Fond Memories of Bill

I wrote this article in January,  the second one I put up on Gather.  I am reposting it today in

honor of my husband for Father's day, it is long, but he is worth it.  To the few that read it

Thank you, to those that read it, thank you.   

When I wrote my first article on Gather, called On my Own at 80, my children read it.

They all said I should keep writing. Their only criticism was that I didn’t write enough about my husband, but it was the story of my life. So now, I am going to honor their wishes and his life by writing about him, the love of my life.

I first met Bill when I was about sixteen and he was about seventeen. It was a really platonic thing as he was a pal of my brother’s. He was handsome to be sure, but really a shy guy. When I met him he was not all that tall. He was probably about 5 ft. ten inches then and I was almost at my full height, four inches shorter than him. He had curly blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. He had the most beautiful smile and perfect straight teeth. I should have paid much more attention to him then, but I was involved at that time with lots of beaus. It was like that in the forties.

Then suddenly in 1941, the war came and all the guys enlisted. Bill went into the Navy on his 18^th birthday, May 29, 1943. He had enlisted before that but had to wait until he reached that birthday. I went to the railroad station to see him off to New York City where he was taken by the Navy to Great Lakes Naval Training center for boot camp.

In six weeks he was headed for the South Pacific. Just like that. No goodbyes, just a quick phone call and then it was weeks before I got my first mail from him. It was a picture of him and I still have it today. He never came home on leave. He went into the thick of things. In those days there was no TV so all your pictures of the war were on News Reels when you saw a movie, and then they were usually weeks old. The news was reported on the radio and the papers carried what pictures they could. But World War II was different than any war since then. Quiet was the theme. Loose Lips Sink Ships, a slogan, Not a lot of information was given to the public. People worried about those in the war especially loved ones and every day you didn’t get bad news was a good day.

Bill spent his time at first in the Philippines. He was in hand to hand fighting there. . He was on a flag ship of the seventh fleet with McArthur and somehow, probably because by this time he had the height and build of McArthur, was assigned as his personal body guard. I know he was in the navy, but he was allowed to wear either the Navy Uniform or the Marine Uniform as in those days, the Marines were the Navy’s police force. I believe if there was such a unit in those days as Special Forces, he would have been in it. During the time McArthur went to Australia to regroup Bill lived in his home. He slept in his sons room. Arthur McArthur. I don’t know if he is still alive or not as he was a kid then or if he would remember Bill. Bill dressed in a uniform much like McArthur and went out any doors before him to protect him as he was a target in that War. When McArthur left Australia Bill returned to the Philippines with him and there he was separated from him. He had many different assignments and was on several ships that were sunk but somehow he always survived. On one such survival he was on a life raft in the Pacific sun for 17 days with several of his shipmates. When the raft was found, he was the only one alive and had Burns all over his body. He spent weeks packed in ice on a hospital ship and when his wounds healed he went right back to action. Bill was assigned to landing crafts bringing infantry to shore and always somehow got to go on shore too. He had a invincible feeling about his life. I think all teenagers do, and that is after all ,what he was. He went ashore and others followed and somehow most were mowed down but he kept on going with a small group following him. This happened over and over to him.

He told me about another time on one of the landing craft where he was manning a machine gun and in those days one man fed the bullets in and one shot the gun and another pulled the bullet holder through. During this time, the Japanese were returning fire and both of his friends on either side of him were decapitated. His luck was holding out. There are many more incidents of things like this but too many for me to remember details. He landed on Iwo Jima and there he was bayoneted in the stomach and lost one of the tendons in his right heel. Of course he spent more time on a hospital ship and when he was discharged, his heel was still bandaged. They said he would never walk without a limp but this courageous man said not me, and he never had a limp. He had a salty sailors gait, but no limp. He also had shrapnel in parts of his body but most noticeable was the piece almost the size of a marble above the knuckle of his pointer finger on his right hand. They were afraid to remove these pieces as if they broke up could have spread into organs and perhaps killed him. So he carried them with him all of his life.

