Happy Thanksgiving

My cousin, Billy Joseph, died yesterday.

We grew up together. He was younger than I am and we all called him Billy. I tried to call him Bill when we got older but it sounded wrong.

He will always be Billy to me.

He was a thoroughly wonderful man. He was the best part of our family.

He was the youngest child and only son of my Aunt Jean and Uncle Lenny. Jean was my mother's older sister.

They lived in Teaneck, New Jersey. That's where we would gather to spend almost every Thanksgiving. I would always end up in trouble and my mother and uncle would often argue but Billy was always happy and would help turn discord into harmony.

And he was always sweet. He was very sentimental. He loved, and was very attentive to, his mother and to the rest of his immediate family.

He was a terrific brother to his two older sisters, Laurie and Margie, and a great uncle to Michael and Danny, Margie's boys.

He was a proud Jew and I will always remember how he read the Kaddish at my father's funeral. He helped create the continuity we all needed at that sad moment

Billy graduated from Clark University in Worcester and almost immediately went to work for Canon, USA.

Canon's headquarters are in Lake Success, New York. It's funny that Billy would work in a town called "Lake Success" because that's what his life was...a total success.

Billy met Sofi, from whom he was divorced, in Mexico when he was working there running Canon's operation. They had two kids, Andy and Sharon. He loved those kids...and they loved him. I suspect they always will.

We all will.

Everyone loved Billy. That was probably because he loved everybody back.

When the word got out over the past few days that he was in a Hospice facility, 34 of his friends came to visit. Thirty four...!

And there can be no better testament to the magnificence of the man than the fact that, in his last weeks, his former wife and her boyfriend nursed him in her home.

Billy Joseph was a jewel. He had the qualities we all strive for. He was kind and generous and smart and funny and above all he was sweet.

The Jews have a word for it.

He was a Mensch.

Billy Joseph was, quite simply, the best.

Happy Thanksgiving Sweet Man. I will always love you.