6 years ago today, Gavin Rupp, a 13 year old baseball player from Ashburn died after a battle with brain cancer. As Gavin played on teams in both Dulles Little League and NVTBL, his story was well known in the community. I knew of Gavin because of the effort these leagues and Kyle's Kamp, a pediatric cancer organization, made to get the word out to support him and his family. There were rallies and fundraisers. Local players wore ribbons and dyed their hair in support. Gavin's #15 was painted on dugouts and fields across the area. All night after I heard that he had passed away, I lay awake, tossing and turning, crying and praying, and sneaking in to my boys' bedrooms to watch them sleep and hear them breathe. Mostly I was thinking about his mother - a woman I didn't know, but who today is a dear friend. I wondered how we could make sense of the senseless and what we would tell children who had prayed so earnestly. And personally, I feared what would become of my faith, so bruised and battered as it was that night. At 3:00 am I got up to write this piece. Perhaps some of our NVTBL readers have seen it over the years. I read it every year to remember that night and the things that I think God wanted me to hear from Him. Every year, I have to forgive myself for having days that I have forgotten those lessons that I thought I'd never let slip, but I also marvel at how much my life and the lives of my children were changed by a boy we never really knew.
So today, we ask you to remember a baseball player you also likely never knew. We ask you to please pray for the Rupp family. While time might dress wounds up and make them less gaping and garish, it certainly doesn't heal them. Grief and hurt and shock remain. Especially today. God bless you, Gavin Rupp. You are never forgotten.
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