Billy Selmon is Electric

My wife Jill has a startled, stricken expression. It is 8:00 AM on Saturday, January 28th.

“Read this,” she says, lifting her phone towards my face.

A text reads: “Billy Selmon died this morning...”

What? That is impossible. We had just seen Billy five weeks ago, at a Christmas party. He was beaming, as he always had, ever since we had first gotten to know Billy Selmon as a high school basketball teammate of our son Connor. His broad smile, so genuine, so Billy Selmon, was that of a young man who had blossomed into a husband, a father-to-be, a professional. The Billy Selmon laugh, that deep, throaty cackle, the result of some self-deprecating comment about himself... That was all there. The excitement of being an expectant father - his wife Hillary is due to deliver their first child in May of 2023... that was all there.

“…from a cardiac arrest.”

This can't be. God, with everything going on in the world today, can You please explain how You could take Billy Selmon from all of us?

We - the human race - got to enjoy Billy Selmon for 29 years, and our family had only known him for half of those years.

Billy Selmon is electric. His personality, his smile, his laugh - always bright, always on, always glowing.

Billy Selmon is electric. When Billy was a Pace Academy Knight basketball player, he would go on a tear, nailing seven 3-pointers in a row in a game. He was brilliant.

Billy Selmon is electric. He is a man in full, a husband, a father to be, back home in Atlanta, after a successful showing at Bates College and in the Boston real estate market. Nothing seemed brighter than the present and the future of Billy Selmon.

To his parents, Angela and Bill Selmon, to his brother Kenny, his wife Hillary, and his child-to-be, we extend our condolences and prayers for the healing from the pain of the loss we all feel.

Billy Selmon has charged us with the task of living our brief time on this earth to the fullest, and reminded us to love our neighbors as thyself, and to love God the father with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Billy's love of us and our love of him will not be dimmed by this tragic event.

Billy Selmon is electric.