friend that, hours after winning a national championship at Miami in 2002, he flew all night from the Rose Bowl so he wouldn't miss a scheduled appearance at a youth team's banquet.

Mostly, he was a concerned parent. Jackie is 18 months old and has no understanding of how her father was fatally shot a few feet away from her while he got out of bed to investigate a home invasion last week.

"Sean did not lose his life," Pastor David Peay Sr. said Monday. "Sean gave his life."

The impact goes beyond the evening news. Beyond the few minutes devoted to a local television report, and beyond the column or two in a newspaper.

Monday's mourners arrived in limos and buses. In suits and T-shirts. They arrived in the morning and stayed through much of the afternoon. Jesse Jackson and O.J. Simpson were there. So were NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the entire Redskins team. Forgotten teammates from high school showed up, as did Edgerrin James and Jeremy Shockey.

The idea was to bid farewell, but the day will be difficult to leave behind. For as you sat in an arena at Florida International University and watched the film clips of a man who will never grow old, there was a frightening intimacy to the moment.

A realization that your world can turn faster than gravity or an orbit would have you believe.

"I thought when he came to the Redskins, I was his guardian angel. The way events went, as God would have it, he turned out to be one of mine," former Redskins teammate LaVar Arrington said. "So, today, my heart is broken. I'll get through it. We'll all get through it. But I know now he was one of my guardian angels. ... And this just serves as a period for all of us to reflect on how much we love one another and how much we appreciate one another."

The tragedy goes beyond the death of one man. For it is part of a pattern that is horrifying and, yet, somehow tolerated. We have arrived at a point in this country where the lives of young, black men have seemingly become inconsequential.

A recent study showed that nearly 50 percent of the deaths of black men ages 20-24 are due to homicide. For white men, the figures are less than 10 percent.

This is the tragedy of Sean Taylor's life. That a man could be fatally wounded in his home in the middle of the night, and it barely registers on our collective shock scale. Taylor is the third UM football player to have been murdered since 1996 and the second NFL player to have been shot to death in the past 11 months.

"We are slow learners. We are in a hole, looking for a shovel, when what we really need is a rope," the Rev. Jackson said. "To you, who remain, and to your children and your families, I say we need soldiers to put out this fire that has engulfed Sean. We need a new game plan."

The heartbreak, thankfully, goes beyond anything most of us will know. For this was a 24-year-old man. Rich and famous, yes, but a man just now realizing his potential in life.

He had made his reputation on a football field, but he was beginning to make his mark elsewhere too. He was calmer. He was more mature. He was 18 months into his new job as a daddy and, by all indications, was a huge success.

This is the sadness of Monday's funeral. The stark acknowledgement beyond all the tributes and amens. Not just that a man's life was cut short but that a child's life will forever change.

The service was about halfway completed when Jackie Taylor began making a commotion in the front row, about 10 feet away from the closed casket holding her father.

"Da da," she shouted. "Da da."

A family member handed Jackie a glossy funeral notice with Sean's picture on the front.

The child grasped the picture with both hands.

And, for a moment, she was silent.

John Romano can be reachedat romano@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 4, 2007, 01:18:09]