Soon, Jamey and I were together again and the next year we got married. On my wedding day Bill told me I was the most beautiful bride he'd seen in over 20 years.
The next year Jamey and I bought our first home. Being an old house, it needed a lot of work. Bill put in countless hours working on our house before we moved in and has always been there to help out with all the little things (and big things!) that would go wrong.
Several years ago, my sister-in-law moved out to Washington but comes home to visit once or twice a year. They stay with Bill and Julie when they're in town. They'd been in town for a week this past Wednesday when Melissa asked if I could watch her three kids while she and her husband ran some errands.
I'd had the kids for several hours when Melissa called. Her voice thick with emotion, she told me to go in a room alone. I immediately knew someone was gone. Their grandmother is in her late 80's and isn't doing great. I expected her to say something had happened to her. I wasn't prepared for her to say through her tears, "When Henry and I got back from Wal-Mart, we found Bill in his chair, and he's dead."
Henry, a cop, had attempted CPR, but he was already gone. They'd had to go to Julie's work and tell her that her 58-year-old husband was gone. When my husband got home from work an hour later, I had to tell him that the man who'd raised him since he was four years old was gone.
The whole thing still doesn't seem real. Bill was a simple man and he wanted to be cremated and he didn't want any kind of funeral services. This has been hard for me because I don't feel there was an opportunity to say goodbye and grieve with family and friends. Yes, my husband, sister and brother-in-law, and mother-in-law have been spending time together, but there's been no time for us all to just cry and celebrate Bill and see extended family and mutual friends. Immediate family members were able to go to the funeral home for a private viewing before the cremation, but I was at home watching my kids and my niece and nephews, so never really got to say goodbye.
Last night, we were all over at Julie's, and sitting there on the kitchen counter, in a clear plastic bag, was Bill. It was a little much for me to handle. You picture ashes, but they really aren't. It was basically a bag of bone fragments. It was awful. I just saw the man last Friday, and now a week later, his bones are visibly sitting on his kitchen counter. I can't quite wrap my mind around it. I know this sounds morbid, but this is my reality.
There was no autopsy, Julie didn't want one, so I guess we all just have to assume it was his heart.
I feel so bad for Julie. Her life has basically shattered around her. They had so many plans. They'd already bought a home in Washington where they planned to retire. Now, once Melissa goes home, she will have to come home to an empty house every day, a 57-year-old widow.
He was an amazing man who would do anything for anyone. I am thankful his daughter and grandkids were in town and got to spend that week with him before he died. I'm thankful my kids had been spending a lot of time at their house to visit Melissa and Henry and were able to see him in his final days. I'm thankful I was able to know the man.
Bill and Julie at our wedding