He was discharged in November of 1945 after the war ended and had a couple of beers with some of his friends and went right down and reenlisted for two years. He spent those two years on an oil tanker in Trinidad. He said it was the most depressing time of his life. No war, no action, no nothing, not even home.

When he did get discharged in November of 1947, he came home and at that time I was going steady with someone else, but he hung around all the time, making my boyfriend very uncomfortable. In those days, most of the dating was in your home or maybe a movie you could walk to. Cost 25 cents. Double feature. So Bill who was still my brother’s friend came around often enough to make himself noticed. I always liked him and thought he was handsome but my mother wanted me to marry someone with a good job and a good education. Bill had Life’s education. And he worked at all kinds of odd jobs one after another upon discharge.

Eventually I broke up with my steady, and Bill kept coming around and by now he had a car. A 1940 Buick Convertible Black, with red leather seats. What a car. Gas was about 15 cents a gallon so if we had between us a dollar, we would put gas in the car and drive to a diner a few miles away and have a burger. You could do that then. Big expense was coming over the Bridge which cost a nickel. One night after such a “date” he leaned over as I was getting out of the car and kissed me on the forehead. I ran into my house and couldn’t sleep all night. All I could feel was the touch of his lips on me and the excitement I experienced then. I had kind of used him and now he had me. What a fool I was t o put off this wonderful man so long.

We started dating on a steady basis and were married in August 1949. The happiest day of my life. By this time Bill was working as a School Bus Driver and custodian for the high school he had left to enlist in the Navy. All the teachers had remembered him. He felt great and he had a State job and had good benefits and my mother was pleased. We went on a honey moon about twenty miles from where we lived as we were quietly married because my mother was ill and couldn’t attend our wedding. My Uncle and Aunt found out we were getting married and insisted they give us a wedding reception in their home. There were about twelve or thirteen people there, I don’t know, but I do know we had to come back from getting married in another State to go to it. Later on I was glad we had it because you do remember those things and maybe it wouldn’t have been the same without a reception. I don’t know.

When we were getting our marriage license we passed a place that rented cabins and they were very private and only about nine of them in a row. They were just a bedroom with a shower bath room but we were excited to have found them. So on our way home that day we stopped and rented one for our four day honey moon. They were four dollars a night. We didn’t know then we were having the reception. We left our party pretty late for then, and arrived about 10:30 PM to get our cabin. We went into the office and the woman there said she was sorry, but their dog had been hit with a car that day and they had left the maid in charge and she had rented out our reserved cabin. They wanted to send us to a hotel for the night, but we had no more money so they said if we wanted to we could use the maid’s room upstairs, next to their bedroom. We agreed as we were tired and didn’t know what else to do. Of course there was only one bathroom there, so I changed into my wedding nightgown, all lacey and that kind of thing, and then Bill changed and came into the room. The room was small and had a three quarter bed (just a little bigger than a twin) and a dresser in it.

We really didn’t care as we were man and wife and finally together. The thing we didn’t notice is that the bed had wheels on it and when Bill got in he must have pushed on the floor a little and the bed went across the floor. Well, we laughed at that and thought what would the people in the next room think. We finally got to sleep that night really late in those days and another thing we didn’t know was that a railroad track was not far behind the cabins so at three o’clock in the morning a Train went by in back of us blowing it’s whistle and we were both awakened and sat up in bed and the darn bed went across the floor again. When we went downstairs the next morning they asked how we had slept and said fine, but we didn’t know about the train, and she said with a smile on her face, Well everyone has surprises on their wedding night. I told this story to my mother when we got home and she said don’t ever tell anyone that story. You will be so embarrassed. I always thought it was funny and I am telling it for the umpteenth time 57 years later.

My mother was ill with cancer when we married and was in a lot of pain towards the end of her life. Bill and I took a large house to move my whole family in with us and we took care of all of them. I had two younger brothers one 17 and one 19. I was 23. Both of them lived with us but when my mother became bed ridden he was the only one that she would let turn her or lift her as he had such a gentleness about him. She passed away in March of 1950, she was 43. We stayed in that house just ten days after her death and found a smaller place as my 19 year old brother was drafted into the Korean conflict and my younger brother turned 18 that April and he enlisted in the Air Force which was newly created after World War 11.

