Remembering my friend Danny Kennagh

To the Editor,

As everyone knows my friend Danny Kennagh passed away after his very long battle with Muscular Dystrophy. In January of this year I went back to school, and one of my classes required me to write a research paper about a disease that someone I knew had. I knew instantly what I was going to write about and who, it was Danny. 

I have known Danny most of my life, and in the last 13 years we have gotten very close. To me Danny was not only “My Man” he was my well to sum it up in short he was my everything. He had the biggest heart of any one person I have ever met in my life. He did not want people to look at him and feel sorry for him, he wanted them to look at him and see a man who is defying the odds. That is exactly what he did.

In writing my paper I learned not only more about the disease itself I learned more about Danny as a person. Not only his everyday struggles, but how it affected him emotionally and mentally. The people who did not know him like I did saw him as a cantankerous old SOB. What they didn’t realize is that he just wanted to lead a normal life like everyone else. He made up for this with his generosity, and would help anyone out that he could in any way that he could, even if it was just giving them advice. Of course, there were the occasional people that took advantage of his generosity. Danny always tried to see the good in people, and if you did him wrong he would let ya know it.

On my last trip up at the end of June I am glad I got to spend the time with him that I did. If I could go back I would have spent every second with him. The one thing I would never change is the fact that he was and still is “My Man.” Last Saturday was one of the hardest days of my life. After his service my family and I had a cookout in their back yard with Wally Ritz and Ryan Hannigan, it was at that time that I realized that it was not good-bye. Danny would never say good-bye. It was see you soon, of course not soon enough, but soon. I will never forget any of the time I spent with him, and his place in my heart will always remain. And I will end this the same way I ended our conversation on July 4 at 10 p.m., “I love you My Man and don’t you ever forget!”

Betty Ann Coolidge-Svach

908 Main St

Clinton, Mass.