Rant #1,818: Bless You

Sometimes, I write this column a day or more before it actually gets published, if I have time time and/or the subject matter I want to talk about ahead of time.

Yesterday, during lunch at work, I had a few minutes at the end of my hour break where I had done my Facebook "thing," went through my email messages, and had a few minutes to start a column.

But what was I going to write about? I had no clue.

I did not want to give one single inch of type to that fool that was later in the day given a death sentence for shooting up a church, killing so many people for only one reason: hate.

And I did not want to delve into the bewildering behavior of Hollywood toward our new president. They are so ego driven as they sit in their ivory towers that it makes me sick to even think about this.

So where do I go with today's column?

Then the word came down a little later in the day that Detective Steven McDonald had died.

If you don't know who this guy was, I can only give you a short bio of him here. Look him up to find more about this guy.

If ever there was a saint on earth, this was the guy.

As a young New York City patrolman, he was gunned down by an equally young career criminal.

A bullet hit him in his neck, paralyzing him, forcing him to breathe out of a tube in his mouth for the rest of his life.

But he had so much to live for, and made the remainder of his life--three decades--a testament of the spirit of the human will.

When this incident happened, he was a newlywed, his wife Patti Ann was pregnant, and that, along with his will to live, and not only to live, but to continue to serve on the force, seemingly kept him going beyond all odds.

He had come from a police family, and he was not going to let a bullet end his time with the NYPD, or in helping people not just in New York, but around the world.

He became something of an icon in the force. He attended every police funeral. He was a ubiquitous presence at just about every NYPD function that there was.

But most importantly, he lived the human spirit.

When his son was baptized, he did almost the unthinkable--he forgave his assailant. The very person who put him in a wheelchair, the very person who nearly took his life away, he forgave the guy 100 percent for his actions, and hoped that when he got out of jail, they could talk.

The punk, as I said a career criminal, was far from a model prisoner, and when he finally got out of jail, it was if God's will ruled over him, as he died in a traffic accident caused by doing dangerous wheelies on a motorcycle almost immediately after he was released.

McDonald never got to talk to this punk, but he forgave him, and probably grieved when he died.

The McDonalds lived in Malverne, Long Island, in a house that was constructed specifically for Steven's needs, and the family became quite well known in the town. His wife has been mayor of Malverne for going on 10 years.

And his son followed his family into the NYPD, and I believe that he is also one day going to be a detective on the force.

McDonald was also a huge New York Rangers hockey fan, and an award for sportsmanship is named after him, which is given at the end of the season by the team.

This is one of those people whose presence was so enormous that even seeing him on TV made you feel good about the world. I never met the guy, but he was a bigger person that I could ever be. Just forgiving his attacker ... well, ask yourself, under similar circumstances, could you have done the same thing?

This guy was the true American hero. personifying not just what it meant to be an American, but a human being too.

He will be absolutely and greatly missed by all who personally knew him and even those, like me, who never met the guy, but felt honored to even walk on the same earth as he did.

R.I.P., Detective McDonald. You done good.