Memories of Bill Wadden: Bill was our beloved, beautiful, gentle, kind, and wise son. Our hearts are broken. Billy was a very spiritual person — in a non-traditional way. He believed in being good to other people, and he believed in the afterlife. Often during tough times over the years, he would talk about seeing the big picture. His sense of justice and right and wrong were incredibly clear. Bill’s philosophy was “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” He wouldn’t say it in those terms — too Bible-ish for Bill — but he lived it as well as anyone could. Bill understood that this life is only part of each person’s existence, and his life was guided by that as much as by anything else. A kinder heart was never born. For those of you who didn’t know Bill well, we want to tell a few stories that show his spirit, his loves, his humanity, his childhood, and his sense of humor. Bill enjoyed many hobbies. He loved building things. His first major project was building the famous fort with his neighborhood friends in our garage. Every neighborhood kid knew about it and everyone wanted to be invited. The fort occupied the extra half garage and was complete with tree house steps leading to the entrance, wall to wall red shag carpet, and several rooms, one with a round entrance. It seemed like every week there was a new addition to the fort. Over the years, Bill and a friend built shelves for his parents’ basement, a porch floor for his grandparents, stereo consoles, and many wood boxes. His last project was a miniature apartment house for his kitty. After his family and his special girlfriend, Bill’s kitty was his priority. We don’t think you could find a cat in Des Moines who had been pampered more than Bill’s kitty. Whatever KCBoy wanted, KCBoy got. You want my roast beef sandwich? Here, you can have the first piece. You want to sit in the middle of the puzzle while we’re putting it together? Or walk on my keyboard while I’m making a data base? Well, I’ll just take a break, and you go ahead. You want to play for another 20 minutes? Wait, and I’ll get another toy. Want a new toy? Here are three new ones. It’s a real wonder that kitty cat is a sweet cat. Another hobby of Bill’s was downhill skiing. He never enjoyed playing organized competitive sports. But when he was 14, his athletic ability shone, and he took to skiing as if he'd been doing it all his life. On his second day of skiing, he tried to show his parents how to parallel ski and carve turns. You could pick him out on the slopes because he was the one flying down the slopes with skis together from the first day he skied. Skiing was something he loved doing the rest of his life, and he had endless patience for helping others learn how. He recently took a trip to Colorado to visit Leigh. They skied for hours every day, and until last chair on Bill’s final day there. Leigh said he was a better skier than most of the locals. Bill was a natural organizer of people and things. He rose to a supervisory position in every job he had, beginning when he was 15 years old. When he was little, he collected and organized things, starting out with beer cans and football cards—that’s what little boys who grew up in the ‘70s collected. His Grandpa Wadden inspired him to collect coins, and a dear neighbor brought him matchbooks to add to his collections. He later grew to love collecting maps from his travels, puzzles, movies, pictures, football cards--all simple, inexpensive things. He especially loved collecting Miami Dolphins memorabilia. Bill’s mom remembers not being able to understand why her little boy would always want orange and aqua sweatshirts, and Bill said, “Mom! It’s the Miami Dolphins, Mom!” After that, she finally caught on that she had a Miami Dolphins fan. Bill was a Dolphins’ fan all his life. Bill was a naturally organized and logical person. His computer is set up logically. Everything is in its place, and every category is clearly defined. Helping his mom with her computer just the week before he died, he shook his head and said —“Mom, I just don’t know how you find anything on your computer. This is so disorganized. I’m going to have to sit down with you and fix this. I’ll be over next week.” During the last few days, many people have told us about how Bill had helped them do various tasks on their computers. Our favorite story is from our long-time family friend Pastor David Stewart. David wanted a new computer so he could get online. He tells wonderfully funny stories about that process and Bill’s mediation skills. David said, “We were shopping for my computer last month. I was already frustrated about all the rigamarole you go through. Bill and two sales people were talking and figuring out the system that would be best for what I wanted to be able to do. Then it came time to pay, and the form I was to fill out was just ridiculously worded. I got impatient and gave the sales person a hard time about the form, something I’m not proud of, of course. Bill stepped in to mediate, finally moving me away and getting me to calm down. He said privately that the poor sales associate