Billy McDermott, RIP
Swiped from Erin McDermott Connelly
According to the paper, Billy McDermott was 56 years old. This is not possible. To me, he was always the six year old kid with the big smile who used to tag along after me when I was eleven or so, the kid brother of my friend Kevin. I was Yogi Bear, he was Boo-Boo.
In a way, it's been like that all through the years when I'd run into him. As adults, we had mutual friends, and of course I knew his parents and his siblings. Kevin even served as Third Ward Alderman when I was Corporation Counsel. I probably haven't seen Billy in a couple of years, since the time he sat behind me in church with the folks. We exchanged a hug, as I recall. I liked him. A lot.
People who didn't know him at all have plenty of opinions about him today. They never knew the physical pains he endured from a serious head problem, or the psychological and social pains he suffered. His life choices weren't always so hot. They eased the pains temporarily, perhaps, but led to things worse. Those were his struggles. Much of his life he lived in a nightmare. None of that matters now. I liked the kid. I liked him a lot.
I had a long nightmare of my own a dozen years ago. One Friday morning, in the middle of it, I awoke to hear my name blasted over an area radio station, news that had been leaked by someone with access to a petition pending against me before the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. That night several thousand people attended the Amsterdam High football game and I refused to stay home. Not many folks said anything to me. Billy's brother Pat did. Three words. "Hang in there."
On a Sunday morning not long after, their sister Carol came up to me after Mass and said, "I just want you to know that I read what they said about you in the paper and I don't believe a word of it." Pat must have overheard the conversation, because shortly after he, too, came up to me and said, "I just want you to know that I read what they said about you in the paper and I believe every word of it, and it doesn't make a bit of difference to me."
I don't know whether I ever got around to thanking Pat for all he did to restore me to life. I know I never thanked Carol. She died of cancer before I could, a day or two before another of the darkest times of my own nightmare. I got a call at the courthouse in the middle of the day, in the middle of a trial, from the Court of Appeals to inform me that I was suspended pending their determination of my removal from office, and just like that my judicial career was over.
I stayed for an hour or so, packing my belongings in old supply boxes. That done, I contemplated the ream of personal "Chambers of the Family Court" stationery that I knew would shortly be converted to scrap paper. My last act was to grab a sheet and pen a note to Carol's parents. I couldn't imagine what they were going through. It is not in the natural order of things to bury one's own child.
Now, with the brutal murder of their son, they have to go through it all over again.
McDermott family, hang in there.
Billy, my friend, I just want you to know that I read what they said about you in the papers, and that it doesn't make one damn bit of difference to me.
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