Today, family and friends buried Byrd and Melanie Billings, a couple well-known for their love and care of special needs children. They adopted at least 13.
The father and mother were killed July 9 in their home in Pensacola, Fla., where police have arrested as many as eight people suspected to have been involved in the fatal military-style home invasion. Officials said they were after the contents of the couple's safe.
While the tragic story of the death of the Billings has played out on national television, the fact that the tragedy took place in Pensacola is like losing a family member. It struck so close to home.
Though the city is located in another state, the frequency of traveling to and doing business there is like an expansion of our own city limits in South Mississippi. Who here really thinks much about traveling back and forth to Pascagoula, Moss Point, Ocean Springs, Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, which is located on the Florida Panhandle just east of Alabama.
Many of us in coastal Mississippi either have family in Pensacola, or we know someone from there. For about two years, a friend and I made business trips there once a month. She and her late husband previously had done so for a number of years.
Now Pensacola, home of the Blue Angels, the Navy's flight demonstration team, is in the national spotlight, but not for anyone of its many features. The city lays claim to being the first European settlement.
The fact that such a national tragedy happened so close feels as if the alleged robbers took the life of our next door neighbors. South Mississippi, too, is grieving the lost of family close to home.
