Tough
Days
There are stories and
there are stories. Some of them are funny or cute or poignant or
have other merits. Some are throw-aways and are just the thing to
fill a few minutes of your time and then forget about. Others are
more substantial. This is one of the latter. Please come along, if
you will, and see what's been happening in my world as of late. Also
remember as you read along that the recollections I'm about to relate
are from my perspective. My knowledge of some of the recent affairs
is sketchy and second-hand at best. The difference between these
words and the actual truth may be slight or also may be more
substantial. Keep that in mind.
&
It's kinda hard to
remember just exactly when I met him. Was it in my Sophomore year in
high school? Maybe my Junior year? Possibly even earlier? I should
remember, of course, and I apologize now for not being able to. Some
memories from those long-ago years are as fresh as the cup of tea I
just finished drinking, but others are slippery, oh so very, very
slippery, sliding back into the mists even as they're half
remembered. In any event, sometime during my formative years I met
Bill and we hung around together. Quite a lot, actually.
Take that as a given.
Bill was and is a very
bright guy and proved this fact by taking a number of high school
science courses a year early – chemistry and physics come to mind
at the moment, and the reason those come to mind is that we took them
together, he as a Junior and me as a Senior for the physics, he as a
Sophomore and me as a Junior for the chemistry.
I suffered somewhat in
those classes – I probably wasn't the brightest student in the
room, but Bill always seemed to be there to lend a hand. Perhaps
with a helpful tip on something we were studying or to explain a
formula that had seemed hazy to me when we were introduced to it in
class. I suppose I helped him from time to time also with our
schoolwork, but a lot of the help was one way – him to me.
We did a lot together back
in those days – studying, messing around with cars, goofing around,
almost drowning paddling around in a canoe and mostly just trying to
be normal high school kids. We even went on double-dates a time or
two!
Good memories!
There were other
connections between us (other than both our names being William) that
I only found out about later in life. Apparently Bill's father had
been my father's boss at the factory they both worked at not long
after World War II. I didn't know that! One day my father
approached him and asked for some time off. When he was asked what
for, dad said he wanted to get married. I understand Bill's dad
rolled his eyes and spent quite some time trying to talk him out of
it, but then reluctantly agreed to the vacation time.
I'm glad dad was resolute,
else... possibly no me!
Anyhow...
Bill suffered from a
stutter when I knew him in school, quite a pronounced one at that.
He always seemed to know what he wanted to say, but a lot of the time
his brain tried to outvote his voice and they would vie for control
of his vocal cords. I know he took a lot of teasing in those years
and perhaps I might have been one of his tormentors from time to time
too, much to my chagrin later in life. The stutter also made him
quite shy. He overcame this shyness later in life and became one of
those guys that everyone seemed to know and who knew virtually
everyone.
To be honest, most of the
time I just ignored the stutter like you'd ignore someone's limp or
someone else's funny accent. Once you grew accustomed to it, it was
normal – just a facet of that person. So I mostly just accepted
Bill's stutter as... well, just him – no more and no less. No big
deal as they would say nowadays.
Bill arrived in his family
as a very late addition – a love child as some might say. When I
met him as a mid-teenager, his father had already passed away and his
mother was, to my eyes at least, a very old woman – much more akin
to my grandmother than my mother. His brother Jack had taken on the
responsibilities of the head of the family and was doing a good job
taking care of their mother and filling in as Bill's ersatz father.
I always liked Jack. You always knew where you stood with him. He
was a down-to-earth guy, maybe a bit gruff from time to time, but
quite likeable. Jack, upon our first meeting, accepted me without
reservations as Bill's friend and someone who would be hanging around
his house. A lot.
As I said before, I always
liked Jack. However, there were some things, such as...
I remember quite
distinctly an early visit to their house. Jack had got up from his
chair to get another beer and asked if Bill or I would like a bottle
of pop. (We were both too young to drink alcohol at that time.) Bill
said yes and I said I didn't care. Jack returned with one bottle of
pop and handed it to Bill. I looked at him blankly, wondering it
he'd misheard me, if I'd annoyed him or what the story was. He
looked at me with twinkling eyes and said, “you said you didn't
care, didn't you?”
I admitted that I had. He
replied, “If you want something, ask for it. Don't prevaricate and
be all namby-pamby.” Maybe the words weren't prevaricate or
namby-pamby, but the sentiment was identical.
I then meekly said, “could
I have a bottle of pop, Jack?” He smiled, knowing the lesson had
been learned and got it for me. I remember that lesson to this very
day and try to never say “I don't care” to anyone unless I really
mean it.
Especially in earshot of
Bill.
