Eulogy

Billy worried about me driving to school in the rain even though I had to go 5 minutes and he had to drive 50 minutes. Then, he would call me on his way home from work just to tell me he was thinking about me as he was welding that day

When it snowed, and I forgot to put my car in the garage he dug me out in the morning even though I had a delayed opening and he had to be at work on time.

He sent me flowers or did some other special thing for me on the first day of school every September for ten years. And every September, when I worried about meeting new kids, he said, “They will love you, they always love you and you’re too lovable for them not to love you.” For ten years, he drove me to every back to school night because he didn’t want me to have to try to park, or deal with the traffic.

When he got sick and had to stay home, every morning before work he told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world, so I got to go to school every day feeling wonderful even though I was worried to death about him. And while my students discussed Nabakov, all I could think about was whether or not Billy was comfortable and not in pain. He told the oncology nurses at the cancer center that I was the best teacher at the school even though he never saw me teach. He taught me that because I give my life to others through teaching that I am doing a noble and honorable thing and for that I should be proud.

He cared about and loved my parents as if they were his own and happily did everything they asked him to do from helping to fix cars to windows and doors, to understanding how to use the new TV. He had more patience with them than I did. When he could still eat and his appetite was still okay, my mom made him his favorite chicken dish; he said she was keeping him alive on the Costco chicken diet. And when solid food did not appeal to him, it was mom’s famous Jewish chicken soup that prevailed.

When my dad had a heart attack he came immediately to dad’s bedside to tell him he loved him. He was sniffling and upset when I told him Dad was sick. Billy rarely cried, but when he did it was utterly heartbreaking and seeing him cry was far worse than seeing what cancer was doing to his body.

Dad and Billy both got sick around the same time, but Billy was more worried about my dad than himself. Even when he first started getting chemotherapy and my father was in rehab, he always asked how my mom and dad were doing. And of course how Maggie the dog was.

He loved Maggie and she looks and smells for him still. Billy and Maggie had their differences but they bonded over cookies and socks and he could always expect to see at least one sock, and possibly a shoe, on the bed after watching her for the night. He called her EV—Evil Vizsla. But, he loved her and she curled up by his legs and made him feel better when he was really sick.

My mother always teased him gently about lots of different things like religion and my vegetarianism, and he would laugh about it. He always thought she was hilarious, she made him feel good, like he was their son. When he first met them he worried that they wouldn’t like him because he was not Jewish and was not formally educated. But, they fell in love with him immediately, as I did. We had Chinese food every Sunday for years, this is the Jewish Sunday feast, and he was always thankful that he got to spend that time with my wonderful, generous and supportive parents. He never took one dinner for granted, he appreciated every egg roll. And always, always said Thanks for dinner.

I loved when Billy and dad would have Jack Daniels and watch football on Sunday nights. He was quiet and ALWAYS listening. Their bonding was sweet and made Billy feel like he had a father in my own dad. People think Billy didn’t talk, but I lived with him and honestly he was a chatterbox from the moment he walked in the door from work and told me funny stories about work, or about customers at his job. He was very funny and had me laughing constantly.

When I was suffering really badly from severe panic attacks in my early 20s, just when I first started teaching, he didn’t mind if I woke him up in the middle of the night just to hug me and kiss me. And for the whole ten years that we lived together, we fell asleep holding hands. He gave the BEST hugs and kisses—they were hugs and kisses from the soul. Not some selfish, oh I have to do this to make her happy hug, those were hugs and kisses from the heart every time. He never, ever left for work in the morning without giving me his special Billy hug and kiss.

He read Dostievsky and Kakfa, Nordic sagas, John Cheever stories, JD Salinger and Tolkein, and anything else I would give him that I thought he would like and then we would talk about it all and he was always so insightful and it deepened our relationship. He said he wanted to read to keep up with me. And then I introduced him to art, my greatest passion next to reading, and he really lit up. He LOVED Van Gogh, the Icelandic artist Kjarval, Rembrandt, VanSteen, Munch and others.

Everywhere we traveled, Amsterdam, Norway, Sweden, Iceland four times, and Washington DC five times, he always wanted to go to the museums. He loved art.
In Amsterdam, he was mesmerized by Rembrant’s Night Watch and kept asking me “How did he do that! That’s amazing” He walked back and forth and back and forth and kept looking at it wondering how it could have been painted because it is this enormous painting and he just couldn’t fathom how the perspective, and line was so perfect.