I became pregnant at the end of our first year of marriage and unfortunately had morning sickness all day for the full nine months. But Bill was wonderful. He took such care of me. He was still working at the school and one night brought home a little black kitten a mother had left behind. It was only a few days old. We got one of those doll feeding bottles with a rubber nipple on it and between the two of us, we fed that “blackie” until he was old enough to lap milk on his own. I learned then what a patient and thoughtful husband I had. I always knew that, but it was so accented by his tender care of that kitty and his worry over me during that pregnancy. Just before I was ready to deliver, we were living alone again and gave up our little place and moved into his one room studio that we had lived in when we were first married. It was closer to his job and less rent and I had had to quit working so it made a lot of sense. It was owned by a German man who had came to the United States to escape the horrors of the Hitler regime during that time.

He had befriended Bill who was one of thirteen children, after his mother died when he was sixteen years old and although he never lived with him until after the war, he talked to him, gave him a father figure that he desperately needed, as his own father was an alcoholic and had abused most of his kids. It wasn’t called abuse then, it was just being smacked around. Anyway Bill survived that period of his life with the help of that man who had befriended him. He taught him a lot about a different kind of life than he had been exposed to by his parents. He came to know appreciation for finer foods, education, philosophy and a lot of things he would never have experienced except for Max. The friends name. When he came home from the war, Max offered him this downstairs little studio apartment with a bedroom, hall kitchen, breakfast nook and a shower-bathroom. It was nice, it was clean and it was just right for him and when we married, we moved in there together until my mother got ill and then we left to help take care of my family but when we needed a place for just us, Bill asked Max if we could live there and we did.

Our first son was born there and Bill was so excited to have a son. He was determined that he would be the kind of father that he had never had.

About four months after our son was born Bill had a sudden severe attack of appendicitis and while he had had his appendix frozen during the war, he could not ignore this pain. Max who could not drive, drove Bill to the hospital and I was home with our baby. Max came back awhile later and told me I had better go to see him and he took care of our baby and the doctor was trying to convince Bill that he had to have surgery, so we talked and because he was in such pain and the doctor assured him he would be okay, he agreed. He went into emergency surgery while I was there, and a while after that the doctor came out and handed me a jar with a 7 inch appendix in it in alcohol or something and asked me did I want it. I said no, why would I want such a thing, but the doctor said it was lucky they had done the operation as it was ready to burst and it was the longest appendix he had ever seen. I told him he could have it. I think he kept it. Bill was in the hospital a few days, longer than now, but he was out of work. During this time, we realized we needed to make more money as Max was building a new home next to the one he lived in with us, and had offered us the upstairs which was a beautiful modern home. It was high on a hill overlooking the Hudson River. The living room had a picture window that had a panoramic view and at night the lights on the river and the sounds of the fog horns and just the quiet of the river were wonderful. To help us make this move, he moved his job to an afternoon shift so I could work during the day. I found a job nearby as a secretary and he took care of our son. Every morning he would drive me to work with me holding Mark, on my lap and when I got out of the car, he would put him between his legs and drive home just a couple miles. Where were car seats then. A neighbor watched our baby for an hour every day as our jobs overlapped by that much and I took a bus home. He really learned to be a dad then. He had to change diapers, put him to sleep, entertain him all the things Mom’s do and he loved every minute of it. I can look at a photo album I still have of a picture of Mark that he had taken. In those days photographers knocked on the doors of new parents and asked to take your baby’s picture. One was always free if you didn’t want to buy more. (where are those things now) The picture showed what a great diapered he was, he had dressed him up in a cute little outfit and by now he was sitting up, but the diaper was evidently not folded right and it was sticking out of the little leg of his outfit. I love that picture It shows how hard Bill tried. His curls were done beautifully and he had a great outfit on but the diaper…..well, that would have been better if it had not been seen.

