In Memory

Originally posted on 11/28/07 on my AOL journal


Late last night, I received the news that someone I thought very highly of passed away. As I contemplated all that his death meant, I also stopped to think about the examples that he left for us. Bill was a man of action. Time did not sit still; therefore, he seemed to feel he should not either. Well into his 70s, if you met him you would have thought him to be 50. I saw him work 18 year olds into the ground and he would still be going.
Daring acrobatics were something that I saw in a circus until I met Bill, but if something had to be done then he found a way to accomplish it regardless of whether you thought it was safe. ( There were times that he would have given risk management heartattacks.) Impossible and insurmontable were not words that were a part of his vocabulary. He would look at something until he found the solution. From this I learned so many things, of course most of it was mechanical in nature. I know how to help a trailer back in to an area when it's landing gear is sticking or how to use 2x4s to get a pallet up enough to get it off a truck
Bill was a compassionate individual and any of us he cared about he would have done anything he could for us. We all knew this and would in return do anything for him as well. Everyone that he came in contact with was touched in some way by him, and those of us that knew him could not have loved him more had he been a flesh and blood relative. He was an amazing man with a huge heart.
I can honestly say that Bill lived his life more fully than most of us. He remained an active partcipant not merely a spectator to the very end. He made life happen and did not wait for it to happen to him. This is what I hope I learned the best from him. He proved age is simply a number and does not have to dictate what you can and cannot do. If I can be half the partcipant in my life at his age as he was, then I to will have lived by the example he showed to all of us.
While those he left behind will surely greive for him and he will be a much missed part of our lives, I think we owe it to him to celebrate all that he was. I know as does everyone that knew him that he would have been unhappy to have been forced to live in any manner other than full speed ahead.