Thank you all for being here with
us in this elegant, landmark church, in honor of our beautiful son and brother.
Thank you to Reverend Douglas Ousley for his counsel and generosity. Time, because there are so many who have
done so much for us and most especially for William; and my memory, which will
doubtless falter under stress and cause me to omit an important name; time and
memory prohibit me from listing by name everyone who has aided and comforted us
in this, our greatest time of need. You are in our hearts.
A eulogy: to speak well of a person. Given my years of encouraging young
people to speak well, I pray I may now emulate their success. In offering
consolation, many of you have mentioned the inadequacy of words to describe the
loss, the frustration, the anger, the heartache, and the grief we all
share. I find myself mired in that
inadequacy now. I resort to three
words from the most articulate of all named William….Shakespeare: “Action is eloquence.”
But for this moment, at the
beginning, as it was in the beginning, the word. Over 35 years ago, with Doug Ousley presiding, Margot and I
exchanged a vow to have and to hold each other…”from this day forward, for
better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health…” Some
among you celebrated with us that day.
Part of the beauty of that vow is the strength and grace Margot has
shown in confronting challenges put in our path. Eloquence in action.
That same vow offered us the opportunity to love and to cherish, not
just each other, but also the arrival of two remarkable gifts, Elizabeth Hope
Williams and William Head Williams.
Evidence that a vow sincerely honored may yield beauty of the highest
order.
A eulogy: to speak well of a
person. That does not mean
exaggeration, to extol a person who never was. William would abhor the hypocrisy inherent in such
embellishment. William will never
become Saint William. He will
remain a young man tormented by the self-doubt, fear, frailty, and fragility
that confront us all in some measure.
Try though we might, we will never know the measure of William’s
shortcomings. Nor will we ever
know the full measure of William.
To the naming: William Williams. People often make fun of the name. “Who named you that?” “ Who did THAT to you?” On the telephone it goes like this: “Last name….Williams….first name….William…..no,
first name….William…William Williams?”
And so it goes. There are many variations on this name game. Trust me, I’m a veteran player.
In September of 1946, a short two
months after I was born, I received a letter from two relatives, Uncle Jim and
Cousin Will French. They wrote in
part:
“Dear William:
This is written to help you to some
day recognize your distinction as the Fifth William Williams in direct descent
from your great-great-grandfather William Williams, born in Groton, N.Y. on
February 20, 1816, just 130 years, 4 months and 22 days previous to your
arrival; and further, that while the name of the father of this William was
Benjamin, his grandfather was another William Williams, born in Taunton, Mass.
on November 11, 1749, who was a soldier in the war of the American Revolution
of which it is hoped you will learn much in the future. Going back to your
great-great-grandfather William Williams of Groton it will some day be of interest
for you to know that as a young man he taught school in Port Republic N.J. “
So when William’s greeting on his
cell phone went, “You‘ve reached William Williams the Seventh, please leave a
message”, he wasn’t just being a wise guy, he was correct, or at least cleverly
correct. Of the seven of us, our
days, but never our names, have been numbered.
A eulogy, to speak well of a person. I’ve too little time to speak of too
little time. Certainly, for much
of his time, William was nourished by what we call “The White Diet”. Yogurt, rice, and pasta; yogurt, rice,
and pasta; pasta with butter only.
“What’s for dinner?,” for William meant, what shape was the pasta? Even now, a quick glance at our
cupboard yields spaghetti, medium shells, fusilli, wagon wheels, stelline,
medium tubetti, more shells, and rings.
On a family trip to see the World Cup in France in 1998 Margot would
carefully instruct waiters to bring the pasta plain, only with butter. French cooks couldn’t resist a little garnish, perhaps some
parsley to enhance the presentation.
William would either pick his way around the parsley contaminated pieces,
or we’d send the dish back to be laundered. A baseball bat given as a Christmas present was engraved
“Iron Will”. Flexibility and William
seldom met in a single package.
One of William’s resolute stances
had to do with religion. He
eschewed orthodoxy and authority of any stripe. On the matter of religion he announced to his family, “I
don’t want God at my wedding or my
funeral.” Today, we honor that request in the main, albeit here at The Church
of the Incarnation. However, if
we’ve disobeyed him ever so slightly, he spent a fair amount of his time
disobeying us, ever so slightly.
School upped the ante on
disobedience. Or at the least,
resistance. As those who knew him know, Will did
not suffer fools gladly. The older he got, the more he hated school, the more
trouble we had getting him there, the more trouble he got into once there. His list of schools is like the list of
pasta in the cupboard. Varied with
lots of twists. William disliked teachers who were in love with their power as
opposed to their teaching. There is no short supply of this breed in schools;
hence there was no short supply of opposition for him to engage with. School administrators
tend to be less subtle about their affection for power. And, no surprise, less subtlety
returned on William’s part. Once,
in sixth grade, a principal called his new student William into his
office. Some other boys had
apparently been involved in some prank or malfeasance in the boys’
bathroom. William, as a bystander,
saw it happen. When pressured for
details by the principal, William’s response was, “I know, but I won’t tell
you.” The man was enraged. William
stood his ground, not letting the principal intimidate him into ratting someone
out.
