Thank You for Saving My Life

Almost no one was surprised last May when Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder was designated the Most Valuable Player in the National Basketball Association. He had led the league in scoring by a comfortable margin, and even his most likely competitors argued for his selection. The surprise came a couple of days later, when he gave his acceptance speech. It was a masterpiece of raw emotion, a triumph that matched the original award. If you haven’t seen it already on your home computer, catch it as soon as you can. It’s well worth watching.

Durant began, refreshingly enough, by thanking God “for saving my life.” It’s a little unusual to hear God’s name at all in a talk of this sort, and Durant made it a point to open his acceptance that way. Next he spoke of his upbringing near Washington, D.C., and his plan to “stay home” and become a coach - but his own career was already on the move.

“Along the way I’ve had so much help,” he said. “People believed in me when I didn’t do well, when I didn’t believe in myself. I fell so many times but I got back up. And I’m still standing.”

Next he turned to his teammates, all of whom were present. Durant wept real tears as unapologetically he thanked them, one by one: “Late-night calls after tough games”...”When I needed an extra push, you were there”... “Words can’t explain how I feel about you.” For Russell Westbrook, a star in his own right, he saved a special mention. “You would run through a wall for me,” he said. “You set the tone.”

Nor did he forget the Oklahoma City fans. That was fitting, since the city has welcomed the franchise to an extraordinary degree. As part of its official greeting, it even made sure that team members saw some of the local sights, including Bricktown, the now-restored factory district full of parks and restaurants, and the Memorial at the site of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, where 168 Oklahomans lost their lives.

Finally the tears flowed freely as Durant paid tribute to his Mom (who was also there for the presentation). In the emotional highlight of an emotional speech, he chose his words carefully:

“I don’t know how you did what you did. You were a single parent with two boys by the time you were 21. We moved from one apartment to another by ourselves. One of my best memories I have is when we moved into our first apartment. No bed, no furniture...We all sat in the living room, on the floor, and just hugged each other. We thought we had made it.

“When you didn’t eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You’re the real MVP.”

Durant closed as he began, by thanking God again through his tears. “He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega,” he said. The final phrase of the speech, directed to God, was simple indeed: “Thank you for saving my life.”

He didn’t explain it, nor did he have to. The eloquence of his words saw to that.

(This essay is a recent “Light One Candle” column, written by Jerry Costello, of The Christophers; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.)

Background information:

The Christophers