Bom-Wrapper
In Memory of
Kevin W.
Conners
Conners
October 9th, 1952 -
September 20th, 2017
September 20th, 2017
Obituary for Kevin W. Conners
Eulogy for Kevin Conners, by his nephew and godson, Brendan Hare, read at the parish of Saint Agnes on September 25, 2017
There is so much we don’t know, and so must imagine.
None of us know what it’s like to be alone, ten miles off the coast of Plum Island in an eighteen-foot boat, hunting eight-hundred pound tuna with an eight-dollar rod as the light fades and fog shrinks the whole world to the size of one room, and all is silent but for the sound of chop against the bow and the low murmur of unseen whales.
Kev knew what this was like. We must try to imagine.
Imagine we are with him there now. The year is 1981. The summer is gone. In two weeks, he will turn twenty-nine. In three months, he will visit a doctor. The doctor will run a few tests, and then check the results, and then type up a letter and add it to a pile.
I’ve seen this letter. It’s nine sentences long. “This is just a short note to let you know,” the doctor begins, and then, two lines later, misspells the word “sclerosis.”
I don’t know how it feels to get a letter like that. I don’t know that any of us do. We must try to imagine it.
Imagine Kev at the mailbox on Old Point Road with his dog, Cass, and with that letter—now opened, and read, and understood. It’s a bright day at the end of February. For the first time in months, the air smells of salt and thawed soil. Imagine Kev there, putting the letter in his pocket, starting down Smith Street, slipping behind Irene and Wakey’s to stand for a moment at the edge of the basin.
It was here, when he was little, that he waded out of the water on the last day of the summer. He was exhausted, I imagine, but happy. He’d swum there all by himself, all the way from the other shore. When I was little, I was amazed by this. “How did you know you could make it?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I just got in and got started.”
“God hates a coward,” Kev’s father would say. Everyone in the family knew this, but no one knew it like Kevin.
One year and one month after that letter arrived, Alison delivered a son. The next day, she delivered another. In the maternity ward, a nurse asked Kev if he was nervous to be a father, all of a sudden and twice over. Kev didn’t understand the question. The questioner didn’t understand Kev.
As far as I know, Kev never got nervous. My mom and dad often remind me that he turned everything into a game. For him, few things were more vital than play. He played life beautifully, boldly, with courage and grace and intelligence. He was wise in both senses: a charming, kind-hearted wiseguy, but also possessed of what seemed like secret knowledge. He saw the field, the ice, the whole game better than the rest of us.
In the years of the Cleveland Street rink, Jay could outskate him. “That didn’t matter,” Kev told me. “There’s always going to be some guy faster than you, which is no reason to let that guy win.” He’d won, I knew, the Punt, Pass, and Kick. He’d been, I knew, one of top scorers in the history of his college hockey team.
“But how, Kev?” I asked. “How do you beat a guy who’s faster than you?”
“Same way you do anything,” he said. “You figure it out.” I remember his voice. Maybe you do too. It was clear and strong, full of energy and wit, and never far from laughter.
He laughed when somebody asked to see the blueprint for a house he was building. He laughed because the only blueprint was in his head. Kev liked figuring things out. It seemed he always could. He was curious about the world, and delighted by it. He was delighted by Alison, of course, and by Brian and Timmy and Jamie. And Kev, in turn, delighted them.
Imagine the boys’ Nelly Street bedroom. Imagine them small, huddling on the top bunk, giggling, waiting for Kev. The door swings open, and he is there. His smile is gigantic. He hums the theme from “Jaws.” He holds one hand above his head so it looks look like a fin, and with the other snatches at his boys’ feet.
Kev taught his sons joy. He told them to stick up for themselves, and showed them how. One of the kids’ teachers was doing a bad job of teaching them how to read. Kev told her so, and then taught them himself. A coach was being unfair to his sons. Kev told him so, and then signed up to coach them himself.
Kevin stood up to the world. He stood up to life. Once, after he began to have trouble walking, even on solid, level ground, he arrived at a rink in Wilmington to find that, to get to the bench to coach his boys’ team, he’d have to walk the width of the ice.
Imagine that Wilmington rink. Imagine Kev there, at the edge, trying to figure out how to get across. See him step onto the ice. See him fall, and get up, and fall again, and get up again. It’s a game, he might have thought, a game he could figure out and win.
