Two deaths and a funeral – A strange tale

RCAF Sergeant William H. Willis Twenty-one years ago, I was at a meeting in Bangkok when I got the call. My dad was dying. He was diagno...

RCAF Sergeant William H. Willis

Twenty-one years ago, I was at a meeting in Bangkok when I got the call. My dad was dying. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had spread throughout his body. He was immediately put into in-home hospice.

Two days later I was home. My dad had turned yellow. Liver failure. My brother, sister, and mother took turns sitting with him. At one point, he awoke to find me holding his hand as I was reading a dog-eared copy of Starship Troopers. He looked at the book, then at me, and said “I love you.” Within a week my dad had passed. We were there for the literal last gasp.

I was given the task of calling the Canadian relatives. I used the office where my mother had been sleeping. It was a quiet corner of the house. Tears flowed as I made the calls. My face was damp as I reached for a nearby cloth. Only when I was finished with the calls did I realize that the cloth was my mother’s dirty underwear.

My brother and I skipped the viewing of the body at the mortuary and left that to my mom and sister, April. When April returned, she had an interesting story. A man we did not know, came to the viewing and told her that our dad was the most important person in his life. “What? What did dad do,” we asked her. “I don’t know,” she said, “but we’ll learn more tomorrow at the funeral.

Dad’s grave site was on a small hillside at the Olivewood Cemetery in Riverside. We arrived early and stood near the casket. The family in black, but for my nephew in his Coast Guard dress whites. A bagpiper played Amazing Grace. As people walked up the hill, they would meet our eyes and give a somber nod. My sister and I exchanged dark jokes. Then she said, “That's him!”

It was the mystery man. The person with a new tale about our father. Our father was the most important person in his life. Who, what, where and how? The answer was close. He slowly walked up the hill. April and I stopped exchanging jokes, now focusing on this figure, this face for clues about our father.

The bagpiper was in his mournful stride now, Amazing Grace, both dread and inspiration.

The stranger walked to the grave directly opposite of us, never meeting our gaze, but only looking at the casket. Then he fell over and died.

My nephew, who at that time jumped out of helicopters to save lives jumped into action. Someone else also joined him.

The piper kept playing “Amazing grace…”

A fire truck and an ambulance arrived. Soon a crowd was around the stranger.

And the piper kept playing “Amazing grace…”

The stranger was gone, but the mystery from 21 years ago remains.