Michael Duffy: Often the Best
Man
Michael
Duffy loved Dickens, a yellow Labrador who had been a
Christmas puppy. But best friend? There the dog would
have some competition. Mr. Duffy's big brother, for one.
His little sister, too. Any of a dozen inseparable
schoolmates from St. Anthony's High in Huntington, on
Long Island.
He could have slept in a tuxedo, as often as he was
asked to be in a wedding party. Last year he was in five.
Truth is, says his sister, Mary Kay Duffy, if not for his
friends' brothers, he might have been best man in each.
He was best man at the wedding of his brother, John, who
says, "I can honestly say that many of the best days of
my life had been spent with Michael."
He tended to invite seven or eight friends to make up
one golf foursome. But he was always "expanding the group
rather than eliminating," says John Duffy. His refrain
was, "Who's got it better than us?"
Ms. Duffy recalls a soulful, athletic, protective
brother who "used to break my girlfriends' hearts." She
says, "A running joke was that Michael could always date
my girlfriends but I couldn't date his guy friends."
Michael Duffy, who joined Keefe, Bruyette & Woods as
a bond salesman in August, was a week shy of 30.
Four years ago, Dickens's best Christmases were past.
Old, ill and in pain, the family pet needed only that
last trip to the vet. Michael Duffy made the trip on his
own. He kept the dog's collar over his bedpost.
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