Thank you all for coming. The support and love in this room will sustain myself, our children, and hopefully his family through this difficult, dark, and unfathomably painful time.

 

On September 24, 1996, my world was forever changed. It was a Tuesday night and I was working the front of the house at Cold Spring Tavern (where I had worked since I moved to Santa Barbara in 1992). This tall, trying to be cool, guy walks up–he’d been having dinner and drinks with a group of guys. He says hi and asks me if I wanted to get a drink after work. He was already a drink or two ahead of me. I said “No. I can’t. I have a paper to write.” He smiles back–oh that grin of his–”you can write your paper at my house.” Like what a cheesy line. I said “No” because there really wasn’t any other answer. We continued back and forth a bit as I was not completely convinced that he was the kind of guy who would have had a computer at home in 1996. Oh how he changed so many of my assumptions.

I told him, why don’t you come back tomorrow night. Wednesdays were a favorite night w/live music by the Cache Valley Drifters, a local blue grass band, and dinner. The night wore on and I waited on tables and served drinks and then I saw him. I was so surprised that he came. So shocked. I rushed to find his roommate and best friend because I couldn’t remember his name–that is how sure I was he wasn’t coming. We use to laugh at that story, because he often shared that he came every Wednesday with Jeff and other friends, just to try to get my attention. And I had no idea and never really noticed him.

He walks up to the bar and we chat, the evening was almost over. The band starts to play The Lighthouse, one of my favorite Cache Valley Drifter songs–even before this day. As the songs play, he reaches over the bar and just grabs my hand.

That single gesture changed the course of my life. I knew at that moment, I would marry him.

Not to say the early development of our relationship was easy, but we both knew (and sometimes fought) the undeniable connection we had. After that night, I rarely went more than a day or two without seeing and spending time with him.

Our love grew naturally and slowly. We really were friends first. He used to ask me all the time “We’re still friends right?” That we were friends mattered more to him than anything else. And he was my best friend. He was everything. He will always be my everything. It is rare that you can spend nearly 25 years with someone and have only good memories. I can’t recall an actual fight we had. Not that we didn’t disagree–you can’t spend significant time with Bill and not have a disagreement or two. He loved conversation. He loved being the Devil’s Advocate. He loved to spark a response. But he never had or exhibited any anger in our relationship. Our marriage was as perfect as it could have been. We were so perfectly suited for each other. We were a perfect ying and yang.

Those of us who have spent a significant amount of time with Bill, have Bill stories. I can’t even find the right words to describe him and I can’t tell many of the stories here. He was larger than life in so many ways. He just lived. He lived to the fullest. Doing something was more important than planning and waiting to do it the “right” way. He was generous and kind and loving.

He loved a good challenge and a good bet. And he was a horrible gambler. The guys would always joke (but seriously) about betting against Finner (his college nick-name that is still who he is to so many). He was good at so many things (almost everything)–but picking the winning football team was not one of those things. But he loved the challenge. He loved the camaraderie. Football Sundays up on the mountain in Santa Barbara were such special moments to him.

He was apt to on more than on occasion when out with friends to challenge the other husbands/guys to flip for the Bill. He would have picked up every dinner tab if I hadn’t have stopped him. That was just who he was. He wasn’t about things. He was about people and that can be a rare find.

Some of our greatest memories and his own were created on the water. He loved the water. One of our first “dates” was going kayaking. We get in and paddle quite a bit off shore and it’s a bit choppy and he looks at me and says “You can swim right?” I just remember thinking, shouldn’t he have asked me that sooner? I joked “No, do I need to know how?” He stared at me and I responded “Of course I know how to swim. Who comes out in the ocean and doesn’t know how?” He always said it was a test and that he knew we couldn’t be together if I was dumb enough to go out in the water w/out knowing how to swim. But, really I’m pretty sure he just forgot to ask.

He loved sailing with his buddies. He never stopped talking about those moments. His propensity to keep the crew of buddies paying attention with is “man overboard” trainings. Where he would just jump off the boat mid channel and assume his friends would turn the boat around and come get him. I was lucky to get to see him in that environment on 2 sailing trips to the channel islands. He was so at home and felt so free to be himself in those moments. Those moments and memories and every good memory–will sustain me.

