REST IN PEACE: Tennessee Volunteers Quarterback wife died after given birth to their baby.
He’d handled everything — the bills, the taxes, the boys’ baseball swings — until it was just her. And them. But this moment in front of the school is a good one. Nine years after Mechelle McNair’s world caved in, her oldest son, Tyler, is going to NYU on an academic scholarship. He didn’t just turn out all right. He’s going to kick the world’s ass.
They are best friends. Maybe they would have been anyway, had Steve McNair not been killed. Tyler tells her everything, even the stuff that can get him grounded. In happy times, they belted out SWV songs in Mechelle’s little, red, two-seater Mercedes, his tiny head bobbing to the music. She once took him on a girlfriends-only trip to the Bahamas, and if anyone took issue with it, well, tough. Tyler was her road dog.
In the worst times, she kept both of her little boys beside her in bed, where she could keep them close and safe.
Mechelle is 45 now, and she does not look old enough to be dropping a son off at college. She was slow to trust after her husband’s death and never remarried. She already had two men in her in life: Tyler, 19, and Trent, who just turned 14.
They carry pieces of Steve, from Tyler’s mannerisms to the way Trent calls people “Buddy.” But now one of them is leaving, and Mechelle is just trying not to lose it. The boxes are unpacked, the dorm room is clean, and there is nothing else to do but say goodbye. They hug, and Tyler wants to tell her something before she goes back home to Tennessee. He says she needs to go out more, to have fun sometimes. It surprises her and forces her to ask the inevitable question: Who am I when my kids are grown and gone?