There was no right answer for Brett Favre on Monday night, and no one with a right to tell him what to do. His father died unexpectedly Sunday night. And he had a game Monday against the Raiders.

He had to decide what was right to do – not for us or for society or for someone else’s sense of propriety or obligation. But for him.

In this business, we’re accustomed to telling everyone what they should do – or, to be more accurate, what they shouldn’t do. Don’t celebrate after touchdowns, don’t pay that player that much money, don’t pick that color scheme for your uniforms, don’t use that announcer for your broadcasts.

You get to a point where you feel that no matter what the situation, you have to have a clear opinion. Yes or no. Black or white. No maybes, no shades of gray.

But if you’ve been where Favre was Monday, you should know there was no right answer, just a terrible conflict.

In few businesses are people as thoroughly conditioned to show up every day at work as in sports. Favre’s father certainly told him about responsibility to a job and to teammates.

The team is more important than the individual. You don’t let your teammates down. He was taught that, too.

It has showed in Favre’s commitment to the game. Since becoming a starting quarterback, he’s never missed a coin toss, never failed to line up under center.

Sprains and bruises and broken bones have not stopped him from being there for his team. For such commitment, he has justly been celebrated and admired; he’s been held up as the best sort of role model sport has to offer.

But this wasn't a broken bone. This was the worst shock life deals out; the death of a loved one.

Each of us reacts the same and each or us reacts differently to such crippling emotional trauma. We are profoundly shocked, perhaps numb. That is all but universal. How we react to it is not.

Some of us need to do something to distract ourselves. Some can’t bear the thought of doing anything. Some need desperately to be with friends and family. Some need to be alone.

Nearly three years ago, I was on the second tee when the call I had been expecting and dreading arrived: My mother, who had been ailing for quite some time, had died.

I offered to come out immediately, and I would have gotten in the car and driven eight hours right then. But my father told me he’d prefer that I came out two days later. I told the others in my group what had happened. They told me I didn’t have to finish the round.

But there was nowhere else to go; it was a weekday and my wife and children were at work or school. I didn’t want to be alone, couldn’t go out to be with my father. So I finished the round of golf, not really caring where the ball went or how I scored, just grateful for the distraction of the company and the game. For me, the game was therapy for the very good reason that it was meaningless.

And because it was meaningless, it was valuable. But that was for me. Others would see it differently.

For me, though, there was no great conflict. I was stuck where I was, so I continued with what I was doing. Had I been at work, I would have stayed there, too. There was nothing else to do.

For Favre, it was undoubtedly more difficult. And more was at stake.

He has that devotion to the team that is so similar – perhaps emotionally identical – to his devotion to family. The calls of both family and team are powerful. Is it possible to be faithful to one without letting down the other?

We ask ourselves at such times, “What would Dad have wanted me to do?” And we wish he were still alive to tell us.

We know the answer. Favre’s father would want him to play. It’s what most of us would want our sons and daughters to do, to carry on, to not let us inconvenience them or make them change their plans.

That's what Favre decided, too, and he played marvelously, throwing four touchdowns as the Packers won 41-7. They kept their playoff hopes alive. We have no right to criticize him for playing if we feel he shouldn’t. And if he had decided that no matter what his father would have wanted, he couldn't possibly play a day after his father’s death, we could not have criticized him for not being there for his team.

Favre did what he felt right. It was a call only he could make.