When we think of Bill we also have to think about golf. He loved the challenge of it. He loved pushing himself to get better. He loved beating his own previous scores and other people. And again he loved a good bet. Bill had his moments of cockiness and sometimes the arrogance of someone that comes to most things easily, so he challenged my brother Jeff to a round of golf. Bill bet he could beat him w/just his 7 iron. And he did. He was better at golf than picking the right football team. When he was winning–he was fun. He was not always a gracious loser. I believe during one round w/my brother he was accused of being a “fun-sponge.” But that was Bill he was all-in. Whether he was happy and winning or irritated and losing.

To see him as a father is my greatest joy. He was a rock when we went to Ethiopia to bring Noah home and Noah was sick and I was a mess. He was strong and he was so caring. He was everything. And when Zoe came home his heart grew even more and his softer side became way more soft. Dads and their little girls. To see him with his kids was pure joy and happiness. I could not have asked for a better father for them. He loved to be silly–he was still such a kid himself. We always joke that he was really just 12. The laughter he created in our house and lives will live on in our memories forever. I am not nearly as funny as he is, but our kids are every bit as funny as he was–what a gift.

I will spend the rest of my life talking about and remembering this awesome man I was lucky enough to have 24 years knowing and loving. He supported me through a bachelor’s degree, a teaching certificate, a master’s degree (w/1 small child) and a doctorate (w/2 small children). He supported everything I wanted to do. He was 100% with me always. He deferred some of his own dreams for my dreams and for that I am sorry. But for that I am also thankful and lucky. I have an infinite number of good memories. They are all good memories. After 24 years together and 19 years of marriage–all of my memories of him and us are good. Every one. I just can’t say that enough.

He was the love of my life and I was the love of his. We had plans for growing old together and being grandparents (sometime long into the future). We had plans for our kids and so many experiences he wanted to give them and so many places he wanted to take them. So much he wanted to teach them. His kids were his reason for everything. Every choice he made since Aug 2006 has been guided by his most important role as father.

I could go on and on. He had a whole amazing life before we met after he had just turned 30. And I mean a whole life. He left home and went to college, he dropped out of college, he lived in a tent, he biked across Europe, finished college. Attended 8 jazz fests (maybe more) in a row with buddies. Taught himself computers and built an impressive career. He really lived life. He really enjoyed life. He was happy.

He made incredible connections with so many people. He was so many things. And the words and messages I have received from the people whose lives he has touched as far back as grade school lift me and our kids up and I know they lift him up.

I imagine him looking down and seeing all of this love he has helped create and screaming “You really like me…” That was often his biggest fear and worry. That people wouldn’t like him. That he’d say the wrong thing. That he’d do something stupid. He knew he could be difficult. He knew he could be obnoxious. He worried that his “true” self was too much. I always told him it wasn’t. But it was a fear/worry he carried everywhere. I hope he is looking down and has found some peace and knows that we all loved him for all of who he was.

Our wedding song is “Happy together.” One of the lines is “I can’t see me loving nobody but you for all my life.”
And I can say right now. I will love him and nobody else for the rest of my life. The last thing I said to him on Saturday was that if he asked me, I would say yes to marrying him all over. Today, knowing how it ends, knowing the pain. I would say yes again. I would live our life over and over.

The Lighthouse song that was a fav of mine and became a fav of his is about a lighthouse off the coast of main and it goes

“To every drifting sailor on the ocean,
may you be delivered from the gale,
may only peaceful waters lie before you
gentle homeward breezes fill your sail.
Sometime long ago I heard a story
About a lighthouse off the coast of Maine
Holding out her lantern in the rain

60 miles she shines in all directions
While the wind comes lashing down the sound
And the deck heaves and groans to the pounding
of the demon sea driving us aground.

Tossed and turned about in troubled waters
Battered at the mercy of the waves
Out across the water shines a lighthouse
Mindless of the many lives she’s saved

60 miles she shines in all directions
While the wind comes lashing down the sound
And the deck heaves and groans to the pounding
of the demon sea driving us aground.

To every drifting sailor on the ocean,
Across the 7 seas you are bound to roam
When there is no star to guide your journey
May the lighthouse guide you safely home.

His love and our memories are my lighthouse.