AP

Football’s a frivolous enough pursuit that we can sometimes duck into it and find a moment of refuge from tragedy.

But it’s also a small enough world that it can’t escape that tragedy, either.

Chiefs safety Sanders Commings knows first hand this week, as his cousin was one of the nine people murdered in a Charleston church.

Commings tweeted out a message that he had lost his cousin, the Rev. Clementa Pinkney, a pastor and state senator who was among those killed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church Wednesday night during a prayer meeting.

Commings had work to do Thursday, the final day of Chiefs minicamp. And while he didn’t stop to talk to reporters, he practiced with his team.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Sanders Commings and his family,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said after practice, via Terez Paylor of the Kansas City Star. “He’s doing OK, as expected. That’s a pretty big shock. That’s all I can probably say to you.”

When it was mentioned to Reid that it “took a lot” for Commings to be at his minicamp, Reid agreed.

“It does, it does,” the coach said. “But he’ll be able to head back and take care of business.”

Now that he’s free from work for the next few weeks, Commings can circle back to his family, remember the dead and try to make sense of what happened Wednesday night, such that that’ll ever be possible.