Hundreds of friends and family filled St. Catherine
’s Church Saturday to attend the memorial services of Willie
McGeever, a Live Oak class of 2002 graduate who took his own life
April 7, 2003. He was 19.
Hundreds of friends and family filled St. Catherine’s Church Saturday to attend the memorial services of Willie McGeever, a Live Oak class of 2002 graduate who took his own life April 7, 2003. He was 19.
People stood in the back of the church, all seats having been taken up early on. Some listened to the service outside in the rain after the foyer filled up with friends as well. Friends from Live Oak came in large groups. Teachers, yard duties and administrators also came to pay their respects.
Friends flew in from as far away as New York and Boston.
Such was the effect of the young man’s death on the people – teens and adults – that had known Willie.
Born in Mountain View in 1984, Willie moved to Morgan Hill when he was 5. He had lived here since then and attended Nordstrom Elementary, before moving on to Britton Middle School and Live Oak High School.
As a child, to most people Willie seemed in all respects to be a regular young boy, save for some quirky behavior. At one time Willie always had to have his head covered, and would use a Tupperware or pot if no hat was available.
He was especially fond of Legos, acting and fishing with his father as a child.
Under the smiles Willie was actually very sensitive. “He personalized things and felt them differently from everyone else. A lot of times he misunderstood what someone was saying,” said Willie’s dad, Bill.
“From the moment he was born the nurses said he was going to be a handful. He was my first so I thought, ‘What do they mean by that?’ Turns out he was, and on his good days he could just light up the world. On his bad days it was sorrowful,” said his mom, Evelyn.
The image that was apparent to the community was much different.
Most teachers remember Willie as a brilliant individual, though very inattentive to his work from the very beginning.
“Sometimes when your that smart you just can’t be bothered. Willie was a genius,” said former teacher Paula Haaser.
He was also enormously popular with the other kids. “Being able to take control of the class room probably made him even more popular,” said Anna Friebel, Willie’s algebra teacher at Britton. “Other students that know me will be happy to hear he gave me a run for my money.”
Willie had been attending West Valley Community College, but had not decided on a major.
In between making his fellow students laugh and “terrorizing” his teachers (in their own affectionate words), Willie became interested in music. Before he died Willie had learned to play cello, drums, guitar bass, accordion and harmonica. In eighth grade, Willie started playing with a band called Mentally Phat.
“He was just so passionate. His bass playing was very melodic and catchy,” said Dario Puga, former guitarist of Mentally Phat, “We would sing about things and we’d believe it because of him.”
“He played all the other things, but guitar was his passion,” said Evelyn. “He would sit in our family room for hours and fill the house with beautiful music.”
Being an excellent musician, Willie was an inspiration to other students pursuing music, “jamming” with many other kids, be they his peers or much younger musicians, and he told many of them to keep at it.
“He was the reason why I kept on playing bass through middle school. The first time I saw Mentally Phat and heard Willie playing bass, he left my mouth wide open,” said Cody Moore.
Many students grew very fond of Willie. Last year, he won “Most likely to be heard” for senior bests in the Live Oak yearbook. Willie was known to pop in at friend’s houses unexpectedly just to say “hi”. If his friends weren’t home, he would visit with their parents.
“He’d always pulled out his guitar for anything, whenever you had more than three people together,” said Peggy Seva, a special education teacher at Live Oak, who is also the mother of Boof Seva, one of Willie’s best friends. “But then again he could get angry just as quick about something someone did, you just could never tell.”
“Everyone knew Willie on the Live Oak campus, and he would always be finding ways to get out of class,” said Seva. “One time on campus I saw Willie walking by out of class. There were some construction workers on the roof of the library and they were shouting, ‘Hey Willie!’ He’d talk to anyone, it didn’t matter if it was the construction workers or someone in front of 7-Eleven.”
“Sophomore and junior years I saw this person full of laughs and jokes, bringing out the best in everyone at Live Oak High, including me. His heart was the biggest I’ve ever seen. I knew him to be a person with a heart of gold,” said Mike Diaz, a close friend of Willie’s who aside from being a schoolmate also worked with him.
Willie was well known from his job at Marie Callendar’s in Cochrane Plaza. He had worked there for two and a half years before changing jobs to Starbucks, and regular customers were always excited to see him.
“He was a team player, always in a good mood, and was always a joy to have around here. He would always bring up morale, even with the guests,” said Melissa Gillespie, Marie Callender’s manager.
His peers were not the only ones who became attached to Willie. Many teachers on the Live Oak campus were good friends of the talented young man.
