Grieving the Good Old Days, A Tribute to Bill "Will Cooter" Stewart

 "In the end, only three things matter: How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you."  -Buddha

  My friend Bill has been waking me up in the middle of the night for the past six months. At least I think it’s Bill.  My insomniac self finally drifts off, and then minutes later I’m jolted awake by something. My heart is thumping, I take a deep breath, and then I remember he’s gone. I do this strange thing where I reach out and grab the edge of my night stand, because I feel so disoriented and scared and I need something solid to hold on to, and that’s when the tears come.  This silent agony washes over me for a few minutes; my throat constricts, and it hurts to breathe.  I start thinking about all I’ve lost and all the loss to come. Or maybe I’m pushing on the night stand, trying to make all the bad stuff go away. Why is this happening?  Is it because I fill my days with activities and bury the pain, only to have it haunt me at night?  I don’t think Bill would do that to me or want me to feel this way, but maybe there is something I’m supposed to deal with, perhaps an old wound, and he’s not going to leave me alone until I face the pain.  Or maybe it’s not Bill at all, and it’s just my generalized anxiety popping up in the middle of the night, so intensely that I long for the days I could take an ambien to shut out the noise.  There is no magic pill to wash away this feeling.

      I think what’s going on is Bill’s passing has brought up so much, not just for me, but for so many who loved him. Suddenly we are all wondering: how can this happen to someone like Bill? Someone so effervescent and positive and ALIVE?  If it can happen to him, it can happen to any of us, and I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking of my own mortality.  Is it just going to spiral from here? Am I going to lose more and more friends as the years go by? (A co-worker recently asked me if I’m at that age where all my friends were dying, and I wanted to scream: I’m 53 NOT 83!). I guess that’s the circle of life, but I never realized how much it would hurt.  I had this fantasy that we would all just live to a grand old age and be singing songs and drinking wine together in our nineties, and then maybe we’d have a final party where we all said our goodbyes and drifted gracefully away. It’s not supposed to happen in our fifties and sixties, we are not old yet.  When I was a kid, I knew people would die when they were very old. You know, like 90. Bill was a healthy and athletic 65, and that may sound old to a teenager, but if you had met him, you’d know he was the youngest 65-year-old ever.  My grandparents all lived a long life and when they died, I was sad, but not rocked to the core like I am with this loss. I have lost other friends, to car accidents and addiction and cancer; tragically sad things that happen to people too young to die, but for some reason, this grief feels different. Like it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. This grief is attached to so much, so many memories and friends and the reality that life is fleeting, and we can never go back to the way it was. Never.  
     I know that my grief can’t run nearly as deep as Bill’s wife or family’s pain, but there is something to be said for friendship grief. Families are allowed to grieve and express their pain for as long as they need.  Friends are not expected to wallow or melt down or stop functioning, we need to keep it together for the family, right?  But here’s the thing, Bill was family.  You know the saying: "You can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends"...well, Bill was the kind of person that lots and lots of people chose as their friend because to be around him was to feel like you had the greatest big brother ever.  He was a best friend and brother to my former husband, Al (not by blood but by love), and maybe that’s where my grief is rooted. Deep down I am suffering that loss all over again. The loss of my marriage and the friendships and magical times that are all wrapped together in one beautiful but painful memory. Maybe that’s why Bill is waking me up. I think he’s telling me to write all this down, cry like I need to, and then let it go. It’s not like him to be melancholy or to dwell on sadness; he set the bar high on happiness and fun and he would probably laugh at my intense emotions.  Still, it feels like he’s reaching out from the Great Beyond. And then I think, what if there is no Great Beyond, and he is just gone? Maybe that’s what I’m so afraid of, and that is what’s waking me up: the fear that when we go, we are just gone, and how do we keep the memories alive? I have so many wonderful memories of Bill, and you may think I AM wallowing too much by going through thousands of pictures and even watching my wedding video to catch glimpses of him (however I’m glad I did since there’s an epic moment of him blowing his beautiful wife Pam a kiss; a moment that sums up who Bill was in one take).  He would laugh out loud if he saw how I finally organized all those pictures into files by date and era, something that really needed to be done. He even got his own file: BillStewart.jpg. We’d get a good chuckle about how it took him dying for me to get organized. I can just hear his hearty laugh, watching me torture myself by going through my wedding album. I remember a few years ago when I ran into him at a trade show in Anaheim; we hadn’t seen each other in quite awhile, and we had a conversation about the dissolution of my marriage and how I poured it all out into my album, Pieces in the Dark.  I told him how hard that time in my life had been, and how ending my marriage felt equivalent to Sophie’s Choice.  He burst into his big Billiam laugh, a strange response to what I’d just unveiled, but then said: “You should’ve named your CD Sophie’s Choice”.  And in typical Bill fashion, he had me doubled over with laughter. Deep down, I knew he understood my pain, and wasn’t trivializing it. That was Bill’s gift, he could make people laugh, yet still empathize with whatever they were going through. 

