Goodbye Bill

 

Bill Meredith, aged 75, died last night in England. He was my 2nd cousin 1x removed through his great grandmother Adele Torrance who was my mother's aunt on her father's side and my great aunt. I am writing all this out very carefully, as I try to process his death and how it's affecting me. Which might sound quite selfish--oughtn't I to be thinking about Annie (pictured with Bill in myself in this photo from last September in St. Alban's, Hertfordshire, England) his wife? Of course I am thinking about Annie and all those who knew and loved him. I knew and loved him, even though, we only met in person twice. Do I wish I could attend the memorial that will no doubt happen in England? Of course I do: Bill had three living brothers, a daughter and sons, grandsons. He was a great musician who played in bands on and off in his life, in between teaching French; I know his fellow band members will get together and celebrate his life. 

But this post is about my friendship with Bill, what he meant in my life these past few years. We first "met" because his wife Annie put together his family tree on Ancestry and I received a notification that we might be related. I recognized the surname "Meredith" as I had been stuck on tracing his mother Edna. Our correspondence began slowly at first--"Are we related?" I wrote, writing out my Torrance family tree as I knew it. "Yes," he replied. We exchanged family stories. My emails were always longer than his but then my emails to everyone are always longer. I "introduced" him to the other Torrance cousin, Valorie, and the three of us began corresponding. 

We discovered we all had the same cynical attitude toward politics--Valorie and I about North American politics, Bill about the United Kingdom. We sent each other links to articles that we thought the others would enjoy. I will always read John Crace in The Guardian and think of Bill; the latest Crace send-up of 10 Downing Street would arrive in my email box daily. The last arrived on July 20th, that's how I knew for certain that Bill's battle with sarcoma was almost over. He'd email'd his goodbye a few days earlier. I was so, so glad that I'd had a second visit with him at end April this year, when R and I were in England. At that time he was still driving his car, still getting around in his wheelchair. We had a pub lunch and he and Annie had shown me his house, pointing out how they'd had to modify it to accommodate his no longer being able to walk. We said goodbye in the car and, just as I was about to get out, to catch my train back to London, I said, "Wait, we need a photo!" And I snapped a photo of the three of us huddled together in his car:

When I woke up this morning and received Annie's email that Bill had died peacefully last night, I felt numb. I've known it was coming, I've been waiting for the email for weeks, ever since Bill told Valorie and me that the doctors had said he had weeks, not months (they were wrong, Bill grabbed two months more, got to play with his band, say goodbye to his loved ones, celebrate his 75th birthday.) I got up very carefully, washed my face (I think?) I told Richard--who'd never met him--then thought about things I wanted to do today. Bill's gone, my life goes on. And yet, and yet, it's another space at the table of my life. No more crazy emails, no more going to visit the next time I visit England. If there IS a next time. 

Oh, no, now you're getting maudlin; of course there will be a next time. You, not travel overseas anymore? Can't happen. But, coming on top of how hard the substitute teaching episode hit me on Monday, how there have been various other small reminders these past two weeks that even regular life is out of my control, I haven't felt certain of what I still have left inside of me. I have felt unsure of myself, unsure of whether I am still "steady"--physically, emotionally. I check myself when I walk, I check myself when I open my mouth. When I go to bed at night I think about not waking up (no, NO, I am not depressed! Please read on!) 

And then a friend of mine who is my age, when I told her about Bill's passing, said that she herself has been reflecting on "the non-permanence of living things." And she is NOT someone I think of as pessimist at all. She has a busy, happy life; she has the strength of spirit to volunteer in palliative care and I know that when she says that, just as when I write that I think of going to sleep and not waking up, it reflects the time of life we are in. When our society seems to be upside down and inside out, when people get sick and sometimes die, when we have to change course on something because we realize we just don't have the energy anymore. We know through our own aging and through these past few years, somehow that life isn't going to be as kind to us as perhaps it once was.

But it's so much better--for ourselves first, for those who we love and who love us next--to accept that change of course, to think about what we need to do to chart a new course that will be healthy and affirmative. We accept people's passing, and pause and honor what they have meant to us, and make a silent vow that we will be grateful for our own extra time, however long that might be.

Goodbye Bill, we WILL meet again even though you didn't believe we would. You know better now [wink] 

From the musical "Wicked" (Bill would appreciate the title):

I've heard it said

That people come into our lives

For a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are led to those

Who help us most to grow if we let them

And we help them in return

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit

As it passes the sun

Like a stream that meets a boulder

Halfway through the wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better

But because I knew you

I have been changed for good

It well may be

That we will never meet again

In this lifetime

So, let me say before we part

So much of me

Is made of what I learned from you

You'll be with me

Like a handprint on my heart

And now whatever way our stories end

I know you have rewritten mine

By being my friend

--Stephen Lawrence Schwartz