It is difficult for Charvarius Ward to even be in the state of California. To call it difficult, or to label his 2024 as simply “difficult,” is monumentally understating the tragedy that Ward and his partner, Monique Cook, endured this year.
On the morning of October 28, Ward and Cook’s soon-to-be 2-year-old daughter, Amani Joy, died. Ward had shared that Amani was born with two holes in her heart and had previously undergone open heart surgery.
Ward remained away from the team for multiple weeks, but returned December 1 against the Buffalo Bills. Monday afternoon, as he sought signatures and jerseys from teammates on locker room cleanout day, he shared what he went through, openly, for the first time.
Returning to the facility alone was exhausting. Ward said that he sometimes skipped meetings because his social battery was so depleted, and that he didn’t want people to feel sorry for him. He doubted whether he could actually return to playing football.
“She was my biggest inspiration, my biggest motivator,” Ward said. “So when I lost her, it's like the person that I was playing for was the person I was grieving over. So I didn't really have a purpose anymore. I wasn't really motivated anymore to go out there and play hard anymore. Because I was just grieving over her. I love my baby more than anybody in the world.
“We just built a great relationship. It was hard at first because I wasn't around at first, the first couple months of her life, and then when the season ended last year, I got home, she was like, who the F is this guy. She was crying when I tried to touch her. But when we built that relationship, that's when I started playing the best ball. I was the happiest. So, when I lost her, I didn't really have no motivation to succeed or any desire to do anything. I just wanted my baby back. I wanted to be around Monique. It was tough.”
He credited the support he received from Lynch and Kyle Shanahan and said they let him come back on his own terms.
“They came to see me the day it happened,” Ward said. “That shit was hard, but [Shanahan] was supporting me. He was supporting me the whole time. He FaceTimed me, called me. They just stayed in constant contact when I wasn't here and when I did come back and talked to him. I sat in John Lynch's office and cried to John Lynch when I first got back before the Bills game. I was like, ‘Man, I don't know if I can do it.’”
To play in that game against the Bills was unimaginably difficult for Ward.
“Hell yeah it was hard,” Ward said. “Even getting dressed that afternoon, evening, for the Bills game, I just burst out in tears crying. I couldn't control it. On the way to the game, I was crying, walking into the stadium, I was crying. It was tough. It was tough, man, the hardest thing I ever had to do, for sure.”
The fact that Ward shared what he went through was in and of itself, an exercise in courage. In front of his locker sat a cardboard box filled with what must have been north of 100 letters from well-wishers.
Ward said he hasn’t read most of them because it forces him to relive the trauma of Amani’s death. He said he relives it by even talking about it.
He and Trent Williams, who lost a child at birth this year, haven’t talked much about what they each went through because they both understand how hard it is to talk about the deaths of their children. He expects they’ll talk more when they’re both ready.
In hindsight, Ward said he even regrets coming back to play because his return to Santa Clara was so depressing. He said he’s traumatized by returning here and that his partner, Cook, refuses to return for the same reason.
“I got a lot of trauma in California,” Ward said. “I had a lot of great times, but the worst thing that's ever happened to me, that's probably gonna ever happen to me, knock on wood, happened in California. It can just bring up bad memories. Every time I get on the plane and come back to California, Santa Clara, San Jose, show up here, it just brings up bad memories.
“I go through that every day. I go home every night by myself because my girl, she don't want to come back to California because of what happened. So it's hard being alone. She's my strength right now. I need her. So her not being able to be around me if I'm in California, it'll be tough. But like I said, stuff can change. I can get stronger and probably get over that.”
That points to the football reality, that Ward probably won’t return to the 49ers. From a financial point of view, he said his poor play this season does make it possible that the 49ers could afford him, which wouldn’t have been the case going into the season. But the trauma he and his family faces in California makes it difficult to imagine Ward staying with San Francisco.
“Honestly, yeah, I would love to be home [in Dallas], close to my family,” Ward said. “Being in the South, that would be amazing. But like I said, being with the 49ers would be amazing, if I'm able to overcome a lot of that trauma. I get PTSD a lot. I be throwing up, waking up in the middle of the night all the time, sweating. So, I mean, it's tough, it's tough. But we'll see how it goes. It's gonna be interesting, for sure.”
There was, however, an enormous bright spot for Ward and Cook at the very end of 2024.
“2024, that will always probably be the worst year of my life,” Ward said. “But I did have a bright spot at the end of 2024. Amani's little brother was born. So I got a newfound purpose. So hopefully 2025 will be way better. I'm going to go into this offseason more motivated than I've ever been and hopefully I can find my happiness and my joy back.”
Charvarius Mooney Ward Jr. was born December 28, at 9:23 p.m., at 36 weeks, six pounds, four ounces, and 19 inches long. His father thinks he would have been a huge baby if he was born at full term.
“I still think he's gonna be a big boy,” Ward said. “Big hands, big feet, big hands, long legs. So I feel like he gonna be special. He gonna be special.”
Big hands, long legs. Asked somewhat jokingly if there’s some press-man coverage in his son’s future, Ward agreed.
“He gonna be backpedaling in like three years.”