“Hey, it’s a Bronco[s] fan,” the man said. I felt the sympathy in his voice.
***
Finally, it was Saturday. I was nervous. Yet, I felt that it was extremely important for me to attend the funeral. I felt that this event would impact me for the rest of my life, and I dearly wanted to pay my respects. Before we left, I wrote a letter to Darrent Williams' mother and placed it in my Bible.
I didn’t feel right in wearing my Denver Broncos clothing to a funeral, but I wore a dark blue polo shirt with an orange stripe running horizontally across the chest. Broncos colors to match my Broncos watch.
As we got near to the church, I called the cell phone number of the Broncos fan from Austin. “This is Gab,” came the answer, but I couldn’t hear very well because of the noisy traffic. “Hi, this is Steven Thorn. May I speak to Gabriel, please?” I said.
I probably sounded a little dumb asking for “Gabriel” after he had already said who he was, but I wanted to make sure I had the right guy. He probably didn’t mind anyway.
“We’re on our way to the church and we’re almost there,” I continued. “Like I said, I’m wearing the dark blue polo shirt with an orange stripe running horizontally across the chest. Where outside the church did you want to meet?”
“Well, there’s a long line outside the church and I’m in it, so I’m just going to go ahead and go in,” Gabriel said. “Ah, okay,” I responded.
“Thanks for calling though,” he said. “Means a lot.”
“Alright, bye,” I said.
“Bye.”
I felt really bad that we didn’t connect in person, but when I lifted my eyes from the phone, I saw exactly what he meant about the crowds of people.
We had left our house at about eleven o'clock a.m., expecting to get there in plenty of time. However, it took us about thirty minutes to find a parking spot.
While we crawled through the traffic toward the church, I saw who I assumed to be family members of Darrent walking toward the church from the back parking lots. Further along, I could see a trail of buses parked, which I assumed to be the buses that the team came in. Then I saw the carriage that had his body in it.
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