After so many triumphs, Barrett family now facing the ultimate loss

TORONTO — One of the cruelties of life is that it can deal its harshest, most devastating blows moments after blessing you with great fortune.

It’s why as parents, you never really, entirely, trust that everything will work out, that everything will be OK. Intellectually — if you are lucky, at least — you can convince yourself that it will; that all the love and effort and hope you pour into a child will somehow protect them, lift them, steel them.

But in our rawest moments, we know at a deeper level it’s not true. We know those we love the most can’t always be sheltered or saved or made well. Even when everything is seemingly unfolding perfectly, there is a part of you as a parent that is waiting and worrying and wondering: Will this be the day the sky falls and everything shatters?

From the moment your kid learns to cross the street, ride a bike, take the bus alone, basically go anywhere out of your sight — and that’s before entering into all the trials, tribulations and pitfalls that come with having a young adult in the world — a parent never stops worrying, never stops being vigilant. Even with every triumph and milestone, you brace yourself for what could happen, a worst fear realized. You don’t really rest until they’re home safe.

It's the price, I guess, for the hugs and the cuddles and the crazy, hilarious questions out of nowhere and the explosions of pride you allow yourself to feel when something good happens, and when the helpless lumps of flesh that needed you to live eventually grow strong and stand tall and so often provide the reason for your living.

Even when life is at its sweetest, you can’t help but remain wary of what may come.

These are the thoughts that rushed into my mind when it became public that former Canadian basketball team star and men’s senior team general manager Rowan Barrett and his wife Kesha had lost their younger son, Nathan Tyler Barrett, to an undisclosed illness on Tuesday. That Toronto Raptors standout RJ Barrett had lost his brother.

“While our family is devastated by this great loss, we will continue to cherish the memories and time spent together,” the family announced in a statement. “Nathan was a God-fearing young man of strong character. He was thoughtful, kind, loving, compassionate, creative, admirable and driven. Though his time with us was brief, he will live forever in our hearts.”

Like his older brother, Nathan was a talented athlete, excelling in track and field, and basketball. Fast, strong and aggressive, his father used to call him “his little Westbrook,” after former NBA MVP Russell Westbrook, who competes with a pace and a passion almost unmatched in league history.

But after playing at prestigious Montverde Academy near Orlando, where RJ won a national championship, Nathan chose to study to become a pilot, as much a dream job for some as being a professional athlete.

So, imagine the joy in the Barrett household in the early weeks of 2024 about what was happening and what was to come.

RJ was traded to the Raptors by the New York Knicks on Dec. 30, and while playing in the NBA in your hometown can come with complications, for the Barrett family it was an unfettered pleasure.

The stands were always filled after games with friends and family and members of their church. Far from crumbling under the stress of playing at home, RJ was thriving, playing some of the best basketball of his career.

Meanwhile, Nathan was in Florida, pursuing a dream of his own, literally soaring.

And this summer the family was to be together again when the men’s senior national team travelled to Paris to compete in the Olympics for the first time since the elder Barrett was starring for Canada alongside Steve Nash, RJ’s godfather.

It had always been RJ’s dream to play for Canada at the Olympics — his father’s framed national team jersey hangs on the wall at home in Mississauga, Ont., and RJ passed it daily for years. When RJ helped the national team to a historic bronze medal at the FIBA World Cup of Basketball this past summer, securing an Olympic berth in the process, the natural order of things was unfolding: the son was surpassing the father.

Meanwhile, that Nathan was pursuing his own passion and walking his own path made everything that much better. Another parenting truth is no amount of success from one corner of your family can make you whole if there are struggles elsewhere.

But then every parent’s worst nightmare: A sudden illness required Nathan to be taken out of school and brought home, followed by weeks of uncertainty in hospital, the specifics of which have been kept private. And then, finally, the truth that changes a family forever in an instant. Nathan was gone.

It speaks to the discipline of an elite athlete that RJ had been able to go to work and do his job exceptionally well while his family was facing such torment. The Raptors wing missed one game for personal reasons back on Feb. 14, though he had been playing with a heavy heart in the weeks prior, after his brother had fallen ill. But RJ’s performance never flagged. The Barretts were buoyed by their faith and Nathan’s strength.

Early on the Raptors’ recent road trip, I asked RJ what drove him, even as it was clear that any goals the team might have had for the season were slipping out of reach as injuries mounted and the needs of the team’s rebuild took precedence.

His answer resonates even more now: “Well, one, you're grateful and thankful to be here playing basketball, playing in the NBA,” RJ said. “For me, playing at home, so I'm always thankful for that. And any time you step on the court, you got to try to look at it as another challenge.”

Even as an impossible situation was looking dire, RJ played one of the best games in a Toronto uniform on Monday night as he logged a career-high tying nine assists and played 39 minutes at altitude in Denver — very nearly lifting the short-handed Raptors to an unlikely upset of the defending-champion Denver Nuggets.

The next day, he was on a flight back to Toronto, likely knowing that his younger brother’s final hours were approaching. He missed Wednesday’s game in Detroit, will be out for Friday night’s game against Orlando and who knows when he’ll have the strength play again.

And what do we do when our worst fears are confirmed, and a cannonball of grief rips your life wide open?

You gather with those you love and who love you back. You offer comfort and try to accept it in return. You don’t try to make sense of anything, because you can’t.

The Barretts are people of strong beliefs who raised their family in the warm embrace of their faith and their church. The hope is that can sustain them and support them.

You know they will find a way to keep their son’s memory alive and his spirit close.

And you hope they can find a way to go on. From the moment you are lucky enough to bring love into a world that can be both beautiful and cruel, the hope is that those close to you will be spared, knowing there is no guarantee of that.

In time, basketball will go on, and RJ Barrett’s teammates and the entire Raptors family will rally around him because that’s what teams do. This summer, the Olympics will come around and — presuming their grief has lifted enough — Rowan and Kesha Barrett will be in Paris, supporting RJ, fulfilling a decades-long dream together, but thinking of Nathan, always.

All of Canada will watch, hearts full, knowing that for one of Canada’s most prominent basketball families, no triumph will erase the pain.