My Dad

This past Thursday, February 28th, my Dad passed away peacefully at home from complications due to Parkinson’s disease.

Thank you so much to all of you who left Nancy and I notes of sympathy, encouragement, and love. I’ll respond to each of you as soon as I can. The responses from all of you, and from so many friends and relatives, was an incredible blessing. Although I can’t begin to imagine how it’s going to feel when I really understand that he’s gone, the comfort that was poured out on us by family and friends gave us the sense of being snuggled up together in a great big, warm blanket. It made all the difference in the world.

As a grown man now myself, there are two primary ideas that I try to live by: care for family, and care for others. I learned those from my Dad.

When I was about 10 years old, my two younger sisters and I auditioned for a local production of Alice in Wonderland. The director had assigned roles to a number of us, handed us scripts, and placed us up on stage to begin reading our parts in turn. My youngest sister stood a little ways off to my right. She was 6 or 7 years old. The rest of the room offstage was filled with the other hopefuls and all of our parents.

Just as the first reader in the scene began speaking, I heard a girl next to my sister ask my sister what role she had. My sister told her, “The 10 of Hearts.” But the girl immediately said, “No, no, I’M the 10 of Hearts.” A chill went through me, and apparently went through my sister as well, and she began to cry, and the reading stopped. I stood there holding my script, ready to perform, frozen, feeling like the whole place was watching us, waiting to see what I was going to do. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there. Then from all the way in the back of the room, I saw someone walking up the center aisle toward us: it was my Dad. He calmly came up on stage, gently picked up my sister in his arms, carried her offstage all the way to the back of the room, and sat down with her. I was in complete turmoil, but as my Dad turned back toward us, I saw his face. There was no turmoil, or embarrassment or anything. He just held my still-crying sister, and waited for the audition to continue as if everything was just fine. I had had no idea what to do, but my Dad knew exactly what to do, and he did it perfectly. And at that moment, my Dad became my hero.

During those same years, our family and a number of friends spent two weeks every summer at Lake Michigan. One afternoon, a bunch of us kids were playing together, when another kid, a stranger, came up to us. He was short, with too many freckles, and bright curly red hair. For some reason, I, as the oldest, decided “we” didn’t like him, so I snubbed him and led my little group away, leaving him all by himself, and promptly forgot all about him.

But a day or so later, all of us kids were playing in the lake with my uncle and my Dad, and that kid showed up again. He was just standing around, annoying me once more. But then my Dad saw him. And without a moment’s hesitation, and without consulting ME, he smiled at the kid and said, “Would you like to play with us?” Of course, the kid burst into a big grin, nodded his head and came running in to join us. I was frozen once again, but this time with the full realization of what a complete jerk I had been. I still remember exactly where I was standing in that lake, with the cold water up to my knees, feeling like the Grinch who stole Christmas, standing with his Grinch feet ice-cold in the snow, when he realized what a complete jerk HE had been. And something inside me said, I will never do that again. From now on, I’m going to be just like my Dad.

Everyday, I try to live up to that promise. And everyday, I try to be faithful to that legacy of care for family and care for others, just like my Dad taught me.

That you so much, Dad, for all you were, and all we are because of you. We will love and miss you forever.

BILL JR.