If you know Bill, you know the smile first.
He has spent his whole life making people laugh. In waiting rooms, in checkout lines, at every family table. He is the one who cracks the joke when the room has gone quiet. He has also been the person you call when things go wrong, and he has never once made anyone feel like a burden.
He and my aunt Virginia have built a home where the door was always open and nobody ever left hungry or unhelped. A lot of us in this family owe them more than we have ever said out loud.
Bill has been diagnosed with end-stage heart failure. The doctors have been honest with us: there is no surgery left to try and no next treatment to pursue. He is on hospice now, at home, which is exactly where he asked to be. The doctors have done what they can, and the rest we have handed to God. What is left is time.
And here is the hard part. Virginia is still working.
She has been at Panera Bread for more than seven years, and I want to say plainly that they have been good to her through this. They have bent her schedule in ways a lot of employers would not have. We are grateful for it.
But flexibility is not a paycheck. She is paid for the hours she works, and every hour she spends at home with Bill is an hour she does not earn. Bill's disability covers part of what they need. It does not cover it without Virginia working.
So she gets up, and she goes in, and she spends the best hours of the day away from her husband during the last stretch of his life. Then she comes home and cares for him until she cannot keep her eyes open, and does it again the next morning.
Nobody should have to choose between making rent and being there. That is the choice she is making every single day.
And Bill, being Bill, is still cracking jokes. He is the one going through this, and he is still the one making sure everybody else in the room is okay. He has never once stopped doing that. We would just like him to have Virginia by his side.
WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR
We are trying to raise enough that Virginia can cut back her hours and be home with Bill.
That is it. That is the whole point of this page.
Every dollar given here does one of three things:
It replaces the wages she gives up, so she can take the hours off and still make rent.
It covers medical costs. The bills, the medications, and the equipment that comes with caring for him at home.
It keeps the ordinary things running. The rent, the utilities, the groceries, the parts of life that do not pause for any of this.
And it gives Virginia a little ground to stand on. They have lived paycheck to paycheck for a long time. When the day comes, she should be able to honor Bill the way he deserves without that being decided by what is left in the account.
WHAT YOUR GIFT ACTUALLY BUYS
Hours. That is the honest answer.
A gift here is not going into a void. It converts, directly, into mornings she gets to spend beside him instead of clocking in. Into being in the room. Into not finding out later that she missed something because she was at work.
There is no way to know how much time Bill has. There is a way to make sure Virginia gets to spend more of it with him. That is what we are asking you to help with.
IF YOU CANNOT GIVE
Plenty of people cannot right now, and that is completely okay. You can still help.
Share this page. It travels further than you would think.
Send Virginia a message she does not have to answer.
Pray for them, and please pray specifically. We have stopped asking God for a different diagnosis. We are asking now for peace for Bill, for strength for Virginia, and for every good day the two of them can still be given. Both of them would want you to know how much your prayers have already carried them.
And if you have a story about Bill, leave it in the comments when you donate. We read them to him. He grumbles about the fuss, and then he asks us to read them again.
God has always taken care of this family through people. Neighbors, church folks, friends who showed up without being asked and without being thanked properly. Bill spent his whole life being one of those people for others. If you can be one for him now, we would be grateful.
Thank you for loving them the way they have loved all of us.
— Ron
