Rogers: Leah Still eases our pain by attending game

The National Football League is the last place I would ever have expected to find a shred of comfort on the most difficult anniversary of all.

Yet there it was on Thursday night, as in a heavenly frozen moment we saw the angelic face of 4-year-old Leah Still, and not the talk about player misconduct that has dominated this season.

Leah's chance to watch her father Devon Still play for the Cincinnati Bengals for the first time, as she battles cancer that started in her stomach and invaded her bones, coincided with the most wrenching turn of the calendar for myself and my wife Carol.

Nov. 6 should have been the first birthday of our daughter Sophia, who came into the world after just 25 weeks of pregnancy, weighing less than two pounds, at a hospital that overlooks a beautiful ocean she never got to see.

With her lungs unable to function properly, our precious, perfect little baby passed away the next day, after what I now look at as the best 33 hours I may ever have, followed by a year of utter emptiness.

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Sometimes you cry, sometimes you hold back the wish to scream and spout anger at the world. Sometimes you just sit, hollow.

Leah Still, surrounded by family and clad in a miniature version of daddy's No. 75 Bengals jersey underneath a bright pink jacket at a ceremony in her honor at Paul Brown Stadium, made me cry again on Thursday. But this time they were happy tears, like the ones she shed leaving the field.

For me, she is a living, breathing reminder that every day is a win, every moment a special triumph. We never had enough of them with Sophia, but my mind's eye clings to every single one; her kicking her legs in the incubator like she had in my wife's womb, squeezing my pinky with her tiny hand, even when we held and bathed her in the moments after doctors had been unable to save her.

Illness and suffering come in enough cruel guises for the tale of Devon Still's daughter to mean something different to everyone. For some there is just the simple tragedy that an innocent child has been given a 50% chance of survival. For others it provides inspiration to fight and survive and never give up and, more than anything, to cherish our children.

For those who have experienced the loss or critical illness of an infant, seeing Leah and that wonderful smile gnawed at one of the most basic instincts of all, which is to protect our young. By his own admission that was a reality that threatened to consume Devon Still, the sudden understanding that nature is a force no amount of training or physical strength can ever combat.

As a father such feelings are humbling, crushing and swallow you whole.

In the cases of those whose small ones don't make it, the grief is always there, like a heavy and uncomfortable shadow, and one that can turn around and strike you in the gut at any time. The sight of small girls in soccer uniforms, or a bride being walked down the aisle by a proud dad reminds you of every hope and dream that was taken away.

Part of the healing process is to be able to find solace in unlikely places, in anything — in a quote, in the words of a stranger, in whispering her name when you see a rare flower and even, on a strange and soothing night, in the NFL.

The NFL empire doesn't do everything right, far from it, and has barely weathered a storm of bile hurled in its direction over the past months, much of it warranted. But this was right, every part of it, from the respectfulness of the fans to the compassion of the Bengals to the decency of the league not to muscle in on the kind of feel-good story it desperately craves.

More than 30 years ago Harold S. Kushner wrote a wonderful book that is still used to help parents whose children either pass away, or suffer life-threatening illness. It is called When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

In pro sports, the NFL's character is that of an uncompromising corporate giant, an image it can't shake and frankly sometimes seems to revel in. But its reach and impact makes it capable of good deeds too, powerful, moving things that are greater than a sport or a shield or an intra-state rivalry.

At Thursday night's game, a beautiful 4-year-old showed us that.

Follow Martin Rogers on Twitter @mrogersUSAT.