From a Northwestern Helpmate

To the Fischers:

I’m new to the blogging phenomenon…after reading several of the blog entries, I decided to get happenin’ and echo here some of the thoughts from my earlier email message to Bill.

To the Fischer children, thank you for honoring your parents in hosting this web site which helps us all be the barometer of collective positive sentiment about Bill and his life. The words help us reflect the significance of a life well spent.

It is gratifying to read about a life, isn’t it? I am grateful for the 7 years I worked as Bill’s assistant at Northwestern. He was an ankle biter -- I had never heard that phrase before meeting Bill. He certainly personified the trait of the Energizer bunny in his dogged pursuit of doing his best. Bill will be one of God’s ankle biters!

Many at Northwestern were the beneficiary of Bill’s optimism and empathy on many occasions. Bill and Betty’s priorities were always to come home again (to God’s country in Colorado), to nourish family roots, and to live with love, pride and protectiveness.

The poem below describes a person’s life span as a voyage that friends and family here view up to a point and then the ultimate port of call comes. Peace to Bill in his journey.

With appreciation anew,

Janie Savage
Assistant to the Senior V.P. for Business and Finance
Northwestern University

Gone From My Sight

by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,

hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...