Thursday, October 21, 2010
The National Law Enforcement Memorial
"Each of us is merely a small instrument; all of us, after accomplishing our mission, will disappear."
— Mother Teresa (In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers)
On a recent visit to Washington D.C., while looking over a map of the multitude of memorials, museums and history there, I noticed a fairly new cenotaph located in Judiciary Square. It is called the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and although I hadn’t initially planned on seeing it, I am glad I did. My satisfaction wasn’t just in seeing such a splendid monument, but for the spiritual experience I was surprised with as well. I have never been accused of being overly religious, but on this day I received a message from God.
This memorial, built on 3 acres of land has an east and west wall, currently containing the names of 19,000 members of law enforcement that have been killed in the line of duty in the United States. The names have been added, side by side, in completely random order. The only names that appear purposely together are those that died together in the same event. After taking a few pictures of the walls, and the large powerful lion sculptures 
that immediately catch your eye, I thought it would be a good idea to look up the young Weymouth policeman that had been killed while directing traffic just over a year ago. His name was Michael P. Davey and he had left behind his wife and 3 young children. I wasn’t sure whether his name would be listed so soon after his death but sure enough there it was on the west wall with all his fallen brethren.
When Officer Davey died in 2009, I had done some research at that time and discovered that the Weymouth Police Department, in their long history had had only 2 members killed in the line of duty. The other I had learned was Chief Patrick A. Butler who had been killed by a drunk driver in 1915. Oddly enough, Chief Butler was the great grandfather of one of my closest friends, Kevin Shanahan. Kevin’s family is part of the Thin Blue Line, the symbolic family of law enforcement. His father George had been on the Weymouth Police Department and another relative, Thomas Higgins, had been Chief of Police in Weymouth. Naturally, I would look to see if his great grandfather was on the wall. Not realizing at the time that the names date back to 1792, I wasn’t sure if I’d find him but again I found Weymouth’s only other police officer to be killed. I did a pencil rubbing of the name, took some pictures and thought, as I stared at the name “Patrick A. Butler” if there were anyone else I could look up. As I was about to turn away, my gaze focused on the name immediately beside Kevin’s relative. The name was “George J. Holmes”.
Tommy Holmes was a friend I had met through work about 30 years ago. We had worked closely together for many years until Tom suddenly caught a virus that destroyed his heart. Miraculously, he had received a heart transplant and a second chance at life. Tom had never had many breaks in life; when he was a boy, his father George, a detective with the Boston Police Department had been shot and killed in the line of duty during a bank robbery. The tragedy, as you can imagine, took its toll on Tom’s family and over the years he would lose other family members violently. I regrettably had lost touch with Tom over the past few years.
My initial thought was that this was too crazy of a coincidence to be Tom’s Dad but I confirmed that it indeed was. Out of 19,000 randomly listed names, what were the chances that two out of the three that I had any familiarity with were right beside each other? I knew immediately that I should contact Tom. I felt ashamed that I had let so much time go by and not spoken to my old friend. Old friends make us who we are. God had just tapped me on the shoulder to remind me of that and how valuable life and friendship is.
This article was posted by Keith Stanley Spain on October 21, 2010
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