Tupa: Why do anything special if it's going to hurt in the end? It's all a part of living

One of the most poignant, and sad, scenes I’ve observed during the years is the reaction of senior players at the end of their final game.

Many of them go off a few feet by themselves, crouch or kneel, and weep at the realization of the sudden finality.

Others — their faces glistening with tears — hug coaches or teammates, knowing they will never pass this path of life again and wanting to absorb its magic before the stars of youth fade away.

More from Mike Tupa:I've covered legends, but local players are real stars of my professional universe

Although never a big fan of the actor James Dean, an interesting ancedote about him kind of touched me.

It occurred during the making of his movie “East of Eden,” in which he demonstrated how close to the surface his emotions resided.

On the final day of shooting, a co-star stopped by to say goodbye and found him crying from sadness because the experience was done.

When I heard that, a memory floated through my mind and fed a lump that kept growing in my throat.

I remembered back to an evening in early 1971 when I walked down Second Street, in Ogden City, Utah, through the morose darkness.

I sobbed as I tripped over my broken heart.

Just an hour prior, maybe a little longer, the curtain had fallen on the final performance of the Highland Junior High theatrical performance of “The Hobbit.”

In the afterglow of the finale, a sense of relief and completion washed overall of the actors and our teacher Mrs. David, obviously ahead of her time in choosing to put on a play based on a British-export book that was just starting to find its stride among a United States audience.

My mom had taken time off work the previous night to see the opening night, along with my sister and great-grandma.

But, I had no family in the audience the second night.

The parents of a fellow classmate drove me part of the way. I asked them to let me off at their place so I could walk the rest of the way. I knew our house — a 100-plus year old structure built back in the early days of the settling of Ogden — set way back off the street would be bathed in Cimmerian stillness.

As I crossed the Five Points intersection, an overwhelming emotion fell on me, almost like a physical lead blanket.

I began to weep. The reality of the play’s ending — the hectic, often unpleasant hours of after-school practice, made more difficult by my having to rush home to do my paper route; the many hours given up on Saturdays to walk the mile-plus distance to school for weekend rehearsals; the incredible accordion-taunt spectrum of nerves and fears that squeezed in and out as the opening night approached; the privileged and crushing responsibility of playing one of the key characters (Gandalt the Wizard), who delivered the play’s first line; the forming of friendships or associations with fellow students, which had always been difficult for me.

Suddenly — without any warning of what it had all meant to me — it was done. All over. Emptiness gripped my heart as I trudged the rest of the way home, walked up our narrow, center sidewalk and stepped inside our dark home. It’s been more than 50 years since that experience — but the panorama of emotions feels as fresh as hot sugar cookies.

There’s only one thing — the emotion of gratitude of having been in the play and all the activities that went with it has grown greater and and sweeter.

One might ask, why ever do anything special if it’s going to hurt so much at the end?

I think it’s because only those who sense an entire gamut of emotions during their lives are those who have really lived.

More TupaTalk:One of best plays in BYU history and how I almost missed it

Only those who have had and lost know how to really treasure the difference between what counts and what doesn’t, only those who have ran or worked themselves to exhaustion can appreciate the sense of real accomplishment, only those who have truly climbed toward a dream can comprehend the encompassing view of the soaring birds and other dreamers or risk-takers who dared and expanded their vistas in the process.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: TupaTalk: You can cry because it's over and smile because it happened