Deserving, and Kayla Miller

Allow me to introduce you to one of my best friends. Her name is Kayla Miller. If you are not in the lucky group that gets to know Kayla, I simply have two words for you:

I'm sorry.

 I'm sorry you don't get to experience the beauty that is Kayla Miller. I'm sorry you aren't afforded the opportunity to be inspired by her kindness and astonished by her love each and every day. I'm sorry you can't know just how sweet she is, even being sweeter than the delicious treats she'll deliver to people on the days that they need them.


Without any sort of reservations or conditions, I can say that Kayla Miller is easily the nicest person I know, and probably the nicest person I will ever know. This is not hyperbole, this is fact. Kayla is always willing to help others even when it's insanely inconvenient for her. She's incredibly thoughtful, and always does good things even without any sort of provocation from an outside source. She is ferociously kind and intensely wonderful even without expecting any sort of return. She is humble and selfless and magnificent and breathtaking and determined and loving and extraordinary. At her base, Kayla Miller is just genuinely a good person, and I love her to death.

In addition to being a fantastically good person, Kayla is an incredible athlete. At our school, Kayla is a very important member of the girls lacrosse team (although she'd never tell you that; her humility is slightly frustrating as she sells herself short sometimes).

Kayla, tearing it up as usual (via Jenna Miller//Instagram)
While Kayla is a great lacrosse player, she is not immortal. In her game this past Monday evening, she was hit in the head by an opposing player's lacrosse stick and received a concussion. Over the last several days, she has been in a lot of pain and has been stuck at home, doing her best to recover. As her mom reported in an Instagram post Saturday:

"Five days in, she still feels immense pressure on her head and spent a few hours in the ER last night, as we try to better manage her pain. Recovery is slow, and takes patience, but she really wants to get back to some type of normal."

Now I am no expert on concussions or head injuries or lacrosse or Kayla or anything but I know that this whole situation sucks. I know that Kayla is in a really rough place right now and I wish I could do more to help her get better.

And so as this whole thing unfolds, I keep thinking about one thing: deserving.

Kayla, this wonderful girl, doesn't deserve to be going through this. Her always-kind self didn't do anything wrong to justify the pain she is feeling right now. In my head, it doesn't feel like this should happen.

It just doesn't seem fair.

And so I refer back to a lesson I learned a few years ago. In answer to the age old question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I received this answer:

Bad things happen to good people because your actions and the things that happen to you are independent events. Bad things happen to good people in the same way that good things happen to bad people because your fate is controlled by more than just your choices.

I was taught this lesson by a man named John Green, author of several popular young adult books (The Fault in our Stars, Paper Towns, etc.) and Youtuber. On his Youtube channel, Vlogbrothers, John once posted a video where he explained how sometimes, it all just comes down to luck. This video was created as John was getting a lot of attention for the movie adaptation of his book, The Fault in our Stars. While he appreciated all of this, he felt a little undeserving, because he said a lot of the reason the book got popular and was made into such a great movie just came down to him getting lucky. He said:

"I would argue that in addition to not deserving all of the wonderful things that happen in life, we don't deserve all of the terrible things... No one deserves chronic pain or dementia or poverty. It's almost like "deserving" isn't the best way to imagine it....[I]t's not about deserving anything, because you are not your luck. No matter your circumstances, you are valuable and rare and worthy of love." 

So yeah, Kayla doesn't deserve to have a concussion. She doesn't deserve to be in pain and she shouldn't have to deal with all this. In an oversimplified way, I guess you could say she just got unlucky.

But as I think more about luck, I realize how lucky I am. I'm lucky that Kayla Miller is in my life, and I'm lucky that we're friends. She's about a million times cooler than I am and really the only reason we're friends is because she's way too nice to tell me otherwise. I appreciate her constant smile and her positive attitude and her dance skills and her funny jokes and her laugh. Oh, man, I miss her laugh. It's one of those things that you'll notice is gone from your life even if it's only been missing a few days. I can't wait until I can hear it again.


Although Kayla (due to her concussion) won't be able to read this post for a while, I'll leave a note for her anyway. I don't know when, exactly, it'll get to her, but I know it'll make it to her sometime.

Kayla,
I'm sorry about your concussion. It's really rough when you're just trying to be the best athlete out there and play the sport you love and someone just has to come in and hit you in the head. Rude, right? Anyway, I just want to let you know that I think the world of you and I've been praying for you every day. I hope you get better real soon. I miss you a ton and can't wait to visit you again.
Love you lots,
Giancarlo

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