My grandfather, Bill, died in September after three years of battling vascular dementia. We knew the moment was coming for a while, but it still stung. He has always been one of my favorite people in the whole world. I wish I could’ve spent more time with him in these last few years, but I’m lucky for the many times I did have with him. He was born in 1946 and lived in Northern Virginia his whole life. He met my grandmother Ola when they were in high school, then had my Dad, Steve, and got married, both in 1966. They had two more children, a daughter, Dawn in 1967, and a son, Mark in 1973.
Bill had both a challenging and rewarding life. His birth name is John William Douglas, but he’s always gone by Bill. Bill is a common nickname for William. His mother Lorena, died when he was only eight years old from Ovarian cancer. He and his sister Ann were left to live with their father, Doug, and their grandmother. Doug was guilt-stricken over the loss of Lorena and from what Bill said, would sometimes take it out on him and not be as present as he could be. His grandmother didn’t seem to be the sweetest either. He told stories all the time about his childhood and adolescence. Every story seemed to take place on Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria. One story he told many times was about him and a group of friends acting as if they were in a gang and all made one small tattoo prick with blue ink on their hands. He had a small blue tattoo prick between his thumb and index finger. I forget which hand.
In addition to the many stories of growing up in Alexandria, he talked of going to Colonial Beach in Virginia for vacation when his mother was still alive. He also went to Minnesota a few times, where his mother grew up, and talked of his French relatives speaking French to him while they were out fishing on the lake. He had quite the memory and was always pulling out a new story about his younger days, and I always enjoyed hearing them so much.
Due to the passing of his mother at a young age, he learned early on that he had to look out for himself and started working and never took a break until he retired. One of his first jobs was at a laundromat in high school; the laundromat seemed to be the hangout for him and some of his friends; it’s even where he met my grandmother. Two of these friends ended up being lifelong friends until his passing, Ernie and Robert ‘Bobby’ Frear. Not many people have that kind of longevity with friendships, but Bill is the kind of guy you can’t help but get along with forever because he’s so non-confrontational. I grew up seeing Ernie a lot, who, like Bill, has lived in Northern Virginia his whole life. Ernie would always come over during the holidays with his wife and kids.
For most of his working life, he worked at several Safeway grocery stores all over Northern Virginia. He said he had been held at gunpoint about five different times by people attempting to rob the store or one of the registers. He worked several positions, including receiving grocery loads and stocking shelves overnight through the early morning. Upon many visits when I was younger and hanging out with my grandma, he’d be sleeping during the day because he’d have to go to work in the middle of the night. I asked him if he enjoyed his years working at Safeway, and he said he hated every second of it but did what he had to do to put food on the table, pay the mortgage, and save up for retirement. In his generation of the Baby Boomers, it was common to work at the same company for decades, which isn’t as much the case anymore.
After retiring in his early 60s, he was only at home for about a year when he got restless and got a part-time job as a security guard for the CIA. We would always ask him what it was like to work there, and he would joke and say, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” The joke goes back to the common knowledge that FBI and CIA officers are legally not being able to divulge information related to work. He said the job was super easy, and he enjoyed it; he just loved staying busy. Whether walking the dog, going out to get groceries, or mowing the lawn – he thrived on making himself useful.
Every time I stayed with him and my Grandma, he would be up around 5 AM, reading the paper, drinking coffee, and ready to tackle the day. I would always be the next to wake up, and I’d come down to the kitchen and see him reading the newspaper. He would always read the obituaries, and I’d ask why he always liked to read them, and he’d reply, “Checking to see if I’ve died yet.” He was such a jokester but in a subtle, humble way. I loved sitting in the mornings with him, whether at him and my grandma’s home in Springfield, Virginia or at their beach trailer in Fenwick Island, Delaware. He was so chill; we’d sit quietly on the porch or in the kitchen, drinking coffee, and occasionally talking about something in the paper or about the weather.
He was a pretty simple man, and I admired that about him. He never saw a need to argue with anyone, even if they were yelling at him. He was even-keeled. His favorite drink was Miller Lite and drank at least one every night. His favorite place was Fenwick, sitting on the beach with a case of cold ones. Every summer his skin would turn golden brown from being out in the sun daily for hours. Other things he enjoyed: the Washington Redskins (now the Commanders, of which he held season tickets for many years), tuna sandwiches, Tostitos with a hint of lime, and of the local restaurants in town: Springfield Pizzeria.
