Billy

About two years ago a woman named Kathy from my hometown died from terminal breast cancer. She was my third cousin i think and she had one son Billy if I remember that correctly from her one marriage that ended when Billy was 4 years old. While he was high functioning he lived with special needs. I am unsure if those needs were affiliated with autism or maybe a traumatic brain injury but he needed to be medicated and looked after. He lived in a trailer park with his mother his entire life. Kathy was sweet and kind to me on Facebook and if i would ever run into her back home. I only met Billy once for about 5 minutes and he literally said nothing and never made eye contact. when his mother passed i think he was sort of lost with no direction and no idea what to do next. his father was never in the picture. still alive but a hopeless alcoholic whose whereabouts were unknown, nor did anyone really care. His closest living relative was his uncle who also had some sort of developmental disorder but the uncle married well and had a daughter who would become a high powered healthcare administrator VP of a hospital. Billy told his uncle he had always wanted to go to California. No one knows why. I guess everyone must have agreed or Billy insisted because late last year he boarded a greyhound bus headed for the Golden State. I don't know if he had a cell phone, credit cards, or how much cash he was carrying but the trip should have taken a few days. i don't know if Billy's intention was to visit or to stay indefinitely but after having only been in California 2 days he was robbed. with only the clothes on his back and no knowledge of his surroundings he made his way back to the bus station where he slept on a bench until a policeman asked him for his ID. he said he was from Wisconsin and gave his uncle's name as a person they could contact. eventually Billy's uncle and his wife wired enough money for Billy to get on another bus headed for home. en route back there was a medical emergency in Denver. he had no medication, no pharmacy, and no cash so Billy was hospitalized in Denver for several days until he was cleared again for travel. His uncle paid for everything over the phone. the bus trip between Denver and home was supposed to take 3 days and nights. when that time came and went Billy's family began to call the bus company asking for records of his boarding the bus, dates and times. They filed a missing persons report when he had been missing for longer than 24 hours beyond the 3 days the bus trip should have taken. The highway patrol was alerted all along the route and every place they routinely stop for food and bathroom breaks. They reviewed hours of security camera footage, put up posters at truck stops. After he had been missing for over a month with no leads Billy's cousin called Billy's biological father. This monster said, 'yes i know where he is. He is dead. He froze to death in Omaha. Wandered off in January. They cremated him.' Billy had the same last name as his father so when he was found authorities there has used his driver’s license to find his next of kin. The father told them he did not care what they did with Billy’s ashes. When our funeral director in town heard the story he used his connections, pulled some strings, found the crematorium in Omaha who had Billy’s ashes and paid for them to be shipped home. Just a few weeks ago Billy was finally laid to rest next to his mother in Medford. I think he might have been about 47 years old.


I wanted to save this story for myself and share it with others for a time when I feel like I have gotten the short end of the stick, if I thought something was not fair, or I was disappointed. I also think that in some way sharing it means Billy's life and death had some more special deeper meaning.