My good friend Bill, Onceabull, has passed. He left us on Thursday, October 13th, after a short battle with cancer.
On September 12 around 11 PM, he fell in his kitchen, and I didn't find him until 4 PM the next day when I went over
to help him fix the deadbolt on his front door. He refused to go with the EMTs, to the hospital, but I convinced him
to go the next day. After running lots of tests, the doctors determined that Bill had stage 4 lung cancer, and it
had spread to his lymph nodes, liver, and brain. He had a 1 1/2" tumor at the back of his head, up against his brain
stem. This is what caused his fall and inability to get himself up.
His daughter wanted to help take care of him, and arranged for his transport from Boise, on the 27th of September,
to her home in Georgia. She arranged for a nursing service to help her care for him in her home. Unfortunately,
his condition deteriorated much faster than anyone anticipated, and his struggle ended just before 9 PM EST on the 13th.
I have lots of stories, and great memories, of adventures with Bill. He was a walking
encyclopedia of knowledge about firearms, and my mentor in all such matters. We did a lot of gun shows together,
and had coffee at Barnes and Noble, where we solved the world's problems with others of a like mind. He invited me
to NCBS, and introduced me to a group of people who have become lifelong friends, and we hunted together many times.
In his last days, one of his biggest concerns was to make sure that I knew all of his secret hunting spots! The cancer
was too fast...
With all of that, his lasting legacy for me, will be the way he took care of his wonderful wife after she was diagnosed
with Alzheimer's. It was so hard for him to care for her at home once she became bedridden. I asked him why he didn't
have her care taken over by a facility, and he told me that he had promised her that he would never leave her side, or
send her to a home, and he was a man of his word. He loved her intensely, and kept his vow of "'til death do us part".
Bill, I'm going to miss you........
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