“Marcin, do you ever think about…getting old?”
Marcin Gortat looked over to where Nene was studying his reflection in the mirror. “Sometimes. Why you ask?”
Nene pulled at his beard and shook his head. “I’m getting gray hairs on my face, man. I’m not ready to get old. I’m not ready to die.”
“I think that a few gray hairs on chin does not mean you die soon,” Marcin responded. “It just mean you a man who see a lot.”
These words did not have a consoling effect on Nene. “It’s just like, one day, poof, you’re gone. Dead. That’s going to happen to me someday.”
“Let me give you some Polish wisdom,” Marcin offered. “Death is very popular topic in Poland. We have idiom, ‘Death just mean you not alive anymore. That’s all.’ I try to remember this saying every day.”
Nene looked over at Marcin with a confused look on his face. “That didn’t help at all, man. You Poles got some weird-ass ideas.”
Marcin shrugged and got up to leave. “It help me.” Walking over to where Nene had turned back to his reflection, Marcin patted his teammate on the shoulder. “Think about words I say, okay? When you understand, they help you.”
The gray hairs were still there despite Nene trying to cover them up with the black ones. He thought about the alleged wisdom of the Poles. “Death just means you aren’t alive anymore.” Suddenly, it made sense. Feeling as if a weight had been lifted from his chest, Nene turned away from the mirror to continue living his life.