wasn’t the one who had anything to do with writing the form. Bill had infinite patience during the computer lessons. He knew me better than I know myself. One day, he said, ‘David, I wouldn’t recommend that you keep a hammer in your computer room.’” He was a giver of thoughtful gifts. Bill had a slice of walnut wood that was given to him by a friend’s grandpa, and he sliced quarter-inch sections to use in making boxes and trays as gifts. His mother’s most prized Christmas gifts is one of those pencil trays. A few years ago, Bill discovered the beauty of Waterford crystal, and you could see him shopping for it at Younkers examining each piece to see which would be just right. He was a master at writing touching cards and letters, something to which his parents, Leigh, relatives, and past neighbors can attest. Leigh says that one of the many gifts Bill gave her is the love of classic rock music. She says, “As I’m sure many of Bill’s friends know, his love of classic rock was so strong that he never really realized there was any music created after the ‘80s. As his friends all know, he pretty much forced his music on anyone who visited his apartment or rode in his car.” He cherished his music collection so much that he shared it with Leigh as her birthday present. A couple of years ago, he burned every one of his CDs onto a collection of 100 MP3 disks. That’s the nicest, most time consuming, and meaningful birthday gift anyone has ever given to her. Billy loved listening to music from the time he was a little preschooler. His mother can still see him as a three-year-old, getting a chair to stand on and carefully opening the hi fi to play the “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on Your Head” record. As we talked with many of Bill’s friends and coworkers over this week, some common themes kept coming up. He was repeatedly described as fair, kind, an all around good guy, a giver, someone with dogged determination to do the right thing, a talented mediator, and very persuasive. Now we’ll try to describe Bill’s character. Bill had a strong radar for being impressed by your good heart.He graduated from Iowa State in business administration, but everyone who knew Bill knew that he was absolutely not impressed with educational degrees, position, or possessions. He was impressed by your good heart. If he liked you, it was because you had good intentions. To Bill, it really was people’s intentions and good heart that counted. One friend says that he and Bill talked several times about givers and takers in this world. They decided they were glad they were both givers. “Maybe he’ll save me a spot,” he said. Another friend and coworker told us that Bill had an unbelievable leadership ability. He had resolve and determination when he decided that something was the right thing to do. Several workers on various shifts he’d supervised told us that he had been their best boss because he treated them with respect, and that he was very tough but fair on evaluations. They said they appreciated his not being afraid to go to bat for them if he believed in their case. Whatever shift Bill supervised, the workers rewarded him by being first in production month after month. One of his shifts was the top producing shift in the company for one continuous year. To quote a few: “I’ve worked there for over 20 years, and I’ve never had a better supervisor.” “Bill was old school. And he was very persuasive. We all wanted to do things right because we respected his leadership and his fairness.” Many of his Latino workers over the years appreciated his respect and his attempts to speak with them in Spanish. He would help them learn English, and they would try to teach him Spanish. It is truly a tribute to Bill that so many of his former workers, co-workers, and bosses have called, written, or come to his visitation or funeral. We know that it was not an easy thing for you to do, and we appreciate it more than you could know. It’s so touching to parents when people speak highly of their child. Leigh remembers with tears in her eyes Billy’s big brother kindness when we were at a lake in Wisconsin. She had lost a tooth and was worried that the tooth fairy wouldn’t be able to find her in Wisconsin. Bill told her an elaborate story about how the tooth fairies communicated with each other when a child from a different state entered their territory. He told her that he’d stay awake until the tooth fairy arrived, to be sure she’d find Leigh’s room. One of Bill’s favorite memories was of the day when he and Leigh were riding their big wheels around and around in the basement. They decided that it would be more fun if they dumped their one-foot square box of crayons on the cement floor. That gave them something to run over, over and over again, with their big wheels. Bill never forgot that Dad made him and Leigh take putty knives and clean all the smashed crayon off the basement floor. Bill laughed and laughed as he told that story again just last week. Jerry and Bill loved to laugh together reminiscing about the past. When Billy was only three years old, his dad