One in an occasional series on how families of slain police officers cope with the wrenching loss.
After they stood for three hours through a depressing memorial ceremony, Larry McDonald and his entourage were emotionally spent, and, frankly, ready for a round of beers and some comic relief.
They filed past the wall where the name of Patrick McDonald, Larry's son, was etched among those of other slain police officers. They found the bus for home, took their seats, and waited for other passengers to pile in. The driver finally shut the door and started the engine. From the back, a man's somber voice announced, "OK. This is the most appropriate time to say this."
The passengers fell silent, waiting for the pronouncement.
"Kumbayaaaaa . . .," he sang, painfully off-key.
Everyone roared with laughter.
"Keep it up and your name will be on that wall next year!" cracked some member of the police brass in a Southern drawl.
When an officer is killed on duty, the survivors are promised that they and their loved ones will never be forgotten.
City officials, the police force, friends, and neighbors all keep that promise, holding formal memorial ceremonies, dedicating plaques, performing tributes in schools, and organizing fund-raising runs and bike rides and dinners.
The result, survivors say, is a mixed blessing.
The generosity, kindness, and respect they're shown humble them, they say, and make their loss easier to bear. But the constant attention also becomes an obligation, and closure is all the more elusive.
Earnest ceremonies seem almost designed to elicit tears. "If they want to make me cry, it isn't hard to do," said one survivor who didn't want to be named for fear of sounding ungrateful. "But haven't we cried enough?"
Gratitude often competes with guilt as families have to choose which events to attend and which to decline.
"I almost didn't go to this one," Judy Cassidy said recently of an assembly that schoolchildren had prepared in honor of her husband. Philadelphia Officer Chuck Cassidy died Nov. 1, 2007, after he was shot in the head during an attempted robbery at a Dunkin' Donuts. "The kids put so much work into this. I'm so glad I went."
Even small events, she said, require thought, planning, and care, so she feels terrible any time she has to say no to an invitation.
"You can't go to everything," she said. But none of the events are trivial enough to pass up. "I've come to realize everything is big."
From the moment an officer's family arrives at the emergency room and finds mourners lined up for blocks to pay their respects, the grieving becomes a public affair.
Police escort the mourners from the viewing at the funeral home to the cemetery. The city's highest elected officials pay homage. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey makes sure that every officer killed in the line of duty receives full honors in an elaborate ceremony.
But the magnitude of the event can overwhelm family and friends. Survivors say they have heard enough bagpipe renditions of "Amazing Grace," seen enough white-gloved salutes, and sat through enough speeches about honor and heroism to last several lifetimes.
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