Springfield Pizzeria was the only place he ever wanted to eat when asked where we should go out to dinner. He was a homebody at heart but would always be down to go there. It was a very old-school family-friendly Italian joint. Bill’s restaurant mannerisms were something to behold. Every time the check would come, he’d hold the pen and look at the check, and he’d flick the check with his hand and blow on it several times before signing it. We laughed each time he did it. It was a funny way of non-verbally saying, ‘It’s breaking my heart to spend this much money,’ so he’d prolong signing it. Upon leaving, he’d grab a toothpick from the hostess stand and pick the food out of his teeth, and he’d place the toothpick in his mouth with the kind of swagger of a 1950s greaser.
Bill prided himself on being clean and neat. One of his many sayings that he would quote a lot was, “If your feet are funky, and your ride funky, you funky,” meaning if someone’s shoes and car are dirty, then it’s a tell-tale sign that they are a slob. If someone wasn’t wearing the proper attire for the weather that day or hadn’t showered recently, he’d call them a ‘Scode,’ which the Urban Dictionary defines as ‘the lowest form of white trash.’ He made sure to look fresh and always dressed in a particular way. His everyday look was blue jeans, New Balance tennis shoes, a crisp T-shirt, and a nice baseball cap. His home, yard, and car were always pristine.
The greatest loves in his life were always his dogs. The first dog of his that I knew at a young age was Randy, a red golden retriever. My sisters, Amy, Claire, and I would help him shovel Randy’s dog poop from the backyard into trash bags. I don’t remember too much about Randy because I was so young. But I do remember when he passed away, Bill was distraught. He and Ola’s second dog I grew up knowing, Nikki, was a Jack Russell whom my Dad found and surprised them with as a gift. Nikki was around for a year or two before Randy passed, so at least when he passed, they still had Nikki to ease the grief. A few years later, they adopted another Jack Russell, Rudy, named after Rudy Guilliani because he was born on 09/11, and Guilliani was the mayor of New York City when the 09/11 attacks happened.
I remember taking many mid-day walks with Bill, walking Nikki and Rudy. The walks were always so peaceful. Bill wasn’t the biggest talker in the world, but he always had a story to tell when the time seemed right. He’d talk about history or his adolescence, and I’d always be so intrigued to hear what he had to say. I really looked up to him and how hard of a worker he was, what good care he took of his dogs, and how all-around kind he was. Nikki was more of Ola’s dog, and Bill loved him some Rudy. Nikki passed at around 15 years old. Then Rudy passed which was tough for Bill. So, of course, they got another canine friend, a labrador retriever named Rocky. Rocky is about eight years old now.
I grew up allergic to dogs, so whenever I’d come to visit, my eyes would swell up and it was harder for me to breathe because of the dog hair; I didn’t understand his or anyone’s love for pets since it always made me feel so sick to be around them. Bill and Ola also had a black cat named Buster. Buster just blended into the background; he didn’t interact with humans much, he was more of an outdoor cat. Bill wasn’t as close with Buster as he was with the dogs, but he always made sure to feed him well and take good care of him. I never thought I’d have a pet due to my allergies growing up, but my fiancé, Scott, convinced me that we should get a Basset Hound puppy. I gave in, and luckily I’m not allergic (I think I mostly grew out of my animal allergies). Now, after over a year of having our dog, Poogie, I can’t imagine living without him. One of the last times I saw Bill, he met Poogie and I told him I didn’t think I would ever get a dog, but I’m so glad to have Poogie. Bill then said, “Once you have one, you can’t live without them.” That summed up the immense love he had for his dogs.