About a year after I started working I became pregnant again and that ended my working career for the next l6 years. We had a second son and somehow it is so much easier the second time around and Bill was even prouder. He just loved those kids and so did I. There was nothing he would not do for his family. When our second son was about two, we decided to move into an apartment that had a second bedroom for the kids. It wasn’t long after that that he began taking odd jobs during the morning digging ditches for a cousin of mine that had a business building septic systems, foundations and that kind of thing. I don’t know how Bill did it. It was such hard labor but he went to both jobs every day and kept us all safe and secure and taken care of. Then his friend Max who was still building part of his new home, asked Bill if he would do some work on sheet rock and painting for him. Well, that started a new career.

Bill was so talented at building and working with his hands and became an expert taper (putting sheet rock joints together). He also was a great painter. After doing side jobs for himself for about a year, we talked and he decided to leave his steady job with the State School system and go out on his own. We put an ad in the paper and in no time he had a following. People who were at that time just starting to build developments on large tracts of land, found out about his skills and he had steady work for a long time. It was a scary time for both of us. But you know, he was brave to do it and he threw himself into it and built a name for himself.

Soon after he became established we bought our first home. A large two bedroom home with a big dormer on it which was unfinished. It was an older home and we paid $10,500 for it, no money down with a VA mortgage at 4 ½ percent interest rate and the payment was $56.40 per month. That included taxes. Soon after we moved into that home, I became pregnant with our third son. By this time Bill had put a sign outside our house with his name on it and Building and Painting Contractor, but after his name was “& Sons. We bought a 1954 GMC bright red pick up truck so he could carry ladders and paint and tools and he laboriously hand panted his name & Sons on the door of that truck. I smile when I think back on that as I did at the time about how proud he was to be a dad. He wanted everyone to know. The kids were about 5 and 3. But his partners all the same.

We had a third son in l955. And he was really something. He was a smiling happy go lucky kid. We were happy with our little family and Bill’s business small as it was, was flourishing. He had gotten so busy that he had to hire a helper. Bill was extremely afraid of heights and some of his jobs required him to climb tall ladders when he was painting homes, or sometimes, repairing roofs. His helper was not afraid of this so they made a good team. This kind of business was good but it has its’ seasonal disadvantages. If you have inside work in the winter all is well, and that seemed to be okay. It was when he was working outside in the hot summer days that was really rough. But you know, he made all that work too for the family. His helper became our friend and had lunch at our home when they were working nearby and that was my job to see that lunch was there. I looked forward to seeing him then. For an hour we all just relaxed. But on the very hot days, Bill would come home with his helper and say, pack the kids up we are going to the river.

We were only a few miles from the Hudson River which had some stretches of sandy beaches. In those days, nobody minded if you used the waterfront for picnics and things like that so we would stop at a nearby deli and buy hotdogs and rolls and chips and a couple bottles of soda and spend those really hot (to hot to work days) having fun with the kids. They would run in and out of the water and get wet and have a great time and Bill would gather rocks and some wood and we always carried a grate from our oven to put the hot dogs on. The kids (men now ) still talk to everyone they meet about what a great dad they had. His off time could have been just sitting and relaxing but he spent it having and giving his kids a good time.

Bill was a hard worker and for about thirteen years managed to give us a pretty decent living by his brawn and sweat. During that time, he was asked by a friend to join the Auxiliary police force in the town we lived in. I think he was itching to do something like that because in the back of his mind, his military training was always there. He went on Sundays and directed traffic for church or other times for school functions, wore a police uniform and took his volunteer job very seriously. I was so proud of him. Never was he too tired to go on the spot if he was needed. These auxiliary police helped out the regular police when needed as the town we lived in was small and so was the police force. Thanks to the times, there was not a lot of crime where we lived, so supplementing the police force in this way was a way to save taxpayers money. And we were one of those too. He soon worked his way up to a Lieutenant in the Auxiliary police. He was made for that kind of job.

Only about a year later, he was approached to go on the State police. He was nearing forty by that time and we had had a daughter born to us in our twelfth year of marriage.