As with a lot of
friendships, ours had periods of time where we weren't physically
very close. One of those periods was after I graduated from high
school when I had volunteered for the Air Force and was off on my
four-year stint doing what Uncle Sam wanted me to do. Bill and I may
possibly have written to each other during that time period, but I
can't really recall. He was drafted a couple years later and also
served our mutual uncle in the Army, amazingly missing out on
visiting the little fracas going on at that time in Southeast Asia.
He spent a lot of his military time in Alaska! I'd venture to say he
was one of the few draftees in that time period who can claim that
distinction.
It was during his time in
the service that he got some intensive counseling and therapy on his
stutter and was taught how to overcome it. I would not have believed
it possible, but he exited the U.S. Army with absolutely no stutter!
I met him sometime later when we were both civilians and we talked a
bit. As we chit-chatted I had the creepy feeling of some strange
difference in him, some anomaly. I studied his face, his dress, his
demeanor, his... and then it hit me. He wasn't stuttering! I was
very surprised and delighted with the “new” Bill and made sure I
asked him about how this miracle had happened. It seemed to be a
real life changer for him.
We hung around, off and
on, for the next few years and I became friends with his first wife
Jeanette. My wife and I were often visitors in their house and they
in ours. During the next few years I went to business school, got a
diploma and entered my field of work in computers. Bill went back to
his first employer – Sears – and began a long career as a service
technician. We meshed up together again later in the '70's when we
both went back to college, together again, and earned associate
degrees.
Over the next period of
time Bill broke up with his first wife and, some time later, married
another lady – Sue. This was on one of our “off” periods of
time when we weren't together much. We were aware of each other's
circumstances but were living our lives mostly apart from each other.
His brother Jack passed away sometime in that time period and Bill
inherited his house. Sometime around there Bill got his first
computer, called me and asked whether I'd like to see it. It was a
little Apple IIc with the small green monitor. He demonstrated to me
how he was doing some home finances and other interesting things with
Appleworks running on it and I was quite taken with the machine and
the implications of what it could do. Enough so that I bought one
not long afterward!
We popped into each
other's lives often from that point forward.
Bill lost his long-time
Sears job a number of years ago and held two more afterward, one in
an electronic flash gun manufacturing plant as a tech and the second
in a custom paint mixing shop as the plant maintenance supervisor.
After the paint shop job ended he was out of work and looking again.
A position was opening up at the county building where I worked and I
knew it was just up his alley. I facilitated his application, helped
to fast-track the interview process and soon he was hired.
We've been working in the
same office together now for 6 or 7 years.
So enough with the history
lesson. Let's get on with more recent stuff...
A couple of nights ago my
boss asked me to drop off some equipment at Bill's house on my way
home. Bill was off work, we both live in the same town and our
mutual workplace is a little less than an hour's drive to the north.
I said fine and, since I work second shift, I pulled into Bill's
driveway a little before 1 am. I rang his doorbell and soon was
invited in. He took the equipment I'd brought, put it away and we
sat down in the living room. He then looked at me with a sad,
faraway look in his eyes and began to talk.
He talked and talked about
many things and I listened to his words far into that night. He had
so, so much on his mind and, knowing the circumstances of his recent
past, I knew that my role that dark and rainy night was to just be an
ear, to just listen and acknowledge my listening, to be the
“everyman” for him, the non-critical, non-judgemental,
non-problem-solving friend he needed at that moment in time.
I hope I was that sounding
board for him there that night. I hope I was perhaps able to allow a
little catharsis to flow. I hope I provided him some modicum of
normality to this decidedly abnormal period in his life.
For you see, Bill had lost
his wife five days before that night. Her funeral had been the day
before.
I could go on and on now
about the circumstances of her passing, the news of her illness, of
the days when the end seemed near but then receded, when an organ
transplant and cure seemed possible – even likely, of the failure
of the transplant operation and the terrible devastation afterward.
Of her last hours.
But those are Bill's
memories and they shall remain Bill's choice for sharing or
withholding.
I thought about what Bill
had said after I left and I thought also about what was left unsaid,
the lines between the lines. What came to mind was that we all will
be in his wife's shoes one day. Sooner or later. Whether our
passing will be quick and painless or will be strewn with sorrow and
tears and long periods of decline before the end, who can tell? We
mostly never get any choice on the method of our leaving - the dice
are rolled, the cards are dealt, your number is up and the flavor of
your demise is writ.
Bill went through the fire
this past month being with his wife and being the rock she needed. I
like to think that fire has tempered him and made him a better man.
I like to think that fire has given him a tensile strength that will
last him the rest of his days.
Bill has a journey to make
now, to find a new “normal” for him, to find a new equilibrium
where he can plant his feet and carry on.
But he's a survivor. He
always has been. I like to think that he'll find that equilibrium,
that balance and will be able to forge a new path for his life in the
coming years.
I look forward to
remaining his friend and walking with him a ways down that new path.