     Those memories are popping up all over the place now, random things I had tucked away, and now that he’s gone, they are all I think about. While I was going through old photos, I realized what a huge part of my life he was, and why he felt like family. If I hung those photos on a wall, they would tell the story of a funny, wonderful, musical, magical friendship.  You would see him as one of the best men in my wedding, looking handsome and humble in his bolo tie and fancy cowboy shirt. You would see him at the reception, arm wrestling with my 3-year-old nephew, dancing with his wife, and hugging everyone at the party. You would see him through the years of our life in Boulder, almost always on his bike or on a hike with us, and at every single party or outing. You would see him with his guitar, singing along with me to “Angel From Montgomery” or “You’re the One”, or playing one of his quirky yet well-crafted original songs. You would see him (and Pam) in a silly werewolf mask at a Halloween party around 2006. You would see us after skiing together in Breckenridge, my Dad holding a beer, impressed with Bill’s off the chart skiing ability. I’m looking a little pale in the photo, close to passing out after trying to keep up with Bill on the slopes.  You would see a small group of us at our holiday party at the St Julian around 2007, the night a huge snowstorm struck Boulder.  Bill, Pam, and a handful of other brave souls strapped on snowshoes or cross-country skis to make the party, as a little (or a lot) of snow wouldn't scare these folks from a fun event. You would see the pictures he took of Al and I at Boulder Creek one year for our music promo shots, determined to save us money (Bill had a lot of talents, but photography was not his best, haha). Mostly, you will see a man full of love for everyone he knew, adventurous and happy and loving life.

     There are other memories I didn’t catch on film, like the time we were moving, and Bill discovered a box of my old cassette tapes. He was like a kid in a candy store, delighted by the find, and as I recall his favorites were Pam Tillis and The Judds.  Bill was the one person in 2005 who still had a cassette player, and I was happy to bequeath those to him.  I remember he would call me, blasting “Maybe it was Memphis” or some obscure George Strait tune from that tape player in his old green SAAB. I eventually bought that SAAB from him and was disappointed he didn’t include the tapes with purchase. Then there was the time he brought he and Pam’s new Scottie by the house, and while we were sitting out on the back porch playing a few tunes, a neighbor called Bill’s cell phone to say he had that dog. Somehow that sly little pup escaped from the house and Thank God he had his collar on. Bill swore me to secrecy: I was never to tell Pam that he almost lost that doggie. Well, your secret is out now Bill (and I’m sure she will laugh at that tale).

     I will finish with one more story, and it pretty much ties it all together.  About 10 years ago Bill and Al wrote a silly little song for a movie. I think Bill had a connection with the director.  Of all the well-crafted songs I’ve poured my heart and soul into, none of them have been selected for film or tv, and I’m bitter with envy that Bill’s simple, whimsical song, which didn’t even make it into the movie, btw, is currently the only song generating royalties in my ASCAP account. (He had me register it under my publishing company, even though I told him many times to set up his own.) A couple of years ago I started getting checks, a few dollars here and there, because wouldn’t you know it, but that movie is very popular in Australia and Europe. Ray Liotta sings one line from it, something about Mary Sue.  I think it earned a couple of hundred dollars, and last year I called Bill to ask if he wanted his cut. His reply was: “Well you can’t take it with you”.  And that’s when he told me he had ALS.  What? ALS? All I knew about ALS was that Stephen Hawking lived for many years with it, and of course there was the ice bucket challenge that was circulating Facebook for awhile. ALS was something that nobody I knew would ever get; it’s as obscure to me as smallpox or cholera.  The only thing I ever worried about with Bill was possibly a bike or ski accident. I listened from very far away as he described his symptoms and how he would not live like Stephen Hawking.  I thought, through my heartbroken daze, if anyone can beat this, Bill can. Or maybe the doctors will find that it’s something else, something curable or at least something he can live with. I then tried to end our conversation by telling Bill how much he meant to me, but of course he laughed and said something like, oh don’t go there yet. Never one to get sentimental, even though he had a heart of gold.  Looking back, I think Bill left me the royalties for that little ditty as a small gift for me, a remembrance perhaps. Whenever those few dollars trickle in I think of him and his generous spirit and his light hearted ways, and I know he's telling me to not take life (or my songwriting career) so seriously, and to go buy myself a little dangly bracelet or bottle of wine or a pack of guitar pics. I didn’t talk to Bill again, with the exception of a couple unanswered emails, and 6 months later he was gone. It took him so fast, but I know that’s for the best. I’m just so sad because I didn’t get to say goodbye.  He will never again call me up on Christmas to sing “Santa Baby” on my voicemail. I never got down to Durango to see their place and have dinner with he and Pam. He never got to see how good (or adequate) I’ve finally gotten on the guitar. I won’t run into him at the Expo West trade show. I’ll never hear his laugh again, and everyday something happens that I want to tell him, just so I can hear that laugh. But enough about my pain. Al has lost his brother and Pam has lost her husband and his kids lost their father. People all over the country lost one of their favorite friends in the world. You were a popular and very well-loved guy, Bill.  If someone had told me, the day of my wedding, when I was surrounded by hundreds of friends including you and Pam, that 13 years later my marriage would be over and you would be gone….well, in the words of a Pink song, “I’d stand up and punch them out, cuz they’re all wrong….who knew”. 

     What I wouldn’t give to have one more day back in Boulder, I’d even get back on that scary mountain bike trail if it meant we could have some laughs.  I’d give anything to have one more week of making cold calls to colleges, pushing your organic spices, even though I hated doing it at the time. I’d love to rent an office space in the same building as you again, even though we never got any work done because you’d stand in my doorway trying to make me laugh. I’d give anything to share some delicious wine and a homemade pizza with you and Pam, telling stories around the table in your cozy North Boulder house. Mostly, I wish I would’ve known I was in the good old days before they became the good old days (I think I’m stealing that quote from The Office finale). 

     Thank you, Bill, for teaching me to not to look at life so intensely, for encouraging me to sing and play and laugh no matter what, for not being mad when things didn’t work out between me and your best friend, for being happy that I found a new love, and for being one of my biggest fans.  I will always feel blessed that I was able to call you my friend. Thank you for loving your wife fiercely and giving her the strength to power on with her sense of adventure. Most of all, thank you for being a loyal brother to Al, and to so many others. We love you so much Billiam, and we all look forward to the big music party in the Mysterious Great Beyond. 

Peace, Love, and Namaste,

Sunnie