He had to figure out so many things. When he couldn’t stand, he figured out how to help Jamie practice fielding. Kev got a bat and a bag of balls, got on his knees, and hit Jamie grounders from there. Sometimes, as Kev was figuring things, things got too tough, and he’d yell, “Time out.” This, Alison and the boys say, always got a laugh. They’d laugh, and then Kev would go right back to it.
Time out. Game on. Keep going. This was Kevin’s example. None of us will ever forget it. And none of us will ever forget the example of Jay, who was there for him all his life, or the example of his family, who cared for him for so long and so well.
Kevin’s example will survive, and be passed on to others, and this will help them, and in this way he will survive. He will survive, always telling us to do our best, to love each other, and that there is nothing to fear.
I’m sorry, Kev. I’m sorry so much got left out—for example, the funny parts. I only got five minutes. You didn’t even get sixty-five years.
Those are the rules. But by your example, I’m going to break them, and keep going for just a bit longer.
Imagine the Conners family living room. It’s two weeks ago. Kev is sitting down, not feeling great. Just a few days before, he was outside, in the sun, smiling, eating pizza, playing with his grandnephews.
A doctor pays him a visit. “How are you, Kev?” the doctor asks, “Are you depressed?”
“No,” Kev says, “I’m hopeful.”
About this moment, there is no need to imagine. We know just what Kevin was thinking. It was this: There is always reason to hope.
Conners, Kevin W., of Wakefield, September 20th, 2017. Devoted son of the late Helena “Fran” (Coyne) and James H. Conners. Beloved husband of Alison (Climo) Conners. Loving father of Timothy, Brian and James Conners, all of Wakefield. Dear Brother of Anne “Nan” Hare, her husband Brendan of Winchester, James Conners of Newbury and the late Joan Conners. Loving uncle of Elizabeth Hare, her husband Jon Neckes, Brendan Hare, Daniel Hare and his wife Lisa Harrington. Further survived by his grand nephews, Charlie and Sam. Funeral from the Keefe Funeral Home, 5 Chestnut St. (adjacent to St. Agnes Church, Rt. 60) ARLINGTON, Monday at 9 AM followed by a funeral mass celebrated in St. Agnes Church, 30 Medford St. Arlington at 10 AM. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend. Visiting hours Sunday 4–8. Services will conclude with burial at St. Paul Cemetery, Arlington. For directions or to send a message of condolence, please visit www.keefefuneralhome.com.
There is so much we don’t know, and so must imagine.
None of us know what it’s like to be alone, ten miles off the coast of Plum Island in an eighteen-foot boat, hunting eight-hundred pound tuna with an eight-dollar rod as the light fades and fog shrinks the whole world to the size of one room, and all is silent but for the sound of chop against the bow and the low murmur of unseen whales.
Kev knew what this was like. We must try to imagine.
Imagine we are with him there now. The year is 1981. The summer is gone. In two weeks, he will turn twenty-nine. In three months, he will visit a doctor. The doctor will run a few tests, and then check the results, and then type up a letter and add it to a pile.
I’ve seen this letter. It’s nine sentences long. “This is just a short note to let you know,” the doctor begins, and then, two lines later, misspells the word “sclerosis.”
I don’t know how it feels to get a letter like that. I don’t know that any of us do. We must try to imagine it.
Imagine Kev at the mailbox on Old Point Road with his dog, Cass, and with that letter—now opened, and read, and understood. It’s a bright day at the end of February. For the first time in months, the air smells of salt and thawed soil. Imagine Kev there, putting the letter in his pocket, starting down Smith Street, slipping behind Irene and Wakey’s to stand for a moment at the edge of the basin.
It was here, when he was little, that he waded out of the water on the last day of the summer. He was exhausted, I imagine, but happy. He’d swum there all by himself, all the way from the other shore. When I was little, I was amazed by this. “How did you know you could make it?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I just got in and got started.”
“God hates a coward,” Kev’s father would say. Everyone in the family knew this, but no one knew it like Kevin.
One year and one month after that letter arrived, Alison delivered a son. The next day, she delivered another. In the maternity ward, a nurse asked Kev if he was nervous to be a father, all of a sudden and twice over. Kev didn’t understand the question. The questioner didn’t understand Kev.
As far as I know, Kev never got nervous. My mom and dad often remind me that he turned everything into a game. For him, few things were more vital than play. He played life beautifully, boldly, with courage and grace and intelligence. He was wise in both senses: a charming, kind-hearted wiseguy, but also possessed of what seemed like secret knowledge. He saw the field, the ice, the whole game better than the rest of us.
