Bill was nothing if not organized

Bill did not leave a note for any of his children. Instead, he did what he always did.  He showed he cared by providing and trying to make things easier for us.

I went to his home today to make sure everything was secure and to see what needed to be done.  I had no idea how much stuff was there, since I had never been there before.

As I walked in, I was greeted by a neatly organized group of papers.  Laid out on the counter were his checkbook, opened and balanced, his watch, his pocket knife and his phone case.  I suppose the police have his phone and billfold, since I did not find them.

The papers showed he had paid all his bills the day before.  He had all of his pertinent documents in a backpack with the receipts, truck and boat titles, financial information, passwords and that sort of thing.  He had never even bothered to remove me from any of our joint property.

As I walked through his house, I was struck by the differences in our lives. Whereas, my house probably has a hundred pictures on the wall at least, he had one.  Just one of the Carly, Wesley, Ryan and Jacob when they were all little.

Every room was painted stark white.  I don't think there's much white in my house except toilet paper and Kleenex.  His socks were all folded with precision and laid neatly one behind another like envelopes in a box.  We ball ours up and play basketball as we toss them in the drawers on laundry day. His canned goods were in military straight rows, labels all pointed to the front and going from large to small in size. His shirts were neatly divided, all hung and in sections, long sleeve, short sleeve, work shirts.

It must have driven him crazy to live in our colorful, haphazard, noisy house. I was married to the man for almost 20 years and it's like I never knew him at all.