She was his princess and he adored her and the feeling was mutual. We talked a lot about changing his life’s work again, but he wanted us to be more secure in our future as far as health insurance and retirement was concerned. So together we made a plan so that Bill could follow his calling and become a State Police Officer. He had to take some schooling and when he completed that he went on that job. The pay was so much lower than he had been making on his own, that for a time, he still took odd jobs to supplement it. But then Bill decided he would like to take the afternoon shift and we made a decision together that I would take a part time job in the morning and he would be with the kids and then a neighbor would watch our little girl, who was six then, until I got home and he would work until midnight. Our sons were from 11 to 18 so they helped with her too. Bill wanted them to know how to become good fathers and men and he drew up a chart of chores for them to do everyday after school before they went out to play or whatever they wanted to do. He thought the fact that I was working shouldn’t mean I would have to come home at night and catch up with the house. It is a tribute to him that everyone of our sons are wonderful father’s and husbands and all of them can cook. Bill never could, but because he wanted them to help me they all learned small things like how to put something prepared in the oven, boil water, joking there, but they all learned what a man has to know how to take care of themselves. And while I was always the disciplinarian as Bill told me he would be afraid to punish them as he would not know how to do it to make the punishment fit the crime, the kids respected him.

People always said to us, you are so lucky you don’t have any trouble with your kids and Bill would say, luck has nothing to do with it, being a parent is a lot of hard work and being involved with your kids and setting them an example is everything. He was so right. Our kids were teenagers in the sixties and early seventies and believe me things were not too good in the schools or anywhere then, as drugs were rampant. Long hair came in style, but not for our kids. Some kids grew their hair long and would knock at the door to see our sons, and if Bill answered he would say, Who are you? And the kid would tell and he would say, well if you want to come here, get your hair cut. Believe it or not, the kids did. Here was this 6’3” man, they knew was a police officer, not letting his kids join other guys with long hair. Parents called to thanks us. Looking back on that, it is funny as later the long hair really took hold and Bill answered that by shaving his head. It was cooler under that big Smokey hat anyway.

Boys used to be a little in awe of Bill as he was fit and tall and worked out. And he had the look of a tiger when he wanted it, but was gentle as a lamb on the inside. My kids always joked around with Bill and other kids envied that relationship. Later in life, my sons were talking to us when we were all at a family gathering and they were adults, about when the kids asked whether their dad had ever hit them. Our second son said no, but have you ever been slid up a wall? We laughed when we heard this, as when the boys were old enough to know better and talked back to me or did something naughty like hit one another or anything that needed straightening out, Bill was so tall, he would take them by the shirt and put them gently against the wall and slide them up to his eye level and tell them not to do whatever got them into trouble that day again. I guess it was effective because our sons said after once slide up, they never wanted to do that again. Bill just didn’t want to talk down to them so he brought them up to his height and spoke to them “man to man”. Never one hand was laid on any of them. Bill could not do that as he had his childhood memories of being hit many times by his father and would never do that to his kids. He promised that to himself when he was going through it and Bill was true to his word.

With our daughter, Bill was so wonderful. He had more to do with her during her years from six to young woman hood than I did as he made her breakfast, saw her off to school and they had a wonderful bond. In going through his stuff lately I found this poem she had written to him and I am going to include it here. It explains how she felt about her daddy. It is titled “Father”

He says I’m beautiful

His girl child

A time when I was a princess

In his castle

I could do no wrong in his eyes

I was truly blessed

Without bounds

My head pressed against his strong chest

He feels my hair

He says it’s silky

I’ll never forget

His little bunny rabbit

Curling up in my bed

When he tucked me in

Almost disappearing in a ball

His laughter in my ears

Singing me to sleep

I love you daddy

Bill felt every pain she ever felt and watched over her to keep her safe. He couldn’t keep her from all harm as her life was hers to live.

Bill worked for the State Police for twenty three years. He had many harrowing experiences. I used to have a police scanner in my home and listen to his voice to be sure he was alright when he called in every so often for a check or something that they do. During these years, I had a career also and though we only saw each other late at night and three days a week, we cherished every moment. There are not enough good things I can say about him. All Bill’s life our kids and me came first. I knew he wanted things but something always was needed more than what he wanted.

When he turned sixty two he retired. I was supposed to retire when I was sixty two also. He retired the year the Iran Contra hearings were on the television and he was instantly fired up about politics. I was happy when all that was over because every night he would tell me everything that had gone on in that hearing. I could not have cared less. But I respected him and I listened to him. He would do the same for me.

