{"id":18233,"date":"2020-09-21T20:21:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T00:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=18233"},"modified":"2020-09-21T20:22:13","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T00:22:13","slug":"darryl-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2020\/09\/21\/darryl-willis\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost Bike Dedication For Darryl Willis In Harvard Square"},"content":{"rendered":"

“My dad was a character,” one of the daughters of Darryl Willis said at a memorial in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Saturday morning. “He had a lot more living. You could tell.”<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old, who went by the nickname Pikachu, was killed when he was hit by a tractor-trailer truck while biking through the square on the morning of Aug. 18<\/a>. Since Willis’s death, the city has reduced automobile lanes there from two to one to add a separated bike lane.<\/p>\n

Ghost Bikes Boston<\/a>, a bicyclist group that places bicycles painted white at the sites of fatal crashes, organized the memorial ceremony in collaboration with Willis’s family.<\/p>\n

\"Donyell<\/a>
Donyell Chase-Willis and her fianc\u00e9 visit the ghost bike placed in Cambridge’s Harvard Square to remember her brother Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck there on Aug. 18. Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“He had a father, he had [seven] brothers and [four] sisters who really loved him,” Willis’s father, Frank Willis–who drove up from his home in Jacksonville, North Carolina, for the service–told the 40 or so people gathered near the Out of Town News kiosk.<\/p>\n

“He got me through the worst part of my life,” a friend said. He recalled Willis urging him: “You’re not going to lay down and do nothing. Get up and make the day better for your wife and you.”<\/p>\n

Rev. Laura Everett, part of the Ghost Bikes group, led the ceremony and gave a history of ghost bikes. “It started because whenever there’s a death, people need to mark it.” Everett said ghost bikes originated in St. Louis in 2003 and since has spread internationally. “What we do today ties Darryl and ties you to a network all over the world. We placed the first bike for Marcia Deihl in 2015. … A woman riding her bike from the grocery store and got hit by a dump truck.”<\/p>\n

“So many lives,” Everett said, “so many ghost bikes.”<\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Family<\/a>
Family members of Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18, place flowers on a ghost bike set there in his memory on Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Donyell<\/a>
Donyell Chase-Willis (left) and Rev. Laura Everett during the ghost bike dedication for Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18. Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Frank<\/a>
Frank Willis chokes up during the ghost bike dedication in memory of his son Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18. Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rev.<\/a>
Rev. Laura Everett leads a ghost bike dedication in memory of bicyclist Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18. Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Donyell<\/a>
Donyell Chase-Willis (left) and other family members of Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18, place flowers on a ghost bike set there on Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One<\/a>
One of the daughters of Darryl Willis speaks during the ghost bike dedication in his memory in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rev.<\/a>
Rev. Laura Everett leads a ghost bike dedication in memory of bicyclist Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18. Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Family<\/a>
Family members of Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18, place flowers on a ghost bike set there in his memory on Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Family<\/a>
Family members of Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Aug. 18, participate in a memorial service there on Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Donyell<\/a>
Donyell Chase-Willis and her fianc\u00e9 release balloons in Cambridge’s Harvard Square to honor her brother Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck there on Aug. 18. Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ghost<\/a>
Ghost bike placed in Cambridge’s Harvard Square to remember her Darryl Willis, who was fatally struck by a truck there on Aug. 18. Sept. 19, 2020. (\u00a9 Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“My dad was a character,” one of the daughters of Darryl Willis said at a memorial in Cambridge’s Harvard Square on Saturday morning. “He had a lot more living. You could tell.” The 55-year-old, who went by the nickname Pikachu, was killed when he was hit by a tractor-trailer truck while biking through the square […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,108],"tags":[42,808,260],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18233"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18242,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18233\/revisions\/18242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}