“You knew where you stood with Willie, and when he chose you for a friend, you couldn’t have a better one,” said Bobbi Pedersen, art teacher at Live Oak who had Willie in Studio Art 1 two years ago.
Willie grew to know one teacher particularly well. Paula Haaser had Willie in her class all three years he was at Live Oak, and he was her teacher’s aide his senior year.
Haaser first met Willie when she was the sophomore class adviser for the homecoming float in 2001. “We were thinking, ‘What are we going to do for the float?’ Of course every year you have to worry about someone coming and destroying it in the middle of the night. Then one girl suggested we get Willie’s band to play on it. If Willie’s band is on that float, no one will touch it. Everyone respected Willy way too much. Ever since then he’s been part of my life.”
During Willie’s senior year, Haaser suffered the loss of her father. “Willie was the one that got me through. When I was down, it was always Willie that came to my defense and helped me. That’s Willy, he was just a smile.”
What else about Willie made him stand out in the minds of so many?
“He got his quick wit from me,” said Evelyn. “His character came from his father.”
“He was just too much for some people. He was a massive wise guy and that was was a lot for some people to handle. If someone got into a verbal argument with him, he would not be the one to quit. He was very sensitive and if someone made a wise crack he’d take it to heart,” said Bill.
He was also given to quick bouts anger, a sign of his underlying problems.
Aside from his moodiness, to his friends Willie was seen as a champion who would stick up for you no matter what the odds. “He either liked you or he hated you, and he would never put up with B.S. I think that straight-forward nature is how he related to the adults the best,” said Haaser.
“It didn’t matter how big he was. If someone was threatening one of us he became huge. Willie wouldn’t back down from anything, even if he lost a fight. As long as he stuck up for us and what he believed in, he was satisfied,” said Boof Seva.
“He was a proud Irishman and he always stood up for the underdog,” said Pedersen.
“When anyone got upset, he was always the first person to console them and try to make them smile,” said Peggy Seva.
Everyone remembers Willie’s happy demeanor, but a few saw the sensitive youth in his troubled moods. Many times after a very minor upset with his friends or at work, McGeever would come home, sunk into a deep depression.
“You saw the smiley care free boy and you didn’t realize what he was suffering, and how sensitive he was,” Bill said.
“He suffered from depression and hopelessness his entire life. He’s a poster boy for how poorly our medical system takes care of these problems. The general practitioners were wonderful, but they just didn’t have the tools to take care of this kind of problem. More has to be done,” his father said.
His parents said they tried every medical resource available “but nothing seemed to click.”
To most of his acquaintances those moods would seem to pass and Willie would be cracking jokes again. At home his sensitivities and problems came out fully.
“He saved his worst for the home,” Bill said. “When he was low he came home and it effected the whole family. Maybe that will ‘connect the dots’ for some other parents. That may be the clue they need to realize their child is having problems.”
“His friends don’t seem to understand why someone like him would take his life. He didn’t see himself as an always smiling guy, as everyone else saw him,” said Bill.
“We worried about where this disorder would take him every day of our lives,” said Evelyn.
Three years ago, sister Amy McGeever established a program at Britton Middle School involving yellow ribbons, meant to raise awareness of teen suicide.
His friends will always remember Willie by the many laughs they had with him, his swagger when he came into a room and his big heart. That’s aside from the beard. Diaz put it best when he said, “When there’s a Willie, there’s a way to laugh.”
The McGeevers hope that Willie will also be remembered in another respect.
“It’s important to understand that he just didn’t wake up one day depressed and decide to do this. It wasn’t because of something like getting dumped or losing his job. My son was tormented from birth,” Evelyn said. “It’s like a shooting star. You see it burning bright and clear when suddenly it gets dimmer and dimmer until it’s gone. The last time I saw him the light was completely gone from his eyes. He hung in there so long for us, but in the end he couldn’t take it anymore.”
“No matter what my wife and I did for solutions, Willie still ended up dead at 19 years old. It hurts because money was not an object, and there are other kids like him out there and not all of them will find successful solutions. There was probably another kid at that service (Saturday) that hurts just as much as my son did. I just hate the fact that there’s not very much being done about it,” said Bill.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any donations be made to Suicide Prevention or any mental health organization. Also, the family asks everyone to consider signing their organ donor cards.
Anyone who knows a teen who may be at risk, or anyone undergoing a crisis of this kind, can find help by calling the Suicide and Crisis Service at 683-2482 or by visiting www.suicide.com, or by talking to friends and family.
The McGeever family asked that William McGeever be only referred to as “Willie.” Evelyn McGeever simply said, “He was just Willie, no last name needed.”
