It’s a lot to take. For a small, tight-knit community like Burwell it’s almost too much to take. But then you remember them for who they were, and are, and what they meant to so many others and it makes it all a little bit more bearable.

Two weeks ago or so I traveled to Burwell for a visitation, a funeral visitation for Colton Dawe, another in the line of Dawe boys who have become so prominent in that community’s local sporting world. The Dawes, they love their football and wrestling, and they were good at them, too.

Today they buried my friend Mike Max. There are many of you - hundreds, maybe thousands of you, probably - who could say the same thing, the part about Mike Max being your friend because we are all part of an exceptionally large team photo. Mike had a lot of friends.

And you know what else? Mike loved his football and wrestling, and he was pretty good at them, too.

Colton died in a tragic auto accident - especially when you’re just 18 years old is there another kind? - while Mike seemed to have the flu, only to have it turn out to be pneumonia which while being treated led his doctors to discover he was also suffering from leukemia. In the end, the combination was too much for him to overcome.

Two lives, two very Burwell lives, ended just a few days apart. Like the other Dawe boys Colton played football and wrestled for Coach Max, and the whole bunch of them are about as well-known, respected and loved within the Burwell community as humanly possible. And in a town the size of Burwell that equals an awful lot.

I didn’t know Colton but I know the Dawes and I know that is fun loving family that believes in hard work and being respectful to those around you. I did know Mike, way back to when he was attending high school in Cozad with my sister Rhonda, and later when he had graduated dear old Burwell High and was spending time around home. During that time frame Mike and I had a common friend who was a short-timer in Burwell, local soil conservation officer Roger Biltoft, of the football loving Biltofts of Nelson, Nebr.

During his time in the soil conservation field Roger also worked in Rushville where he fell in with the local football coach, one Mike Mitchell, who Burwell fans remember as a longtime state wrestling official. For all that football winning in Burwell everything comes back to wrestling.

And that included Mike. After his hall of fame wrestling career at Chadron State he taught and coached at Ainsworth before coming home to wrestling, football, track and teaching at dear old Burwell High. Over the course of his lifetime Mike is one of those people who almost assuredly never realized the impact he was making on the lives of those around him. He was just Mike Max, guy. But all the while he was serving as a powerful and inspirational role model for hundreds of children who knew him as a teacher and coach.

As I wrote on Twitter Mike Max was a giant of a man in so many different ways, a true gentle giant. Losing him at all but especially so soon after we lost Colton is a lot to take, almost too much to take. Until you remember what beautiful people both were and the legacy they leave behind.