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I could talk to him about the difficult things in life. We disagreed about some big issues, but we could always talk about them. His being gone is terrible, but his dying was terrible, too. And he was dying for so long. That was the worst part — watching him die slowly. It wasn’t a steady decline. There were so many slow, hard-fought recoveries, only to be followed by a sudden, lurching fall. And I never knew how far we were falling. He might be sick a few days, or he might end up in the hospital bed, pale and unresponsive, unable to even hold his phone or feed himself. And I would usually be sitting next to him, frantically researching what was wrong this time, as if his entire recovery depended on me and not on the army of doctors and nurses that came by to see him. Bill could never understand why I did that and why I couldn’t just accept him as he was instead of always trying to make him push harder for recovery. But I am like that. I accept nothing if I think it could be better, and wasn’t there something better than dying in slow pieces? I made this process so much more difficult for Bill than it had to be because I could not accept it, and he so completely did. He had lived a good life and always followed his conscience. He had a strong testimony of God, and although he did not want to die, he was not afraid to. We were only married for two years before his health began failing. He had a little blister on his foot, and it ended up with him being in the hospital and rehab for a month and having part of his toe amputated. That was when I started worrying that he would die. Within another year, his kidneys failed, and he was on dialysis. His energy level and interests started to decline. As his health declined, he sometimes got moody. He quit suggesting that we go places. He could do less and less and lost the will to try. I am confident that I kept him alive several years longer, and he had many moments in those years that he enjoyed, but also many bad ones. I hope that my children remember the man who drove to Florida with us when we were engaged. It was for a family reunion. I put him in charge of a room of six male cousins, all between the ages of 6 and 8, and he did not hesitate a moment. He was thrilled to be part of our family.
was not reciprocated. Bill always wanted them to have a good relationship with their dad and encouraged them to love him, visit him, and be respectful to him. That’s a lot to ask of a stepfather, and there are few who played that supporting role so well. Bill was on the verge of retirement when I met him. If he had not married me, he would have spent his final years relaxing, visiting his relatives, eating out, and remembering the past. Instead, he spent them helping an unruly family stay together and working hard until he was physically unable to do all the things he had looked forward to doing in retirement. Bill Mansel married into a home with five children between the ages of 7 and 16 and never regretted it for a moment. He provided emotional support and reliable, consistent love. I am assertive, opinionated, arrogant, and stubborn. I have a tendency to dominate conversations and to suck all the oxygen out of the room. Bill was old-fashioned. He saw his role as head of the household and had expected to be the captain of our family voyage. It cannot have been an easy adjustment, and he made it with great grace. He was proud of my accomplishments. He left a community that he loved and where he had lived for over 25 years to move into my world and help make a home for my children. That first illness, two years after our marriage in 2014, scared me to death. I saw a life without Bill, and I worried that I would be overwhelmed again and life would be as difficult for me and the children as it was the day before we met. But he hung in there as the children grew up and went off to college and Nathan served a mission. Now, there is only Justin left at home for me to raise. And I’m glad Justin is still here. It’s good for me to be needed by someone. As the years went by, I loved Bill more and more, but my children grew up physically and emotionally, and I began to be less and less worried about how I could manage without Bill and worried only that I would miss him.
Because I always knew that we would not be living out the retirement plans we made together when we first got married. I began worrying that he was dying in August of 2014, and I never quit worrying about it until Sept. 11, 2021, when I got a call at 4:40 in the morning that the nurse at Park Manor had been doing her rounds and had found him dead in his sleep. I love you, Bill Mansel. We are such different personalities that only God would have put us together. I will miss you every day until I see you again. Thank you for sharing your final years with me. -Ruby
I hope they remember the man who commuted an hour to work each way and still came home and made dinner or drove them to and from their activities. I hope they remember the man who won our family tennis tournament that first year and who convinced me that the difficult moments in their childhoods were just moments, and that they would come through their various crises, and we would still love each other. I want them to remember how Bill invited their father to our home for holidays and how he was always friendly and welcoming to their father, even when that friendliness
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