To Ginger and the Warford family: Even though I only met your dad once, we had a lot in common taking care of our fathers in late years. Bill and I send you our deepest sympathies in this time of grief. God cares for you and so do we. God bless you and your family. Love and prayers, Ivamarie & Bill Douglas

My first memories of Grandpa Willie begin in early spring of 1987. We had just moved in next door and were anticipating the birth of our first child. I remember hearing someone working outside, and when I peaked out the window there was a white-haired old man digging up my sprinkler system!!! I went out to talk to him feeling rather indignant and he told me how much it bothered him that the man who lived in our house before us didn’t fix his sprinkler system. In the next couple of months, Willie fixed all the things that Leo had let go, including a dripping kitchen faucet and the bushes out front that needed to be trimmed. I began to love this bossy old man next door!

When Alyssa was born, Willie proclaimed ownership as her grandpa, and spend many years spoiling her. She would bring him lava rocks from his front yard, and he would lovingly keep each and every one. There were times when Alyssa would disappear, and after a frantic search I would find her at Grandpa Willie’s house eating Archway oatmeal cookies with a glass of milk, or sitting on his lap watching cartoons downstairs, or riding his exercise bike while he watched his beloved sports.

And so it went with all of my children. When I tried to tell Willie that he shouldn’t feed my children cookies right before dinner time, he told me that a grandfather could do whatever he wanted to! I will never forget bringing home each of my children from the hospital after they were born. Willie must have been watching out the window, because he would be over within 5 minutes of us getting home. By the time our youngest child, Caleb, was born, Willie just walked in and snatched him out of my arms, walked over to the rocker and sat there rocking him and talking with him.

Willie was often the first person to see each new thing my kids would do when they were young after all, Rich would be at work and couldn’t rush home. I would either run over to his house to show off the amazing new word they could say, or call him over to see the remarkable thing they learned. He was a great encourager and thought my kids were as wonderful as I did.

Rich is a fisherman, so we would call Willie when he brought home a good catch of salmon or steelhead. Willie always got a prime cut of the fish, which he loved.

Our dogs loved him. Willie kept a large box of dog bones by his back door, and every morning he would go out to feed my 2 dogs and the Biddle’s dog. The dogs would wait by the fence for him. My dachshund, Jippy Willy called him “Zippy” would start barking frantically as he saw Willie. If Willie didn’t come outside early enough, Jippy would start the “Willie bark.” We all got to know this certain quality and timing to the bark when Jippy was calling Willie, and I left him outside as annoying as it was because I knew that he and Willie knew what was going on, and Willie loved Jippy as much as Jippy loved him. It was hard for Willie to come over for very long because as soon as he sat down, Jippy would start to jump all over him, wagging his tail so furiously that it wagged his whole body, licking Willie in the face unmercifully

and then he would run back and forth between the door and Willie telling Willie that it was time to go home to get a bone. So off Willie would go, with my two dogs wagging their tails behind him.

And then there’s the Dreyer’s vanilla bean ice cream that Willie would bring over—one bowl full gone from the container he said if it was left in his house he’d eat it all in one day.

And the home-grown tomatoes from my garden which he loved.

And the roses he would pick for me—HUGE bouquets of them!

And so very many more memories.

A number of years ago, Willie began to reflect on the failures in his life and the hurts he had caused. He always had a sense that he was the one who should have died first, not his wife—she was the kind and unselfish one who deserved a long and healthy life. He struggled with feeling undeserving of going to heaven, even though he believed in the Bible and had a faith in God that had spanned decades. I remember sitting in the shade of his birch tree on the hill in his backyard going through Scriptures with him. We read that heaven is a gift from God which comes to those who believe in Him and in the shed blood of Christ, not of our works. We read of the forgiveness that God gives as we come to him, and many other Scriptures that day, all from the well-worn Bible that Willie always had near. He seemed to find rest after that, and I know that all of his tears and troubles have now been washed away as he dances with joy, reunited with all of his loved ones that have made the journey through death before him.

To his children I say thank you: Thank you for sharing your dad with us. We will miss him tremendously, but we cherish the memories. May the Lord comfort you in your grief.

With Much Love,

Marcia Kimura