Two weeks ago, my mom's only brother, William "Bill" Bergstad passed away after courageously fighting stomach cancer for the last five years. I won't say he lost his fight with cancer, because he didn't. He fought with everything he had, he never lost his faith in God despite the pain and difficulty, and we saw miracle after miracle as he kept defying expectations and assumptions.
Uncle Bill's funeral was this past Friday, and it was really touching to see how many people came. Of course we had a lot of family there, but there were many other people that he knew from the church he led, Set Free Ministries, people he worked with, and just dozens of others he had interacted or connected with in some way.
Most of my early memories of him are of either visiting him in Spokane, riding one of the horses he owned (it was so huge, I was terrified, but Uncle Bill was so calm and patient), him coming to my baptism when I was 8, playing with his pet chihuahua Suzie, or marveling at his physical strength. When I was about 12, my parents added on an extra car space to our garage, and had bags of cement and other materials in our driveway. I was asked to bring one bag into the garagge, and could barely move it. Uncle Bill was visiting at the time, and saw me struggling. He came over, said something like "It's ok, I've got this" and picked it up with one arm, slung it over his shoulder like it was nothing, and brought it inside.
The times I saw him over the years, he was always nice, always smiling, laughing with people, or making them laugh. He was just an easygoing guy, kinda loud sometimes, but not in a bad way. He was just letting you know he enjoyed his life. I could tell from the pictures he shared on Facebook how much he loved his kids and grandkids. It was so weird at the celebration of his life, I kept expecting to see him walk in, throw his arm around someone and start telling a joke. It was hard seeing Aunt Carol, my mom, my grandma, my aunt, and everyone missing him so much. But I could also picture him seeing so many of our family that are already on the other side of the veil - Levi, Grandma Edna, Grandpa Tom, Grandpa Jim, not to mention all of our ancestors going back through the generations. I hope he had a good welcoming party.
God be with you (and with us) until we meet again, Uncle Bill.
