BILLY McCULLEY'S IN HEAVEN

“And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40)

Most of his friends and peers called him “Bill”. His legal name was “William” and he used “William” in his e-mail address. To me, he was always “Billy”. I received a shocking call on my cell phone yesterday in the late afternoon. I was on the MassPike about halfway between Framingham and the Route 395 Exit. My friend Rob Woods, pastor of the Assemblies of God church in Marlboro was calling and he informed me that Billy McCulley had died.

It seems fitting that I’m posting this on my blog because Billy McCulley was a regular reader of “The Blog of Bob Baril”. He had posted a number of comments on the blog over the past few years. We also occasionally exchanged e-mails. I remember that when First Assembly of God of Framingham was closed I received a very encouraging e-mail from Billy (loaded with Biblical exhortations) in which he said he’d always consider me “Pastor Bob”. It is also fitting that I’m writing this on November 11 because Billy was a Veteran and a very patriotic American.

I want to tell you about Billy McCulley here. Much of what I’m writing about him will seem exaggerated and hyperbolic. It isn’t. It’s true that when people die we tend to give glowing eulogies about them. We “canonize” them and many times we make ordinary slobs into magnificent and Godly people. Well, in THIS case, there’s no need to make anything up. Billy McCulley was in his early forties. He was one of the most Godly people I have ever known. If I were speaking at Billy’s funeral, I would describe him as: gracious, Godly, wise, serene, and intelligent. Now, I know some would hear these descriptions and picture some pious little wimp. But THAT wasn’t Billy! Billy was pretty soft spoken, but he was very masculine and strong. He served in the military proudly and as humble and soft spoken as he was, I suspect he could have decked an opponent with one punch to the jaw if he had to.

Our family met the McCulleys when we came to pastor the church in Framingham in 1987. The McCulleys were one of those kind of families that just stood out among others. They had been active in the Framingham church since 1967 and when we arrived they were the longest term family in the church. Jim, the Dad was in his mid-sixties. This was Jim’s second marriage and second family. The kids from his first marriage were well into their thirties by this time. Jim was highly intelligent, very bald, and an engineer at Raytheon. Jim McCulley was one of the developers of the Patriot missile. Jim’s wife Anneli was (and is) quite a character. Anneli (pronounced AnnaLee) is originally from Finland. She came to America by way of England and Canada, and has a strong accent which is a mixture of Finnish and British. She’s a lovely person, but can be very difficult to understand. When she senses a person is having trouble understanding her she speaks louder and higher. It can be quite comical. The McCulleys had three boys. In 1987, Conrad the oldest was around seventeen. Conrad is highly intelligent and very blunt. He’s the type that will have no qualms about asking you sort of a challenging and embarrassing question. The youngest kid, Matt, was probably around eleven in ‘87. Matt was the best looking and “coolest” of the McCulley boys. Years later, he went on to Purdue University and a distinguished career in the Army.

Billy was a very wonderful young man. At sixteen he was regularly visiting my office to borrow Commentaries and ask me theological and Biblical questions. Unlike his brother Conrad, Billy wasn’t so much interested in intellectual gymnastics as he was interested in really knowing God and getting close to Him. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more Godly teenager with such a hunger for the Lord. Billy applied for and was accepted at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We were all SO proud of him! During his years at Annapolis, he faithfully attended an Assemblies of God church there, sort of being “adopted” by that pastor and his family as an honorary family member. Billy became an Officer after graduation. . .I forget if he went into the Navy or the Marines, but as I recall, it was the Marines.

I haven’t even mentioned that Billy liked to sing and play guitar. And, he had studied some Finnish. Billy never lived back in Massachusetts again, but he came to visit a lot. Whenever he was home, he came to church and would also just drop by the parsonage to visit. Billy married quite some years ago and settled in Texas.
He and his wife have several children. I think the last time I saw him was two years ago. He had taken vacation time and had come up to do some some work on the family’s Marlboro residence where his Mom now resided as a widow. Billy had been diagnosed with cancer sometime before that, and a tumor was removed. He visited with us and told us he was regularly having medical checkups and was cancer free and feeling well and doing quite well.

Several times this year, Billy posted some great comments on my blog, and once in awhile we’d exchange e-mails. What I did not realize is that the cancer had come back with a vengeance and that a few weeks ago he was given six weeks to live. I am sad that he did not tell me. But, Billy was like that. He was very selfless. Those who know me well know that I tend to be quite sensational and dramatic. If I were given six weeks to live, I’d probably tell EVERYBODY. I would want people praying for me, but I’d also want to say my “good-byes”. That’s me. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I like attention. Billy DIDN’T. The last thing he’d have wanted to do is burden me with his situation. I know he loved, respected, and cared about me. Billy’s the type who would have thought, “The last thing I want to do is dump this on Pastor Bob. He has enough of his own problems.”

I wish he had. I wish he’d told me. I wish I could have prayed for him and with him. I wish, in my own way, I could have told him “good-bye”. I wish I could have told him how much his prayers and support encouraged me; how much his affirmation of me at the time of the church’s closing meant to me. I wish I could have told him I was very proud of him.

As I write, I have the Avril Lavigne song, “Slipped Away” playing in a continuous loop on iTunes on the computer. It’s about how she felt when she got the news of her grandfather’s death. To use a famous line from a Neil Diamond song, “Except for the names and a few other changes” the song expresses how I feel about Billy’s death.

It’s Veteran’s Day. In my heart today, Taps is playing for Billy, a twenty-one gun salute is being fired, and I’m standing at attention and saluting this wonderful young man that I was privileged to know.