Uncle Billy

The world is now without another one-of-a-kind human.

To put Uncle Billy’s will to live in perspective, Dad and I traveled to Switzerland in October 2021 because Billy was in such poor health. Prior to that visit and for the years that followed, his health status was a real roller coaster. When it seemed diar, he’d always bounce back. He was a marvel, truly.

I am struggling to find the right words in the wake of the loss of Billy, which took place Thursday, Feb 1, in Switzerland in the early afternoon. A culmination of cancer and heart trouble. I feel like I just can’t find the right words, so really this entry is just a whole lot of blathering.

I’ll start with what I shared on socials;William Waller Scott. Oct 12,1944 – Feb 1,2024. Uncle Billy was smart, funny, kind, soft-spoken, and generous. The world lost a gentle spirit today. The kind that all pups knew they were safe around. A lover of cookies and coke-a-cola and a good smoke in his favorite chair, travel, photography, and gardening. You’ll never know anyone who could more expertly cut up a vegetable into perfectly uniform strips. Not one for sentimentality, when we parted ways for what we knew would be the last time this past summer, he simply said “Goodbye, Cydney”. I didn’t mind. I always knew how he felt about me and he knew how I felt about him. His absence will be felt acutely. I am so grateful to have known him.

And now I’ll blather out some more facts and memories, and add photos too (Billy was rather shy and humble, and I think he would really hate this. I’m sorry, Billy, but you were worth the time and words, so I’m going to take the time and write the words, however ineloquently. I hope you can forgive me!)

Billy (far left in 2002), bore an uncanny resemblance to his grandfather, William Edwin Scott, Sr. born May 22, 1869 (second from right).

When I was twelve we traveled to Switzerland as a family to spend Christmas there with Billy, Reeli, my grandmother Mima, and cousins. During one very memorable meal, we sat lit by candlelight, eating cow tongue (which I was informed of later) and telling stories. Eventually we switched to telling jokes, and it was quite an experience. A cousin would tell a joke in Swiss German, and a bilingual adult (Billy) would translate for the english speakers. An American would then tell a joke in English, and another bilingual person would translate for those who only understood Swiss German. One round of laughter followed by a pause for translation, and then the other round of laughter from the other half of the table. It was great fun, and very interesting to see which jokes didn’t translate well, either culturally or in interpretation.

At sixteen, I visited Billy and Reeli in Switzerland on my own in 1992. We were on a grand adventure through Italy, and I nearly threw up while Billy delighted in the sharp turns and high speed limits of the winding country roads.

One of my photo album entries from that trip reads “Billy and I spent a morning parading around Castiglione, looking for objects worthy of photo. We drove through a farm looking for the perfect angle of a field of sunflowers, I think we found it. Something I didn’t think to take a photo of was the car after all the farm dirt and bugs stuck to it” (you can click to enlarge the photos)

Billy always supported my photography, starting from when I was new and mediocre at it (the parading through Italy when I was 16 is a case in point). Years later, he sat with interest, as did Reeli, while I shared slideshows from trips (thankfully I was a far better photographer by then), and I enjoyed seeing the photos he took on their adventures too. In the mid-1990s, he worked with me to take a carefully composed still-life photo at Scott’s End. In it was a hat, mirror reflection, window light, flowers. Unfortunately, I cannot find the photo which resulted, but I do remember it was shot on black and white film.

Dogs, whether his own or not, loved Billy;

Billy could do intricate and delicate things with his hands, from putting together some small model from a kit, to working with seedlings, to cutting vegetables into perfect even strips;

Uncle Billy had a VERY long joke about fruitcake and a pink elephant that we would tell when I was younger. He told it well.

Billy really hated posing for photos, but he tolerated it if asked. Below is one of my favorite photos of my parents with my aunt and uncle. In summer 2017, they were dressed up for some occasion, and I asked them to let me take their photos together. After a few, I said “I’m sorry Billy, I know you hate this!”

“I really do!” he grumbled, not unkindly, and the below photo was the reaction to his declaration. I just love it.

Uncle Billy was a Coke Zero connoisseur as well as a serious chocolate chip cookie fan. A smoker for life, his official perch while at Scott’s End was in his rocking chair, where you could often find him sitting quietly enjoying a coke, a cookie, and a cigarette. Since he was not one for sentiment, I was always happy to bake him treats when I was with him. My way of showing I cared about him without having to say it out loud.

Despite being from the fine chocolate capital of the world, Billy LOVED Hershey’s syrup!

I have a memory of making brownie sundaes one night in the Cape, and as we dug in, my cousin Anne as I remember, made a comment about how much her dad really liked the dessert. We looked over at him and well, he looked like a five year old, spoon digging in, a smile and a glimmer in his eyes, licking the corner of his mouth in anticipation of the gooey goodness. It made me very happy. It will always make me happy to remember his expression.

I will always remember what he looked like when he laughed so hard he cried. It wasn’t often but it was memorable (one time that particularly sits in my head is when Billy watched a video of his older brother dressed-up as and impersonating Cleopatra, but that’s a story for another time!). Affected by his smoking, likely, he had a wonderful raspy laugh. And it always made me feel good when I could make one bubble out of him.

One benefit to being single and child-free is that I have lots of freedom in my schedule. When the only people left at Scott’s End in the summer were Reeli and Billy, I would often join my parents for the weekends there. I will forever be grateful for the time I got around the table with just the four of them. Telling stories and enjoying Reeli’s creamy noodles with ham, ‘It’s Billy’s favorite!” she would say.

This past summer, Billy didn’t get much joy from eating. This was wildly unfair considering his son Thomas and wife Reeli’s incredible skills in the kitchen. The pain meds he was on for his cancer made everything taste wrong. Still, I made brownies for him just in case somehow their taste got through. I don’t think it did, but he kindly ate one anyway.

During dinner one night last summer, we were amazed at his sudden energy. He spent most of those days sitting quietly, tolerating pain, and napping. Small conversations peppered throughout. As the full table sat in wrapped attention over another perfect meal, Billy shared vignettes from his adventures traveling through Europe with his brother – my dad Peter – and their father Bill when they were just boys. I sat there wondering if I could sneak away, get my phone, and put it somewhere to record him, but I knew I couldn’t do it inconspicuously. In that moment, I told myself, Cydney, you just need to sit and listen. Be OK with hearing it only once.

Billy is no longer in pain, or existing in this world uncomfortably. This is a relief. I will miss Billy, and I feel for my father and cousins and my godmother, because when you love people, you want to be able to take some pain away. That’s a horrible thing to know, that you can do nothing, except maybe write some stories down and hope that they bring a smile rather than sadness, eventually.