A Sad Goodbye

So sadly, our good family friend, Bill Malloy passed away last weekend and his funeral was on Wednesday. Not only have Bill & Renee been some of my parent's closest friends for about 40 years, they were also our next door neighbors in Cherry Hills for more than 30 (and across Bottle Lake for just about as many). Their love story of small town American officer meets French aristocrat beauty in the shadows of world war two is a one in a million sort of tale. She leaves her life of privilege behind to travel all over the US with her gentle and wonderful new husband, finally settling to raise their family in St. Paul. They were every bit the fairytale and we are so sad to see him gone. As a child growing up next to this family (for me it was mostly about Bill & Renee and their grandchildren since their children were all grown by the time I mostly remember) was a wonderful sort of privilege. They brought a sense of worldliness and gentility to our suburban neighborhood, and yet they were always full of fun and life (and a little teasing too).

As I grew older and thought about family and home, I genuinely hoped we'd have a "Malloy" sort of relationship - I'm not sure it would ever be possible to repeat. The stories are many and varied: Once when our house had just been burglarized, Bill showed up with a shotgun and a holstered hand gun (as it was illegal in those days to have a gun without a holster...not sure why...) ready to defend the neighborhood - what he and my father thought they might do with those guns probably hadn't crossed their minds until the next morning. But there he was in the middle of the night standing with my parents, looking out for their children. I believe that the first call was to Bill and Renee's house and the SECOND call to the police. So much for the insurance salesman and the engineer...

He and Renee also would be known to have a "nightcap" at my parent's house after all the kids (their 5 and my parent's 6 at the time) were in bed (nightcap = martini). These nightcaps went well into the wee hours... Who has this kind of energy any more? For a long time the only kids that were in our neighborhood while I was growing up were the Malloy's visiting grandchildren. My first crush and also first kiss was with their oldest grandson, Graham, and every time I saw Bill until my wedding day he'd tease me about it. He always had a mischievous twinkle in his eye. The first time I ever went sailing was with Bill and it was about the only time I ever felt totally comfortable tilting over the side of a quick moving boat. He had the special gift of making you feel important, smart and beautiful. If only there was more of that gift in the world.

I could go on and on about the kind of man he was, but the most true thing I can say about him is that we were all better, more interesting people for having known him.
He will be missed so much. God Bless you, Bill. You certainly blessed us.