I discovered I had breast cancer the year I had just turned 62. Bill was so upset. I think he thought he was going to lose me. I was afraid too, but not nearly as bad as he was. He went to the surgeons’ with me and told him to take everything off me to make sure he got everything. They did, and I am still here. I worked until the end of that year until I was 63 and then decided we should spend sometime together. All our kids were out of the house and we had some really good years. Bill liked to shop. By this time, we were better off financially than when we were working. I don’t know how that happened but it did.

Bill began to get interested in the newest TV’s , they were getting bigger then. In the space of about eight months, we had a 27 inch Sony, a 32 inch Sony and a 41 in Sony. That was the brand of that year. Then came VCRs. I can’t tell you how many we had but he would buy the cheapest one, always afraid I was going to say something about the money but a couple weeks later he would pack it up and get a better model until at the end he had the top of the line. One day we sat down together and I told him, listen Bill, why don’t you just buy the one you really want the first time as pretty soon they won’t sell you anything. Well, of course, he listened to me there. All our kids were outfitted with TVs, stereos, VCRs and speakers. I always knew when there was something new on the market that he wanted because technology changes so fast in electronics. He subscribed to several magazines and would read and read on the different things he liked. Research is what he called it. I knew when things were getting serious as he would cut the picture out of the magazine and the blurb about its ratings, etc., and paste them on the front page of the magazine. He would put them where I would have to ask, What is that?

I always waited as long as I could but I could see the eagerness welling up in him and we would talk about it and although I hated to go to those kind of stores, I would go if he were going to spend any big amount of money to be sure he really got what he wanted and not something to take back and work his way up to the real thing. We gave the 41 inch TV to our daughter and got a 50 inch TV. Just about a year later, we got a 57 inch TV. We still have that one. Or, I do. .

I never begrudged Bill anything he felt he had to have as all his life he gave and gave and gave. No thought to himself. When any of our kids came to visit and they needed a wire or something, he would have a spare. A tool, here take it, don’t forget to bring it back, but he would be out replacing it in a few days because he knew it wouldn’t be back and if it did he would say , no keep it. That is just the way Bill was.

In the year 2000 our daughter had a terrible accident coming to get me to go shopping on August 14. She was late getting here and we both felt something was wrong and not long after she had told us she would be here to pick me up, we heard sirens and fire engines, but we never dreamed it was her and her little family in such trouble.

We rushed to the hospital and her son who was 12 was covered in her blood. He would not let them wash it off for five days until he went home. It was from her scalp wounds and he had tried to hold her head together. He thought he saved her life. Her daughter was brain damaged and in a coma for a couple of months but is fine now and will be 15 next month. She was eight then.

The joy was drained out of Bill. She was in a vegetative state for two and a half years and he could not bring himself to go see her. He did finally go after about a year and a half and then could never go back. She was totally unresponsive. She had been married for eleven weeks to a wonderful man that Bill and I loved. He stuck by her all those years and still has not remarried. He visits me and the kids still.

Bill would sit and look at his magazines, but he didn’t shop too much more. He thought she should have been taken off life support immediately as she had been without oxygen for over fifteen minutes and we both knew what that meant. But the eleven weeks of marriage took that decision from us. Hope springs eternal in the human breast and prayer and hope were not enough and she sadly passed away at the age of 42. Bill would say to me when I would sit and cry over her and say Honey, God gave us to her for 39 years and we should be so grateful to have even known her. He was right again.

Her son is emotionally crippled from her death and we were given him to take care of by the State as his dad had struck him one week from his mother’s death. We did not ask for him as we just wanted to grieve our daughter but Bill said, Honey, that is what she would want us to do. So we became parents again at 76 and 77.

Bill used to sit and talk to the boy after I came into the bedroom on the computer at night and they would have man to man talks. He loved that boy so much. Bill was the only real male figure in his life that he admired. He called Bill Mau Mau and that stuck all his life.

