No moment of silence will be quiet enough. No video will be somber enough. No editorial can be reflective enough to understand the suicide of Marshawn Kneeland. There will never be closure. There will never be understanding. We can only make inferences as to how a 24-year-old man could be so disenchanted with the world that he would kill himself only days after scoring his first NFL touchdown. Every little boy in America at one point or another dreams of scoring an NFL touchdown but Marshawn actually did—in real life. But alas, joy is only temporary. The feeling of euphoria comes down fast and then as quickly as you fall on a blocked punt in the end zone, you’re being pursued by police officers for a traffic violation. That’s when all the hatred, all the feelings of inadequacy, all of the trauma, and all of those insecurities ravage your consciousness at once. And you realize that you exist only in the space between how you thought success would be and what it actually feels like. It is in this chasm that Marshawn put a bullet into his 6’3 268 pound frame and ended all uncertainty.

I don’t pretend to understand. I will never actually get it. I just know that I once felt like an unforgivable burden, like a stain on my entire family and reasoned that if I were gone—If I were to leave this place then everyone else would be so much better off. Thank God I did not own a gun before my prefrontal cortex had fully developed. Thank God I had no fame. Thank God I was completely broke. Thank God no children looked up to me as if I was a hero when I was only 24 years old. Thank God millions of men around the country didn’t think that I had actually made it. I wouldn’t have been able to lie to them for that long. I wouldn’t have been able to lie to myself. For what does it mean to truly make it? To make what? To make money? To make the team? To be on nationwide television and still feel hollow. To smile through an entire interview yet feel like dying the whole time. Everyone feels like they know the formula for happiness, and although it may vary from person to person, money is always a part of the equation. No amount of money can make a person value life. There is no intervention that can save a person who is determined to kill themself. There is no reason, no rationale, no logic in this decision. All that young man knew was that he didn’t want to hurt anymore. And I just hope that he’s no longer in pain. 

RIP Marshawn Kneeland