Treasure Your Family And Friends...
Seems like a regular outing to dinner, doesn't it? It's my neice Jen and her husband Derek. Out to dinner with Mom and Dad. Dad is my brother-in-law Billy, sitting across from them. He has his head propped in his hand, which after looking through dozens of pictures, its a mannerism that he had. He was a thinking man.
He also was a very good man. He came in and married my sister, and treated her young children Jay and Jen as his own. Jay was 3yrs old, Jen months old when their father left. Linda and Billy had been childhood sweethearts all through High School, then something went wrong when she went off to college. She married the wrong guy, and left school, with one semester to go on a fine arts degree. She never would go back to get it.
A year on, my brother got married. We encouraged her to call Billy, just to talk. He'd never gotten married. They courted again, and got married in September, in the backyard of Billy's aunt's...beneath a flaming red maple tree that didn't seem like it could be real.
And for over thirty years they lived a love story. Sure, things weren't perfect. But they were as perfect as time and place could make it. They had a thriving business together, for many years. Kennebeck Surveyors.
When the economy tanked, they closed, and it's taken years to finally close the door on the business, but with help, eventually Linda will be able to do that too.
Billy worried about the business, he worried about his ailing parents in Florida, so much so that he stayed behind to help with them during Thanksgiving, and on into the holidays. Linda begged him to take a break and go with her to Nashville, to visit the kids and grandchildren. He wouldn't go, he felt he was too needed with his parents.....
So, on Christmas Eve Day, when Linda couldn't reach him for hours, she called 911. They broke into their home, the one they were retiring to....and found Billy dead on the couch. A heart attack.
His death has torn a hole in our hearts, and in our family. He was the guy to ask if you had a thorny problem. He always had good ideas. He really cared about people, and tried to help whenever he could. That's how he overworked himself trying to make things more comfortable, better for his parents, when nothing on this earth would have helped at this point. He wouldn't listen to Linda to take a break. His blood pressure was high, his doctor knew, and added another pill.. Apparently, it didn't help.
On April 15 we have a memorial service for Billy. Maybe it will give some closure. But when will it stop us reaching for the phone, to ask him a question. Or finding something funny and reminding ourselves to share it with Billy, who had the craziest cackle of a laugh I've ever heard.
It seems unimaginable that I won't hear his distinctive eastern voice, or his tremendous cackle anymore. I've known him since I was five years old, and he was dating my sister in high school. Part of the pieces of my own life. Ripped out. And I don't know how to fix it. I've written, I've fixed pictures of the family for them....I've spoken with my sister to let her know she's in my prayers continually. And she is. But that rift, that hole gapes open, the threads blowing in the cold April morning. I shake my head, and the sun comes up, showing the new grass, the blooming trees, the flowers coming up. Just as always. No change from year to year. Except that Billy isn't here to appreciate them. He loved the land as a surveryor, and was one of the few men I know that regularly
rought his wife flowers and brought them to her. How romantic is that? The last week of his life, he sent a big Tropical Christmas display, complete with bird of paradise. That sounds like him. It was amazing. Beautiful. Like his life. I wish for my sister and her family it could have been longer. Only God knows the days we are given. That's why we should live it fully, embracing our lives, our loves, our passions. For we only go this way once. Billy made a good job of that path he had been given. God Bless HIm, God bless his sweet mother who died four days after he did. And God Bless his sweet sister Nancy, who fought so hard against her cancer, but gave up, and joined her brother, and mother in Paradise.
An entire family. Gone. The only one left~ the father. Alone. What he always dreaded. What we all dread at the end of life. In the course of six weeks he lost his son, his wife and his daughter. How much pain does that poor man have in his path to glory? I pray for him that he will soon be with those he loves, no more pain, only love left.
So, this is where I have been. This is what has been happening in my life. Nothing happy, or interesting. Just sad. My husbands mother died at Thanksgiving. So he is in mourning as well. There's nothing more I can do but be there, love each one, and pray for them. Which I've done. The year is half over, and this is what we show for it. Pray God the second half will be better. Thank God for Frax and his empathy and love. I know his tenderness and help throughout this time helped prevent me getting sick.
