Trigger warning: This story mentions suicide.
I sat in the corner of the end zone waiting for the snap and pressed the Canon’s viewfinder into my cheek to block the tears streaming from my eyes. The 45,055 fans roaring at TCU’s Amon G. Carter Stadium were not enough to drown out my grief or make me feel less than completely alone.
I grew up in Garland, Texas, about an hour away. I went to high school in Dallas and played softball all four years, making lifelong friendships at that school and on that team. Allie Burns is, was and always will be one of my favorite friends. But sometimes lifelong doesn’t last as long as we hope.
That OU game against the Horned Frogs in 2018 came three days after I received a phone call telling me that Allie had died. I had planned to drive home from Norman on Friday morning, readying to shoot the game in my second season as a photographer for The Daily, but my emotions pressed me back to Texas two days early.
After pulling into my family’s garage, falling into the arms of my father, all I wanted to do that weekend was cry. Instead, what I ended up doing was using muscle memory — much like Allie and I had used on the softball field where my dad helped coach us — to track the ball on each play, edit photos and publish galleries. I had a job to do, and while my body was on that field in Fort Worth, my mind was reeling to retrieve any memory of Allie.
Photographing a football game is hard, especially on the road where I typically work alone on the sideline. But taking pictures amid grief, confusion and sadness was something I never imagined doing, much less so near home, with my thoughts consumed by a person who meant so much to me.
SHE WAS THE SUN.
I met Allie in 2012 during our freshman year of high school.
My first memory of her is thinking she had ended up at the wrong tryout since she looked much more like a soccer star than a softball player. She was tiny, barely coming up to my chest, but you could hear her a mile away. Soon, though, I understood her personality was radiant. She was so much more than a ray of sunshine. She was the sun.
When I think of my high school friends, Allie is the most loyal. I don’t know one person who knew Allie who wouldn’t say the same. She was so much more than a teammate. She was a confidant, a fierce supporter and someone you could count on no matter what was happening in her life. Our old dugout is my favorite place to remember her. Anytime you looked through that fence, you could see her jumping and screaming for her teammates. Anytime she made a mistake on that field, she literally shook it off (it was more like a shimmy), then immediately refocused to make sure her team had the support it needed.
Allie cared about people. She made me feel like I was the most important person in her life anytime we talked. We bonded over our love of softball, but our friendship became more than just teammates. When I explored my passion for photography, she was one of the first to cheer me on. As we got older, we talked about college and possible careers. Her love of sports and caring for people drew her to nursing and Texas Tech. My softball background and growing passion for sports photography drew me to OU. We graduated, made Big 12 jokes about our futures and promised to stay in touch. And while we didn’t talk as much as we used to in the months ahead, Allie always made a point to comment on my social media posts and text me whenever we were both back home.
GROWING PAINS.
Sometimes, life — like adapting to college, becoming an adult or learning to hit the change-up — is a blur.
Covering my first season of OU football as a sophomore was like that. I had photographed only one football game before that season, but fueled by my old competitiveness, I felt a lot of pressure to suddenly become the best. At The Daily, I had people around me to offer advice and support, but no one can really prepare you for your first road game alone, when all of your organization's visuals rest on what you capture in that viewfinder.
While I thought I was doing great when I shot OU-Baylor in Waco in 2017, I definitely needed help. I no longer had the bonds, trust or unwavering support of that team I had in high school. In their absence, I at first didn’t ask for that help and tried to figure it out alone. But soon, from conversations on the sidelines, in car rides and in the newsroom, I let go of the idea that I needed to know everything and accepted the help of others.
Soon, I had created a new team here with The Daily and with my fellow photographers. Throughout my first season, I gained experience and, in time, confidence. Photographing OU-Texas at the Cotton Bowl and the Big 12 Championship near my hometown made me feel like people could finally see what I was capable of. And that was before I and our team at The Daily flew to Pasadena, California, at the end of the 2017 season for the “Granddaddy of Them All.”
When I walked onto the field at the Rose Bowl, I knew I wanted that feeling for the rest of my life. The grandeur, excitement and scale of it all inspired me to have the best game of that season. Friends from high school thought it was so cool that I got to spend New Year’s in Los Angeles, Allie included. We spent a couple of days the next summer helping out with softball camp back home, and we talked about how our lives had changed. She was so happy and excited to start nursing classes. She was so proud of the work I had been doing. I was so proud of her, ever selfless, finding her path to help others.
It would be the last time I would ever see Allie alive.
GRIEF TO GREATNESS.
It couldn’t be true. But it was.
I learned that Allie had died while I walked to The Daily's newsroom from the stadium parking garage on Oct. 17, 2018. She couldn’t be dead, I thought. She was so happy. She made me happy. She couldn’t be gone, I thought. She was always there for me. And she, ever loyal, always would be.
