An extra-special Bills bond
Buffalo football season offers some relief to pain of losing husband to COVID-19
The resurgent Buffalo Bills have been a pilot light for western New York, throwing at least a little warmth and comfort at the pandemic’s bitter torment.
“It’s one of the only bright spots I’ve had in the last nine months,” Buffalo’s Julie McNeil told The Spectator this week. “The Bills were such a love of Brett’s, it’s allowing me to hang on to him.”
On Easter weekend, Julie’s husband, Brett McNeil, died of COVID-19 at the age of 48. As a teen, he had been a star receiver at his Buffalo high school and later played semi-professional football for a few teams, including, for their brief revival, the Hamilton Wildcats in1994 and ’95 while he was living on this side of the border.
Brett — a lifelong Bills fanatic who studied the game intently and could be superstitious about his team — was a healthy and active man who worked out with a personal trainer but, just as it appeared that he was recovering from the virus, it suddenly took him.
He and Julie had been married 10 years and between them had five children from their previous marriages. But, as veteran Buffalo columnist Jerry Sullivan wrote so poignantly last week, because Brett’s two biological sons live across the pandemic-restricted border in Canada, since Brett’s death, the family hasn’t been able to get together in person. They’re still waiting to grieve together, salute his life, tend to his belongings, find some kind of meaningful closure that can be part of the healing process.
Julie recalled to The Spectator, sometimes pausing to regain composure, she and Brett were “superhuge Bills fans. We were really excited for every single year no matter how good, how bad they were.”
Brett used to attend games alone, but, when he and Julie became a couple, he bought a second season ticket and eventually they upgraded to club seats.
“The Bills were something that brought us together,” she says. “We started tailgating, got all the clothing, went on road trips together, had all our friends at the stadium. The eight home games a year, it was a whole big thing for us. And now just to watch this team this year ... The last game, when Isaiah McKenzie had that punt runback f or a touchdown (against Miami), I got so emotional. To see this team, to see just how good they are.
“Everything is locked down but, even though we can’t go to tailgates, we can watch games. You can’t be with other fans and friends for the games but, when the Bills come on TV, it’s so exciting. I was listening to some people at work today saying never in their lifetimes have they seen anything like this,” she says.
“This all means so much to me. As they keep winning, people are calling me to say that Brett would just love this ... that kind of keeps him alive to me and his kids.”
She was offered tickets for the home playoff game Saturday, the first time fans (limited to 6,700) will be allowed into the stadium this season. But, after much deliberation, she decided against going.
“We’re COVID sensitive in this family,” she explains. “We know that it can kill people.”
And then she adds, warmly and playfully, “Plus, to allow people in when you’ve been winning in front of no one? My husband would think that’s a jinx.”