It is from a song in a movie they used to watch together when Bill would baby-sit him when he was small. I can’t recall the war movie but there was a song in there when the helicopters were flying that went “ditty boom boom, ditty mau mau mau” and since the boy was just starting to talk, he began to call Bill Mau Mau. Bill was Mau Mau from that time on to everyone.

Bill bought the boy his first car. I taught him to drive. Bill drove with him everywhere after that. They went shopping together, hung out, things like that. They were so close. When the boy first came he was 14 and weighed 98 lbs. and was 5 ft 4 inches tall. In about a year he was 6 ft. 1 in. and now is tall and thin the way Bill always was. He reminds me so of Bill.

As a result of all of his close calls in the service, Bill had post traumatic stress syndrome.

He suffered panic attacks and anxiety and was a severe hypochondriac. He was going to die very young he told me because he had had so many loses in the war that he couldn’t see why he was spared. It was rough on him and his emotions and on mine too. But somehow God puts people together for a reason. I think I was supposed to help him live his life unafraid. Many many nights Bill and I talked about his latest fear of a sickness and after logic took over he felt better. Perhaps in another life I was a psychiatrist. He did see one for over thirty years and had just a mild tranquilizer to help him when he panicked. I will say during all his long life and his adult working life, he never missed a days work because of it. He overcame his fears and pushed on..

Bill was the bravest, most honest, gentle, sweetest man I have ever known. One of his greatest fears came true and in September of 2005 he was diagnosed with precancerous colon problems. And because of his fear of cancer, wanted it taken out right away. When I look back at it now we should have gotten second and third opinions as he was 80 at this time and things grow more slowly when you are old. He had this surgery and he was supposed to come home in five to seven days. He was up and about the next day and by the third day walking the halls. He wanted to go home so bad. Bill came down with diarrhea and because they didn’t know if it was an infectious type they moved him off the surgical ward to another floor where they didn’t take him out of bed and in about two days he had blood clots, sepsis and pneumonia. I went to visit him and they told me he was in ICU. Just like that. During that time he was so ill no one expected him to make it and his heart rate was dangerously high so they got his permission with lots of coaxing to do a tracheotomy. He especially didn’t want that because my daughter had had one too.

Well, the life support system was only needed for a couple days and he recovered from the other problems but by this time had lost 46 lbs. and the doctor said they wanted to send him to a Rehab center because I would not be able to take care of him the way he was. Bill did not want to go but finally they found one just three miles from where we lived that was “state of the art” as those places go, and he agreed to it. He tried to exercise but he was just to weak. I went every day to see my Bill. I shaved him, cut his hair, clipped his nails, things like that. We listened to music together and although he had a TV in his room he had lost all interest in the outside world. I would put it on sometimes when I was with him and once in awhile I would catch him glancing at it. But I knew he was hating every minute he was there.

Bill was blessed with a sense of humor. He was so ill and so weak and yet the nurses and aids all loved him. He always had something cute to say to him. Old or not, he was still a MAN. He was never rude or crude but they enjoyed his humor. It was the glue that held us together. He got pneumonia on Mother’s day last year and one of the nurses from the center visited him in the hospital. He was so touched. You have to like someone to go out of your way like that. That says something for Bill.

We had two cars when he was taken ill. He had his and I had mine. After about six months it became apparent that even if he did recover and come home we were never going to need two cars again so we talked about it and mine was newer but I know how he loved his car and I said we will keep yours. He had a vanity plate on it with his badge and birthday number on it. They happened to be 29. It was his lucky number I guess.

Every time I get in that car I play the tape he had in it when he was driving. It is of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack doing routine and a few songs. Over and over. He had recorded it from a radio show. So though I know what is coming next I keep playing it.

Towards the middle of this September, just about a year from Bill’s surgery, a change came over him. He was more positive. He talked about coming home. He was going to try rehab again. I should have been happy but it scared me. It was too sudden. I talked to the nurse that was special to Bill and told her of my fears. And she said sometimes, there is a lightening towards the end of someone’s life that has been sick a long time and they feel better and that I should just wait and see as all his vitals were okay and we should enjoy ourselves together. I began going earlier in the day and staying longer.

