Chapter 74
The church was packed to the rafters – standing room only. People had come from far and wide to farewell Chad at his memorial service. School friends, college buddies, work colleagues, teammates, fellow competitors, Olympic officials, media staff and more had streamed into the cavernous space as soon as the doors were flung open. People were left out in the foyer, forced to watch the proceedings on remote monitors and listen over loudspeakers. The turnout was testament to Chad and the lives he had touched over the course of his all-too-brief time on the planet.
I nervously approached the lectern, settled myself and then raised my head to face the throng. I extracted the ratty notepaper from my pocket and studied the chicken scratchings that I had scrawled a lifetime ago in a r
