A Letter of Appreciation

A letter of appreciation from the Grant Family
(The following letter was published on page 10 of the Belmont Citizen Herald, July 5, 2001).

To all whom Brendan Peter Anthony Grant has touched . . .

Wednesday, 27 June 2001 started like any other day for our family, but as you all know, later that evening it ended with the sudden passing of our beloved son and brother, Brendan Grant.

Our grief over this loss has been immeasurable. Our sorrow seems to have no limits. Yet, at the same time we have been witness to something unbelievably beautiful, something that I’m not sure any of us fully understands. What I am referring to is the incredible outpouring of sympathy and support from all who have somehow been touched by Brendan’s 18 wonderful years.

The sole purpose of our letter herein is to offer to each and every one of you our deepest and most sincere appreciation for your magnificent support. It is clear that as we write this letter, that so many of us are having trouble grasping the magnitude of our collective loss. Clearly this was a family tragedy, but we soon realized it was a community tragedy, and in fact, reaches far beyond our community.

The outpouring of support seems to have no end, and we will likely never be able to thank everyone enough. We are thankful to so, so many people. 

We thank the players, coaches and parents of Belmont Youth Baseball, and most especially the young men of the two Senior Babe Ruth Teams who were the innocent participants that evening in a game that we all love. We thank the Belmont Police Department, the Belmont Fire Department, the Paramedics, and the Police Departments of Cambridge and other jurisdictions, not only for their heroic and supportive efforts that evening, but also for their truly noble assistance as we subsequently proceeded to celebrate Brendan’s life. We thank Dr. Mark Sagarin and all of the Emergency Room staff at Mt. Auburn Hospital on duty that evening, for both their valiant professional efforts and for their incredibly touching expression of sympathy in the days that followed. 

We thank the incalculable support of Father Bouton of St. Luke’s parish, and the bountiful expression of love from the entire St. Luke’s and St. Joseph parishes, bolstered by the support of the Archdiocese of Boston. We thank the gentle and highly professional staff of Brasco & Sons Memorial Chapels, for their flawless implementation of our collective celebration of Brendan’s life. We thank the professionalism of the media for their extreme sensitivity as this story unfolded. We thank the caring nature and assistance of Foster Wright and the staff of Belmont High School, along with the valuable healing support of Dr. Arnie Kerzner.

We thank Brendan’s very closest friend’s, whom have always been part of our extended family, and with whom we are now working so closely on the rebuilding process. We thank the many, many relatives, friends and colleagues, some of whom came great distances to express their heartfelt sympathy. We thank the numerous people whose friendship is new to us, and yet whose lives have been deeply touched by Brendan’s magnanimous nature, ranging from distant participants in the Middlesex League Baseball and Northeast-10 college baseball, to the Kennedy family, expressed by Senator Kennedy himself, to the people who have told us that they have no commonality with our family, community, or other aspects of the event, except that they have been so profoundly touched.

We will all miss Brendan. He was truly an exceptional human being. We have lost a wonderful young man whose dreams and good nature has been an inspiration to all who knew him, and to many who didn’t. On behalf of the entire Grant Family, we extend our most profound appreciation for the tremendous sympathy that has been expressed. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Casey, Cathy, Lyndsey, and Shannon Grant