Tuesday, February 4, 2025: This morning our dear friend Bill Boorman passed away. 

A Note from Victoria on Bill’s passing: Bill’s Hospice Caregiver told me that Bill died this morning at 10:30 very peacefully. All the things that hospice did as I was leaving last night, have taken their effect and so Bill had a very, very peaceful passing.

We bless you Victoria for you constant care and love for Bill. We salute Larry his partner of many years, Dan Lambert, Peter and Cathy, Dan Vrooman, Phyllis Bazzano, Vera Dente and all Bill’s circles of dedicated friends and companions who walked him home.

Bill lived a wonderful life and he found  so much joy in loving the people who enriched life. He was a character, a high functionary in the Navy who never took his rank or himself very seriously. Had he lived in the middle ages, we would call him a troubadour, full of faith and goodness and song.

 He shared with us the enjoyment he found in us. He was a natural lover of humans of all kinds and he who took such pleasure in laughing with us, kidding around, dispelling our fears and raising up our faith. It was a sweetness to know him… to share a meal… to simply be around him, to laugh with him and to feel his pain and confusion as he grew older. He was after all fully human, fully divine. A child of God. 

We will miss him but we will not forget - and we will laugh. 

In recognizing the passing of this lovely man I’m reminded of two poems that I think Fit Bill so well. The first is an old favorite from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. The second from John O’Donohue:

Father Malloy

You are over there, Father Malloy,

Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,

Not here with us on the hill—

Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision

And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins.

You were so human, Father Malloy,

Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,

Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River

From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.

You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand

From the wastes about the pyramids

And makes them real and Egypt real.

You were a part of and related to a great past,

And yet you were so close to many of us.

You believed in the joy of life.

You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.

You faced life as it is,

And as it changes.

Some of us almost came to you, Father Malloy,

Seeing how your church had divined the heart,

And provided for it,

Through Peter the Flame,

Peter the Rock.

By Edgar Lee Masters

From Spoon River Anthology

For The Dying by John O'Donohue

May death come gently towards you,

Leaving you time to make your way

Through the cold embrace of fear

To the place of inner tranquility.

May death arrive only after a long life

To find you at home among your own

With every comfort and care you require.

May your leave-taking be gracious,

Enabling you to hold dignity

Through awkwardness and illness.

May you see the reflection

Of your life's kindness and beauty

In all the tears that fall for you.

As your eyes focus on each face,

May your soul take its imprint

Drawing each image within

As companions for the journey.

May you find for each one you love

A different locket of jewelled words

To be worn around the heart

To warm your absence.

May someone who knows and loves

The complex village of your heart

Be there to echo you back to yourself

And create a sure word-raft

To carry you to the further shore.

May your spirit feel

The surge of true delight

When the veil of the visible

Is raised, and you glimpse again

The living faces

Of departed family and friends.

May there be some beautiful surprise

Waiting for you inside death,

Something you never knew or felt,

Which with one simple touch

Absolves you of all loneliness and loss,

As you quicken within the embrace

For which your soul was eternally made.

May your heart be speechless

At the sight of the truth

Of all your belief had hoped,

Your heart breathless

In the light and lightness

Where each and every thing

Is at last its true self

Within that serene belonging

That dwells beside us

On the other side

Of what we see.