The worst thing that ever happened to somebody, happened to somebody I knew, the great pop/rock singer Bryan Harvey. He, wife Kathryn and their two daughters were massacred at home in Richmond on New Year’s Day 2006 by a couple of career shitstains who chose them randomly. Googling it will only make you sick to your stomach. Stella was 9, Ruby was 4.
I met Bryan in the early ’80s, when his band the Dads relocated from Richmond, VA to Albany, NY, where I lived. He could sing somewhere between Paul McCartney and Glenn Tilbrook and wrote great songs like “Kill the Mockingbird.” After he formed House of Freaks with drummer Johnny Hott, I flew down to Virginia to write a story on that rare rock n’ roll duo (back then) for Spin. Bryan showed me all over Richmond and took me to a cemetery where Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were buried. I snapped a picture of him overlooking the town.
After evil devoured his family, I went looking for that picture, and was surprised to also find one Bryan took of me, standing at nearly the same spot.
It’s like that. The worst things that happen to good people could just as easily happen to any of us. The tragic take the hit for the rest of us, so we should honor their sacrifice not by living in fear, but by taking hold of their spirit and spreading the good.