Last summer, one good day when he was feeling well, we went to the Cloisters, a monastery/art museum in New York City and he was mesmerized by the architecture, the tryptics and madonnas and again I had more fun watching him study the art than looking at the art myself.

When he read A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, he loved it so much we rented the movie after that and he identified with the hero Carton who gave his life for others during the French Revolution. He was an intellectual without formal University training, curious and interested in everything.

The first day we flew into Oslo, Norway, Munch’s Scream had been stolen by some crazy bandits in a van. We laughed about it like Oh, that’s our luck, that’s the exact painting we came to see. I loved the way he looked at paintings in a museum. It was more fun watching him study the paintings than looking at the paintings themselves. Some light was going off in his head and he started to see what I told him about all those years I studied at NYU. We used New York City as a playground. We went to every museum, walked in all the parks, went to a few clubs and we always went to dinner at this friendly and fun Irish restaurant called Limericks, where we had our first date, that became our special place. And the piano guy, Jimmie George who used to play with The Supremes played songs for us while we sat at the bar and waited for our table.

I took an Irish Literature class at NYU and he loved to hear me talk about Irish mythology. He identified with the brave hero, Cuculain. He always said I was lucky to have such wonderful parents who gave me that amazing opportunity of NYU. And now, I think it was really my parents who brought us together. Had I not gone to NYU, I never would have met Billy. I remember meeting him that first day at NYU in my friend’s dorm room and he was SO very shy. But all I did was smile at him, and we were together from then on.

He loved History channel and The Learning Channel and when he became homebound, he would always tell me what he watched and learned that day after I came home from school. .

He was a human being, a humanitarian that understood the suffering of others and internalized it the way I do.

Even when I was being difficult and angry and nasty, he would always forgive me because he knew I was just mad at whatever I was snappy about. And then, when I apologized for snapping at him, he always said, I could never be mad at you, you’re too cute. All of my flaws he chocked up to being “part of my charm”. That was his quote: I couldn’t do dishes well, and my housework is terrible, I forced dishes into the dishwasher and after the third broken dish he said, you are not allowed near the dishwasher anymore. When I told him I was sorry, I couldn’t figure out how they fit, he said, “Don’t worry about it, it’s part of your charm.” He also said that, because my job was more homework than his, that the housework was his responsibility and that if I had any free time on the weekends, I shouldn’t be spending it cleaning, but relaxing instead.

When he moved in with me 10 years ago, it was so easy. We didn’t have to adjust to anything, it was as if we had always lived together. My nephew Michael asked us over and over again when we would get married. I always say and think still, I married Billy the day I met him because I just knew he was the one. B’shert is the Jewish word for the intended one, that everyone has an intended one for them. Billy is my b’shert.

He would do anything for his own family. Whenever his father needed him for something, he would just drive the 1 and ½ hours to West Milford and do whatever his father asked. One day last Spring, he was feeling okay and we rowed out onto the lake in front of his father’s house and we sat in the boat and just listened to the water. It was a good day. Billy and I met around the time his nephew Jason was first born and he was so proud of every milestone, when he talked and walked and started school. He told me about Jason’s sports, his basketball and football. He loved his sister Jill’s generosity and caring for her family as well as his mother when she got sick. He had so much respect for his own parents and family, he cherished them. He loved his sister, Jill and her husband Jason’s humor about Kentucky. We spent every Christmas with them and were generously welcomed into their family. I felt lucky, as a Jewish person to get to celebrate Christmas with him and his wonderful sister, father, brother-in-law and kids. And, when his niece Jacquleine was born he thought she was the most beautiful little girl in the world. I loved watching them play together when she was really little. It made me think of how warm and loving a father he would be and I’m sorry that he never got the opportunity to have his own children.

Billy was also lucky to have excellent friends in his life. Chris Ruggere and Karen Batista were our best man and maid of honor at our very quiet, private and humble wedding. He loved when I threw the bouquet and almost hit Karen in the head. He laughed as if that was just typical me, I don’t always think and can be so impetuous. He and Chris shared the same taste in movies. I don’t like horror movies, but when Chris came over, they could watch bloody, gory movies together without me. He thought Chris was hilarious and he knew when he was gone that I would have such good friends to take care of me. He also said Chris had an amazing singing voice and when he came with me to Hunterdon Central’s 50th Anniversary and saw Chris sing, he said Chris was so talented and that he should have gone on American Idol. He knew Karen had the biggest heart and it was a comfort to him to know that these people would be with me always and that they were helping me through our difficult situation. Chris, Karen and Bill were the last people from Hunterdon Central to see Billy alive. Somehow, I believe he held on until he got to see all the people that he and I both care so much about.