His eighth grade year, at the end of the year, at the end
of a particularly difficult day, he sat in an orchestra rehearsal. When a
teacher chided him for having a button undone on his shirt, he’d had enough. He
took the shirt off and when told to leave, did cartwheels out of the room.
On the other hand, even with minimal schooling, he got a
perfect score on one of his college boards, the writing and grammar section. If he was ever around Margot when she
was writing about him on the computer, and saw that she wrote WM as short for
William, William would scold her and say, "Mom write the name William out;
otherwise you just look LAZY."
Ultimately
the question became not what school was right for William, but whether school
was right for William. Ironically,
on the day he died, The New York Times
Sunday Styles section ran a cover story on young people who consider
college an option, not an obligation.
“…a vanguard, committed to changing the perception of dropping out from
a personal failure to a sensible option, at least for a certain breed of
risk-embracing mavericks.” William
blazed their trail. He was in many
ways an autodidact. His mother says that sounds pretentious. Okay, he was self-taught. He’d spend hours on the computer
investigating various enthusiasms. He’d download books on economics. He subscribed to The Economist. On one car trip Margot slept, I drove, and William
listened to a lecture on quantum physics.
By far, his consuming passion was the trading of stocks. The summer he was seventeen, while
peers were struggling with college essays, he wrote an incredibly compelling
letter to several trading firms, asking for work, or at the least the opportunity
to come in and to learn. In two cases he was invited in for interviews. In each
he persuaded successful businessmen to take him on. One, his first mentor, Rob Falco, joins us today. By the late fall, as soon as he turned
18, he was trading for real. The boy who couldn’t get out of bed for school,
was up and out the door faithfully, returning home late following after hours
trading research and review.
Fellow traders nicknamed him “The Filter” for his ability to quickly
recognize trading opportunities. He acquired another important mentor, Frank
Accardi. He proudly earned his first positive day, his first day in the black;
then his first week in the black, than his first month. When he realized his
hard work was putting too much money in someone else’s hands, he boldly negotiated
better deals for himself and switched firms. At nineteen, he’d hit his stride. Trading at home he looked like the commander of some
spacecraft, four or five screens flashing away, headphones on talking to other
traders, sometimes training newcomers online.
Flush
with success, William announced he was going to travel. Singapore, Thailand, Italy, England….Amsterdam.
Then home and insistently off to live on his own. Boy/man of many talents and passions: trading, hockey
goalie, martial artist, mathematics, politics, philosophy, soccer, writing,
entrepreneurship, …ladies man.
And
then, gradually, trading waned.
Drugs intruded rudely and William went from day trader to trading his
days. It is customary to speak of
drug withdrawal as part of one’s recovery. I think of it differently, withdrawal as the inexorable
advance of the disease. Excessive time
spent sleeping with no regard for the natural rhythms of day and night, lack of
interest or motivation for former passions, less and less time and contact with
friends, lack of concern about personal hygiene, deception to oneself and to others
in service of a habit, avoiding engagement with family, outright hostility when
confronted. A retreat from
outstretched hands.
I
would exchange Withdrawal as we now use it for the term Reentry. A physically, emotionally, spiritually
painful engagement with the world as it is. A painful engagement with one’s true self. A process that allows others back into
one’s life, truth as a tool, and the recognition that the task cannot be
accomplished alone. William tried.
Part of William’s Reentry included
this reflection on “Good Things about Myself” written in a rehab setting.
I am handsome/good looking.
I
can have a future/my life is ahead of me.
I
am a problem solver.
I
am gaining back the weight I lost from abusing drugs.
The
process of recovery is long and hard.
William’s reentry was partial, denied by heroin’s Siren call.
We
have been robbed by a disease called Addiction and its criminal accomplice Heroin.
Robbed of playing catch on the lawn, bocce ball, dark humor, cigarettes on the
stoop, building with Legos, fierce and courageous loyalty to friends, right on
the money analysis of people, situations and numbers, snow forts, a flash of
the pads for a save, and the sweetness, strength, inspiration, and love of
William.
So
now, more than thirty-five years since we first made a vow in front of Doug
Ousley, Elizabeth joins Margot and me in this pledge to William in front of you
all: We promise to do everything
in our power to educate and inform people about drug abuse and its prevention,
to provide ever more enlightened treatment for addicts, to help make treatment
options for addicts more readily available, and to remove the stain of shame
surrounding this disease. We ask
you all, as witnesses, to give us the same kind of strength and support you
have so lovingly offered over the last several weeks, as we strive to honor our
word. Action is eloquence.
Where There’s a Will
Through The New York Community Trust, William’s family has
established The Where There’s a Will Fund to educate and inform people about
drug abuse and its prevention, to provide ever more enlightened treatment for
addicts, to help make treatment options for addicts more readily available, and
to remove the stain of shame surrounding this disease. Charitable donations may be made to:
Community Funds, Inc.
fbo The Where There’s a Will Fund
The New York Community Trust
909 Third Avenue
New York, NY
10022
After reading your piece in the NYT, I'm glad to follow-up by reading this and having the chance to learn more about your William. I am terribly sorry for the loss your family has suffered.
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