was in the backyard with a small sand shovel cleaning the cat poo out of the sandbox. Billy said, “Dad, it’s faster if you just use your hands.” One night Billy and his dad were having a bedtime snack—cookies and milk. As his dad was taking a bite of cookie, Bill said, “That much cookie and that much milk mixed up good tastes good, right, Dad? I told you it would. It gives you protein, Dad.” Again when Bill was only three, his dad asked him one day why he was throwing wet sand on his mom’s car. Bill’s response was “I don’t want the sand in my wagon anymore.” Leigh remembers that she was always a little tag-along sister that most brothers wouldn’t have bothered with. Bill was always her protector. He would yell at Leigh to come out when Russ the milkman was coming down the street because he wanted her to get to ride on the truck and get the ice, too She remembers that he watched out for her when they spent hours with all the neighborhood children on clay mountain. He even allowed her into the famous garage fort to hang out and play games and sit around and talk with all of his older friends. She remembers the day when Bill was about 12 that her presence was no longer allowed. It was when the boys had girls over. He said, “You’re too little to see this. You just can’t hang out with us anymore.” She says he was really sweet about it, but it was clear that her fort days were over. When they had been grounded to their rooms for fighting, Bill and Leigh would sneak out their doors and set up chairs with strings around the backs so that they could write and send messages to each other. They were great buddies when they were young. In the last few years, Bill and his dad made a point to travel to National Parks together. They hiked through woods, loved the free breakfasts at motels, waded in streams, and absorbed the beauty in silence, neither one being much for idle chatter. Left to their own devices, they would bring back hundreds of pictures of what looked like the same scenery year after year. After a few years of that, Bill’s mom and Leigh would remind them to take some pictures of themselves. A funny story happened while Bill and his dad were on one of those National Park trips. A teenaged waitress said, “You two look and act so much alike. Are you brothers? “Brothers!” Bill said. “This guy is my grandpa.” Bill loved traditions and having things the same year after year. During his Thanksgiving when his mother had run out of time getting ready for the family Thanksgiving dinner and had forgotten to fold the napkins, he asked for directions so he could help fold them into the usual turkey fantail shape. He said with a half smile that he supposed it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without those stupid folded napkins. He loved tradition. From the time in 1982 when his Grandpa Grant died and everyone felt the terrible sadness, Bill spoke often of never wanting to watch his parents die. He went on to say that he hoped to die before his mom and dad. No one had any idea of how tragically prophetic that would be. Six years before Bill's own death from the same malady, he was often with his dad at the hospital because his dad had suffered sudden cardiac death and was the 1 in 10,000 who survived it. Bill brought maps to the hospital and was helping train his dad’s brain by having him look at maps and then try to visualize them. His dad was heavily medicated and was saying things that Bill had never heard his dad say, ordering staff around, just being obnoxious. Bill told and retold the story of his dad having to be put in a straight jacket and they always laughed about that. When Bill was a teenager and young adult, we worried, as most parents do, that something terrible would happen when he was out. He got through all those wild years, and who could have predicted that it would be a hereditary gene for sudden cardiac death that would kill our Billy at such a young age. There was no test then, but some tests are developed now that may help others. It’s hard for us to understand the big picture right now. We decided to have Bill’s service at this funeral home because Bill loved going places he had been before, and his grandma’s recent service had been here in this very funeral home. Bill and his Grandma Grant had a special bond. They talked to each other like best friends, which they were. Bill will be buried right next to his grandma. His four grandparents and his baby sister are already helping him adjust to his new life. We feel blessed to have had our beautiful, appreciative, sensitive, loving son for 39 years. Bill was truly a gift from God. The fact that he was an organ donor is a tiny pinhole of light in our vast dark universe right now. He would be proud to know that he could help others. Please wear his donor pin proudly and say an extra prayer. We’re sure he must be in heaven already—if he’s not, there won’t be many up there. Everyone who really knew Billy knows that Saint Christopher is with him. The family thanks you for taking time and emotional energy to help us honor Bill’s life and send him on the rest of his journey.