I was wrong. She was gone. Death by suicide at 21.
After the TCU game, after the viewing, after the funeral, after the drive back to Norman, I tried to get back to normal. But normal, in some fashion, included Allie. My hands shook every time I tried to type or pick up a camera. I was lost, and it worsened when I realized my next big assignment was traveling to the place where she had died, Texas Tech, to photograph the Sooners’ next road game.
I had never been to Lubbock. Driving into town, I didn’t know what I would feel. I got caught up in the whirlwind of pregame and getting set up in the photo room, so I didn’t feel the pain of holding back tears until kickoff. I tried to focus on the game and my job, but I was haunted by a memory I didn’t even have. Allie went to that school. Allie went to those games. Allie should have been at that one. Allie should have been with me there that night.
Some of Allie’s friends and family wear a ring with an “A” on it now to honor her. Mine is on my shutter finger. I look at it and can feel her presence with every click of that button. At Texas Tech, I felt her more than ever. I was alone on that field, but I was still supported by her. After the game, looking out at the twinkling lights of a city I never knew, I softly wept thinking about the friend I had lost in the city she left behind. Driving away from Lubbock that night, the tears turned to sobs. It felt like I was leaving her there. While I had found my team and my people at OU, I felt guilty I never knew she hadn’t been able to do the same at Tech.
It felt wrong to be there without her.
Afterward, reflecting on the good and appreciating what I'd learned from the bad, I found myself fidgeting with my “A” ring whenever I got nervous. Joyful moments felt differently when I remembered who I couldn’t share them with. So last spring, when I was offered an NFL photo internship, the first people I thought to tell were my family and my friends. Standing in my apartment, I looked down at my hands and remembered the one person I wouldn’t be able to share the news with. I knew how proud she would be, though — just like back in the dugout, where she’d jump so high and unleash a scream that left all 4-foot-something of her physically unable to contain her excitement — if I could tell her.
FLEETING, YET FOREVER.
I walked into the Walgreens off Main Street in Norman early in August of my senior year and bought a Kodak FunSaver single-use camera.
After my summer internship in Los Angeles, heading into my last football season with The Daily, I reflected on everything that had gone into the past two years. I thought about how fleeting time is, and how our time can be cut short at any moment. I thought about Allie.
The digital photographs I had been taking were not permanent enough. I needed something, anything, to help me feel like I had more, some, any control over the passing of time that made me feel older and further from my friend with every passing day.
So with that little Kodak, I committed to taking at least one photo — on film, to be developed into 4-by-6 mementos — each game, so I could look back and hold a piece of history in my hands.
I was stronger and more ready for this season, and I wanted to prove it.
During the home opener, I felt closer to her than ever when I took photos from an airplane above Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Nearly 2,500 feet above the 84,534 fans in attendance that day, I felt like she — the “Falcon” to my “Cap,” as we two Marvel geeks called each other — was right there next to me. It was a special way to start my last season: doing something new and scary but still feeling supported by my team, Allie included.
Still, as the season progressed, I continued to get nervous when I photographed away games by myself. The pressure of being the only one there for my team and feeling like I still had to prove myself was — is — a lot to handle. We went back to Baylor this season, where I first tried shooting an away game alone, and the work I produced this time was some of my best to date. But each time I stepped onto a college football field was, I knew, closer to my last time.
There is a pressure and a sadness that comes with lasts. Every last since Allie’s death has been bittersweet, knowing that she can’t experience those moments with her team. I tried to soak in everything at my last home game, to really absorb, for the first time, just being there. I was so grateful, so passionate, so happy to simply be able to be on that field. The Peach Bowl was my season finale, and as the game came to a close, I reflected on my season and grabbed for the Canon and the Kodak one last time. I pushed through my sadness once more to get my work done. I focused on capturing the players amid all their emotions. There wasn’t time for mine.
There was, though, time to be brave.
“Time and again ... it’s time to be brave.” That lyric was sent to me by my adviser the minute I got off the Cessna at Norman's Max Westheimer Airport after taking pictures over the stadium during the first game this season. Looking back — at my time with Allie, my time at OU and my time of adapting to life without her — I have lived just that.
She was brave. And she inspired me to be brave. I have learned that time is not always on your side. We need to use it wisely. To appreciate every little thing that comes your way. To invest in people like Allie did. To feel every emotion and not be afraid to let people see it. To document, however is right for you, and capture the moments you don’t want to forget.
To hold on to the past and look toward the future.
To be brave. Time and again.
If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or relationship abuse or is considering suicide, help is available 24/7 at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
