THE skies rumbled, the rain came down in buckets. Maybe the heavens were weeping as they received Navy SEAL 1st Lt. Michael Murphy.
And yes, the tears of the people inside the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Patchogue, L.I., matched the rain as Michael’s fiancée Heather Duggan discovered for the first time that Saturday would have been a special day.
That was the day she was to be thrown a surprise shower for her upcoming wedding to her Navy SEAL hero.
“Yes,” said the late SEAL’s dad, Dan Murphy. “Saturday was going to be the shower.”
Funerals are never comedy central, but yesterday’s at the church of Mount Carmel was particularly gut-wrenching
The Rev. Robert O’Connell told Heather, a striking, petite blonde: “He carried you in his backpack.”
It all ended on June 27 or 28 when his four-man crew ran into murderers in the mountains of Afghanistan.
And yesterday, in a letter from the U.S. Navy in Washington, which was read at Calverton National Cemetery in Wading River, it was revealed that Lt. Mike had been wounded, but kept on firing rounds until he succumbed to an overwhelming onslaught.
“He was a remarkable son and my wife Maureen and I are proud and honored to have had Michael as our son for 25 years,” said his father Dan.
The Rev. Len Stegman, an army captain wounded in Korea and a member of the National Order of Purple Hearts, touched us all when commenting on Michael’s tender but brave 25 years on earth:
“He was 25. I am 88. Perhaps God is waiting for me to do something worthwhile.”
Mike’s cousin, Michele Murphy, said: “There was eight years difference between us. Older kids don’t think it’s cool to hang out with younger kids. But when he was 15 he would always take time out to amuse us with video games.
“He was so unassuming that today’s massive turnout at the funeral would have embarrassed him. He’d be saying, ‘What’s all the attention?’ ”
Fellow Navy SEAL and best buddy John Waggoner gave Lt. Michael a message.
“I will serve with you again,” he said.
John was indeed lucky to have had the privilege to serve with this modern-day knight.
Home is the hero.