In addition to loving his pets, he loved his family. Growing up when my sisters and I wanted to go visit them in Springfield for the weekend, my parents would drive us halfway from where we lived outside of Richmond, VA, to a McDonald’s in Spotsylvania. Bill would meet us at the McDonald’s, we’d all have a bite to eat, and he’d drive us up to his and my Grandma’s house. When I got older, he would pick me up from the train station and the airport several times. When at his house, he would always ask what we wanted for dinner and breakfast, and run out to the grocery store to get it. His famous dinners included homemade angel hair spaghetti with ground beef and tomato sauce which was delicious, and good old frozen Digornio pizzas. Every time he’d take the pizza out of the oven, he’d attempt to bite into a slice right away and would say, “Hot, hot, damnnn hot!,” because he knew it would make my sisters and I laugh.
My favorite times with him were during the holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and during the summer at his and Ola’s beach house. His presence was always comforting. He was so full of love and kindness – but not in an annoying smothering way, but in a quiet, gentle way. At the beach, he would take my sisters and I to mini-golf and ice cream, and we’d come back at night and talk on the porch. We could see the Fenwick Island lighthouse lit up in the dark and he’d pretend to be a vampire “I am the lighthouse vampire, muah-ha-ha!” and it cracked us up every time.
His humor was unmatched. At his funeral after-party, we all reminisced on the funny sayings he had: “She doesn’t have enough a** to feed a sick baby a bowl of soup,” pretending to be a samurai, speaking in Japanese; the list goes on. My Dad and his brother and sister can all attribute some, if not all, of their comedic ways to him. The bond that he had, especially with my aunt Dawn, was very special. Dawn, like Bill and Ola, with the exception of being a traveling nurse for a year, has lived in Northern Virginia her whole life. They always got along, and he had such love for her sons, my cousins, Finn and Luke. He would watch them all the time and go to all of their baseball and basketball games. Dawn, having gone through a divorce when Finn and Luke were young, not having their Dad around all the time, Bill was like a father figure to them.
But the most important relationship in his life was with my grandmother, Ola which began when they were both 18. She got pregnant with my Dad and gave birth to him when she was 19, which prompted Bill and Ola to get married a couple months later. I can only imagine having kids and getting married at such a young age, but it was more common back then. With another two kids in between, they managed to stick their marriage out until he passed, having been together for almost 50 years. They joked around with each other more than anything and I think that humor, their kids, love of the beach, good movies, family and friends made for a solid foundation and connection.
As his granddaughter, we did so many things together: riding his friend’s boat on the Potomac river, going to Mount Vernon (George Washington’s home), getting spoiled with Dunkin Donuts or Baskin Robbins, venturing to the playground and him pretending to be the ‘Big, bad wolf,’ playing basketball in the backyard (the game H-O-R-S-E, to be exact), teaching us how to boogie board at the beach, riding bikes to the pier – but most of all, just hanging out. Being in his presence was joyful.
He was a music lover too: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Band, Patsy Cline, and James Brown to name a few. I remember riding in the car with him, my grandma and sister to the beach through the countryside of Delaware and Bill crooning to ‘Wild Horses’ by the Rolling Stones. There are many memories like that, I’ll always cherish. In addition to crooning, he was a pretty darn good dancer. I, myself, like to boogie down to a good tune, and a lot of times he and I would be the ones dancing to a song during the holidays with my uncle Mark singing and playing guitar and the rest of the family laughing along.
The thing I loved the most about Bill was that he was never unkind – he never said an unkind word to me in my life. He never judged me, only when I’d wear shorts and flip flops when it was too cold outside. When he was diagnosed with dementia, the couple of times that I visited after that, he wasn’t quite the same person. He knew who I was, but I couldn’t have a conversation with him quite like I used to, just a little bit of talking here and there. His last three years of life were tough physically and it was hard to see him like that. As someone that always liked to be active doing yard work or taking the dogs out, he wasn’t able to do those things anymore and it was difficult for him to live that way. As tough as it is when someone dies, it’s almost better for them to be out of their misery and not suffer anymore when they’re going through years long decline.
He was 77 years old when he passed. I was able to FaceTime with him the night before and tell him I loved him and that he was the best grandfather in the world. I think of him often but not in the way of ‘why isn’t he still here’ but in the way that I’m so incredibly grateful to have had him in my life, and that he was my grandfather – the funniest, kindest, most hardworking, and all around great person. I love you, Pop-Pop Bill.
Bridget Douglas 