Now that Mom has joined you in Heaven, I know you are very happy again. Love you and miss you Dad...and Mom.

A reminder just popped up on my phone to wish Bill a happy birthday.  Every year, I say I’m going to call and I don’t. I checked today and found this memorial. 
To the family. Bill and Chickie were my neighbors for about a year, 2000-2001. I remember Chickie peeking out of her window, checking me out as I moved in.  Lol! Bill was the first to talk to me and welcome me to the complex. He was the only one to wish me well when I moved.  He was a beautiful man. They were a beautiful couple.  Miss them both. 

Dad, we still think of you and miss you every day. I still appreciate all of the practical things you taught me. You were strong and honest and we loved your corny sense of humor, always children friendly. Your great-granddaughters still ask about Pop.
Until we meet again, I love you.

R.I.P. Bill

When I was a young boy, I noticed the holes or "ports" in the back of our clothing dryer were the same as the holes in your dryer, Pop. I imagined in my young mind that I could yell into my dryer, and by some mass communication network of dryers, you could hear me.

Light, electricity, and magnetism, according to many of the greatest scientific minds in human history, are side effects of something beyond our 3 dimensions, within a higher dimensional hyperspace. So it is with great hope in a long shot, as I send this message in a virtual bottle, by way of electricity, magnetism, and light, within these network wires, that somehow it might make it's way across dimensions, and in an even longer shot, make it to you in an altered state of consciousness.

The chances are infinitesimally small, but so are the chances that our universe exists as it does, and an unimaginably smaller chance still, that you and I existed at all, and that I had the honor of you being my Grandfather.

You seemed transdimensional as it was, something intergalactic about you. A beautiful happy bald reflective head, your kind eyes peering through those big cosmic glasses. An uncanny ability to disappear in an instant, and reappear from nowhere, as if you were vanishing from this plane altogether, earning you the spacey nickname, "Telstar."

But, it was more than this which set you apart and gave us strength. The consistency of your character, always bold and true, right down to your last day and breadth of this celestial atmosphere. Happy and content just to be with your family, we were your treasure, and need for excess and riches was none. Your kindness and positivity was something not often witnessed, and it never wavered. The storms you must have endured in your 9 decades, the losses you suffered, the darkness you confronted. Three years on the ground in WW2, The Great Depression, a son in Vietnam, loss of loved ones over time. Yet, even with all the reasons one would ever need to fold down and buckle with the weight of 30,000 days on your back, you would look at me with so much hope and light in your eyes, a laugh and smile, and say, "Well, Better days are coming, Jim!" You were our great Captain in the storm.

The Captain, flying your cessna tonight into the "Wild Blue Yonder." The love and devotion you had for your family was apparent on every day I knew you, it's reflected in all of us, and in the testimonies of all that knew you.

The times you and I spent together, going to work with you at Channel 13 in New York City, watching you run the broadcast camera for The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour, or the days you skipped work altogether so we could build snowmen in the backyard; the nights we spent tracking down the Big Dipper in the starry skies at the cabin; playing in the river together; or some other wondrous adventure, they will live with me forever. I am so grateful for the 10 years you were able to spend knowing my son, and those experiences will live with him forever, and so continue your legacy. You taught me through your actions how to be a better man and a great father. I hope that under the wings of your wisdom, I might one day live up to your example.

I love you with all my heart, as does all of our family.

Now I must say goodnight to you, as we have done so many times before. The typical gesture of "rest in peace," seems to me to be at odds with a universe which does not do well with rest. I will therefore simply wish that you forever be with Peace.

Goodnight, Sweet Pop. I love you.

"See you later, alligator."

--- Jimmy

Bill Kockler was everything in a parent and a friend you'd ever hope for. He was forever kind and generous to everybody fortunate enough to have been in his company. My "time" with Bill on a regular basis only amounted to about five years. But oh what I learned from him in those years! Bill I (we) shall never forget you. You truly were "one of a kind".