YARMOUTH OFFICER LAID TO REST
The Rev. Paul Caron had just arrived at the South Yarmouth parish last summer and was unpacking when he got a call from the church office telling him the police were on their way up. Then, there was a knock on the door.
“This is the police,” he heard.
Nervously, he opened the door.
“And I saw that wry smile and those eyes,” Caron recalled yesterday. “And suddenly I was enveloped in a bear hug.”
“Father Paul,” said officer Sean Gannon, “welcome to Yarmouth.”
Caron recounted the heartwarming tale yesterday as he presided over Gannon’s funeral, seeking to comfort a devastated family and community crushed by last week’s senseless slaying of the 32-year-old married man and beloved K-9 officer who had been with the Yarmouth Police Department for eight years.
About 4,000 brave men and women in blue from near and far — including an incredible showing of K-9 officers and their dogs — came to St. Pius X Church to bid farewell to Gannon, who was shot dead while serving an arrest warrant to a violent career criminal in Barnstable. Gannon’s police dog, Nero, is recovering from wounds he received in the attack.
In the days since, Caron said he’s been thinking a lot of the fallen officer’s summer visit.
“Sean was so welcoming and full of that love that last Thursday, in that horrible moment, God smiled at him — Sean recognized him of course — gave Sean a big hug and said, ‘Sean, welcome to Heaven,’ ” Caron said.
“We will never forget you,” the priest added. “You made a difference in the lives of so many.”
Caron, long a friend of the Gannon family from their involvement in his former church in Acushnet, had known Gannon for most of his life, and called him a “true Christian gentleman.” The reverend paraphrased an old prayer, saying, “Lord, you gave Sean to us, to be our joy. Now, you have taken him away from us. We give him back to you without a murmur, but our hearts are wrung with sorrow.”
The church was packed with mourners that included Gov. Charlie Baker. Outside, both police and civilians gathered. Gannon’s police boots, badge and cap were displayed in the church’s entrance, alongside a beautiful photo of the fallen officer with his wife, Dara, and their dogs.
“That smile, that greeting, that light and love, are now separated from us and it hurts so much,” Caron said, “but if we dwell only on that, our lives shared with Sean would devolve into some meaningless hate and hurt.”
Everyone, the reverend said, has wonderful memories of Gannon.
“All of us have been talking about so many things since last Thursday. We have cried, we have laughed and we have learned,” Caron said. Yarmouth police Chief Frank Frederickson, he said, “might have called him the Tom Brady of the YPD, but he was our star as well and forever will be.”
Caron said Gannon’s mother, Denise, told him she knows that her son “is but a veil away.”
“She knows in faith that he is OK,” Caron said. “A mother feels these things and a mother knows these things.”
The fallen officer’s mother also reminded the pastor of something he once said.
“Long ago I told her that if I could ever have a son,” Caron recalled, “I would like him to be just like Sean.”