In the years of the Cleveland Street rink, Jay could outskate him. “That didn’t matter,” Kev told me. “There’s always going to be some guy faster than you, which is no reason to let that guy win.” He’d won, I knew, the Punt, Pass, and Kick. He’d been, I knew, one of top scorers in the history of his college hockey team.
“But how, Kev?” I asked. “How do you beat a guy who’s faster than you?”
“Same way you do anything,” he said. “You figure it out.” I remember his voice. Maybe you do too. It was clear and strong, full of energy and wit, and never far from laughter.
He laughed when somebody asked to see the blueprint for a house he was building. He laughed because the only blueprint was in his head. Kev liked figuring things out. It seemed he always could. He was curious about the world, and delighted by it. He was delighted by Alison, of course, and by Brian and Timmy and Jamie. And Kev, in turn, delighted them.
Imagine the boys’ Nelly Street bedroom. Imagine them small, huddling on the top bunk, giggling, waiting for Kev. The door swings open, and he is there. His smile is gigantic. He hums the theme from “Jaws.” He holds one hand above his head so it looks look like a fin, and with the other snatches at his boys’ feet.
Kev taught his sons joy. He told them to stick up for themselves, and showed them how. One of the kids’ teachers was doing a bad job of teaching them how to read. Kev told her so, and then taught them himself. A coach was being unfair to his sons. Kev told him so, and then signed up to coach them himself.
Kevin stood up to the world. He stood up to life. Once, after he began to have trouble walking, even on solid, level ground, he arrived at a rink in Wilmington to find that, to get to the bench to coach his boys’ team, he’d have to walk the width of the ice.
Imagine that Wilmington rink. Imagine Kev there, at the edge, trying to figure out how to get across. See him step onto the ice. See him fall, and get up, and fall again, and get up again. It’s a game, he might have thought, a game he could figure out and win.
He had to figure out so many things. When he couldn’t stand, he figured out how to help Jamie practice fielding. Kev got a bat and a bag of balls, got on his knees, and hit Jamie grounders from there. Sometimes, as Kev was figuring things, things got too tough, and he’d yell, “Time out.” This, Alison and the boys say, always got a laugh. They’d laugh, and then Kev would go right back to it.
Time out. Game on. Keep going. This was Kevin’s example. None of us will ever forget it. And none of us will ever forget the example of Jay, who was there for him all his life, or the example of his family, who cared for him for so long and so well.
Kevin’s example will survive, and be passed on to others, and this will help them, and in this way he will survive. He will survive, always telling us to do our best, to love each other, and that there is nothing to fear.
I’m sorry, Kev. I’m sorry so much got left out—for example, the funny parts. I only got five minutes. You didn’t even get sixty-five years.
Those are the rules. But by your example, I’m going to break them, and keep going for just a bit longer.
Imagine the Conners family living room. It’s two weeks ago. Kev is sitting down, not feeling great. Just a few days before, he was outside, in the sun, smiling, eating pizza, playing with his grandnephews.
A doctor pays him a visit. “How are you, Kev?” the doctor asks, “Are you depressed?”
“No,” Kev says, “I’m hopeful.”
About this moment, there is no need to imagine. We know just what Kevin was thinking. It was this: There is always reason to hope.
Conners, Kevin W., of Wakefield, September 20th, 2017. Devoted son of the late Helena “Fran” (Coyne) and James H. Conners. Beloved husband of Alison (Climo) Conners. Loving father of Timothy, Brian and James Conners, all of Wakefield. Dear Brother of Anne “Nan” Hare, her husband Brendan of Winchester, James Conners of Newbury and the late Joan Conners. Loving uncle of Elizabeth Hare, her husband Jon Neckes, Brendan Hare, Daniel Hare and his wife Lisa Harrington. Further survived by his grand nephews, Charlie and Sam. Funeral from the Keefe Funeral Home, 5 Chestnut St. (adjacent to St. Agnes Church, Rt. 60) ARLINGTON, Monday at 9 AM followed by a funeral mass celebrated in St. Agnes Church, 30 Medford St. Arlington at 10 AM. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend. Visiting hours Sunday 4–8. Services will conclude with burial at St. Paul Cemetery, Arlington. For directions or to send a message of condolence, please visit www.keefefuneralhome.com.