He was so very funny. When he was first diagnosed we thought he had kidney cancer and that he would have to have his kidney removed, he said, “Damn, Lori, I needed that kidney, I was going to sell it on E-bay for my retirement!”

He taught me patience, understanding and generosity. He taught me to slow down and be a little more mellow about life. He told me that my friend and colleague Bill Fernekes was a good person, he could tell that from the first time he met him and from other things that I had told him.



When He was really sick, he said “Listen to Bill, let him help you, he’s a good person who cares about you and he’ll help you with all of this.” Of course, he was right. He and Bill share similar qualities: intelligence, patience and deep, deep compassion for human beings, and Billy could see that about Bill. In his illness, his biggest concern was not upsetting anyone, but the one thing he did not have to worry about was how I was being taken care of by my parents, friends and employers. He taught me what selfless, generous love looks and feels like. And when he started to get sick he was more worried about being a burden, and upsetting me than being sick. He told his sister and his oncologist as much.

Billy knew that I look for what is to be learned from every situation and I asked him what he thought we were supposed to learn from our situation, and he said he thought we were to learn how strong one needs to be in difficult times, that we were to learn that love is so enduring, and that I am stronger than I think. He knew how much I struggled with anxiety and that I could overcome it, even in this, the greatest test I’ve ever been given.

He taught me not to hold grudges, because he never, ever held a grudge because he said life was too short to hold grudges and that I can’t take life so seriously. When we were going to doctors appointments and I kept getting so anxious and nervous over everything the doctors might tell us, he just laughed at me and said “Don’t take it so seriously.” When my sister and I weren’t talking for awhile he said, “What are you doing? She loves you as much as I do, stop being so stubborn.”

In 16 years together there are so many memories and it’s never easy to understand why people die young, or why couples who were meant to be together for a life time are suddenly torn a part, but I know Billy better than anyone here and he would be more worried about you and your grief than about his own pain in his illness. And I tried very hard not to be sad in front of him because I wanted his last days to be happy and for him to know that I, his family and friends were all okay, but I don’t know if we’ll ever really all be okay again. We’ll all just be different.

I’m lucky that I had these 16 years with him. I’m lucky that I got to know this amazing person and that I have these wonderful memories and that I was treated like gold by someone who loved me more than life itself, which he told me often. He taught me how to be kind, and polite and patient with others and he taught me that love is giving the most of yourself, selflessly to others when you don’t think you can, even when you’re at the end of your rope. And I know that he wanted my parents, his friends and his family to know how much he loved and cherished them. And that, more than anything, he would not want any of us to be sad. He would like everyone to know that although he was shy and could not always express how he felt, but that he loved all of you immensely and to keep that love with you forever. I think a lot of times he couldn’t express himself verbally because he felt things very, very strongly and deeply, so that words could not always express what he felt.

He was my very best friend, the love of my life and the man I waited for, but I know that if he is seeing us all now, which I really believe he is, he would not want us to be burdened with painful grief. He would want us to move on and just remember him for the wonderful person that he was. He would want us to listen to the Beatles, have a Heineken, and talk openly to each other. So I think we should not be sad, but celebrate the fact that we got some time with this incredible human being, however short the time was.

And lastly, and I hope this doesn’t sound like an infomercial, but it is really important to me: don’t ask me what I need from you to help me feel better, because I’m going to tell you right now what that is: this whole difficult, tragic experience was made enormously better by the compassionate, caring, and loving people of Hunterdon Medical Center and The Hunterdon Cancer Center. So, the one thing you can do for Billy and for me is to donate money in Billy’s name to either the nurses and doctors at Hunterdon Medical Center or to the Cancer Center. Make sure you mention his name, though because I want them to know that it was their direct compassion and care for him that helped us through this time. Over this last year, the nurses and doctors at Hunterdon Medical Center came to love Billy and I know that they went absolutely above and beyond for us. And I know his brilliant oncologist, Dr. Myron Bednar, helped us get a little more time together. And for that, I will forever be grateful, so please let them know that you appreciate them as much as Billy and I do and give whatever you can in his name and memory.