On a Friday I went to see Bill and everyone was excited and said he had gone to rehab that day. I went in to see him and he said yes, he had, but he was so tired he was going to take the weekend off. I laughed at that as rehab is not done on the weekends anyway. He began talking more about how he was going to get home. And I told him well, if you are able to walk, I will drive you home. So you had better get to work. He just smiled at me.

On Saturday he was visibly tired and asked me to stay longer with him. I stayed after visiting hours were over and when I went to leave kissed him on the forehead as I always did as I was always afraid of giving him an infection, and he pulled me down and kissed my cheek. First time in a year. I looked in his eyes and saw something new there and kissed his lips. He kissed me back. Driving home that night I began to tear up and said, he just kissed me goodbye. The next day Sunday, I went to see him again early and he said he was okay but he said will you stay with me till I die. I told him about all the similar talks we had had during all our years together and that he was going to be all right. I then asked him was he giving up. He said I think so. I stayed late again that night and kissed him again on the lips.

On Monday, I went to see Bill early. He had just came back from rehab again and he said he had just gotten into bed and he was cold. He hadn’t done anything there, just sat in his wheel chair for a while and then back to his room I covered him up with lots of blankets as he seemed to have a chill. When I got him comfortable and was leaning over him covering his shoulders, he said, You are going to be all right aren’t you? I looked at him and asked him to say that again and he just shook his head no. He said he was tired and I told him to go to sleep but he said he couldn’t. I told him I would just sit there with him and that he should try. Then he asked me if I could see something out the window that he was seeing. I asked if he meant the leaves, the trees, clouds, there was just a parking lot out there that from where he was lying he couldn’t see. He said no, it is beautiful. I looked and looked and didn’t see anything but I told him if it was beautiful to just keep looking at it and try to sleep. I stayed with him and sat by his bed and about seven o’clock he fell into what was a sleep that seemed unusual to me. His head was back and at an angle and his mouth was wide open. Bill never slept like that. But I figured maybe he just is so tired he felt good that way. I kissed him on the forehead goodnight and he never moved. Always before he would kind of nod even if he was sleeping. I went grocery shopping.

I was watching TV that night just sitting there, I had called the center about nine thirty and they said he was fine and sound asleep. He had a feeding tube and he had meds about nine every night but they didn’t need to wake him for that. About 10:47 my skin became to feel like it was crawling and I couldn’t sit still. I got up to see if I had taken my evening tranquilizer, (for coping with what was going on in my life) and I had. So I just turned off the TV and came in on the computer. I read my email and the uneasiness went away. At 2:06 in the morning the phone rang and it was the center who told me my husband was unresponsive. And I said he is dead. They said they were doing CPR on him and had to follow a protocol and he would be taken by the paramedics to a local hospital’s emergency room. I called my second son who lives up the street from me and told me his dad had died and he came and got my grandson and me and we went to the hospital. Neither of them wanted to see him and a doctor came in and told me he had passed away and I told them I knew that. They took me to see him and as God is my witness, he was exactly as I had left him at 7 PM. I think he went into a coma then and his heart stopped at 10:47. I was with him when he really died. That gives me a kind of peace. My skin crawling was his earthly body stopping its breathing. But his soul had moved on before. We were that connected. He was stiff and ice cold and my own doctor told me he would have had to have died hours before 2 AM to be like that. So I think my automatic clock with him was right.

Bill is home with me now. I had him cremated and his urn is just a little way from where I am writing this with his picture and mine, and my daughter’s poem I have included here. I talk to him all the time. His presence is here. His love is here. I drive his car and he rides with me and we listen to his tape.

It would take many thousands of pages to describe in detail such a man. Bill was a larger than life person. Everyone that came in contact with him was changed for the better. His legacy is his children and his thirteen grand children and four great grandchildren. All of them except the great grandchildren are old enough to remember their granddad. They all miss him. He was an expert at being one of those too.

As for me, I am keeping my promise to Bill. I am going to be all right. I am all right. The love he gave me has made me so strong I will go on and take care of our daughters son. He said to me not long before he passed away, give my tools to the Kid, and take care of him he needs you.

Bill, I need you, let me dream of you. I love you.