Obituary of Walter Edward Spillman, MSG

Walter Edward Spillman, MSG, USAF Ret., was born September 28, 1931 at Tom, Oklahoma and passed from this world January 30, 2015. One of ten children to William Hiram (Harry) and Nettie Lenora Spillman. He graduated from High school at Haworth, Oklahoma. Walter entered the U.S. Air Force August 11, 1949 where he served for twenty years. He later worked for General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas and the Dallas Toll Road. He is survived by a son, Dennis Edward Spillman, Ltc, USA Ret., of Alvarado, Texas and a daughter Mavis Maxine Spillman of Mount Vernon, Texas, twelve grandchildren, fourteen great grandchildren, and brother, Howard Spillman MSG, USAF Ret., of Pottsboro, Texas. Graveside services with military honors were held at 3:00 pm on Friday, February 6, 2015 at the Tom Cemetery in Tom, OK. Walter Edward Spillman September 28, 1931 – January 30, 2015 Rest in Peace “Daddy” I would like to thank everyone that has viewed this obituary and those that have left their thoughts about my father, and kind wishes for his family. Thank You. I would also like to thank my uncle, Howard Spillman, aunt, Helen, and cousin, Joyce for their help with the last part of his journey. I also want to thank my cousin Lenora for helping them so they could help me. Without them, I would not have been able to see this through, and that is a debt not payable in this life. Thank You! I would also thank my children for rising to all occasions in a way that makes their father very proud of them. I am not done tweaking them, but they are so much better than I was at their age that they have left me little to work with. I love all of you very much. Thank You. Last but certainly not least, I want to express my appreciation for the health care and nursing home staffs that helped care for my father the last several years, as well as the hospice staff that stayed with him the last few days. Thank You. For those that might not be able to attend the graveside service and say good bye I would like to use this space to fill in the gap between when you saw Walter last, and January 30th 2015 when he left this World for another. Around October 2004, Walter began to display early onset Alzheimer’s. On a couple of occasions, I received a call at 2 in the morning from not so local police stations to come and bring him home, he could not remember where he was going or where he was. We had to take his keys from him so we did not lose him. For several years, he stayed with my mother and she looked after him and I would visit occasionally, soon he did not recognize me. The disease progresses fast in some ways and painfully slow in others. Several years back my uncle Howard and I decided to get Walter into continuous care and moved him to Savoy Texas. We have taken care of him since and when a place opened, we moved him to Homestead in Denison where he spent his last days. Our family has survived this tale a number of times now as my granny, aunts, and uncles have passed. They have all been hard but for me this one has been the hardest. A person cannot help or make better the utter helplessness one feels as the loved one decays before your eyes and beyond making them comfortable there is nothing, you can do. That is the sad part of this story and in all truth; I had to tell you that to make the rest of the story understood completely. From the Scriptures, I recall one verse above all others when I think of my father. “Greater love than this has no one, that anyone should lay down his soul for his friends.” KJV II John 15:13 When we approach these moments of grief and great sadness, we are never ready for the rush of emotions that comes when we remember the loved and lost. Walter’s struggle with the disease erased much of his memory and in the later days most all of it. Even so when we visited him he was always laughing. While he did not understand that, the babies I brought to visit him were his grandchildren he played with them and laughed with them as I remembered him when he knew it. I would eat lunch with him to make sure that he was eating and often my uncle Howard was with us. Walter would see Howard’s Air Force hat and recognize it, in the early times he knew Howard as his brother. As time went by he knew less, but he still laughed and told stories I could not understand, but he seemed to enjoy the telling. Even toward the end of the fight, there was still a recognizable part Walter. I think this is important for everyone to know, because we cannot know the full trajectory of our lives and we do not always do what we should. I think this is true for every living person. When we look back, as we always do at times like this we question many of the things we have done a wonder at the importance of the things done and those not done. What I also know is this: When all is weighed and balanced in our individual lives the single most important thing we leave on this earth is our children, the follow on generation. After raising seven children of my own, I can now approach understanding what my father and mother sacrificed for me to have what they did not. As kids, we must have been poor, but we did not know it. We ate lots of beans and potatoes, but we thought everyone ate that way. We got a soda-pop-coke once a week after walking to the five and dime, the calories did not hurt us as we used them on the walk home. My mother, as Walter’s mother also did, sewed our clothes until I was old enough to get a job and buy my own. My clothes at least were made from store bought cloth, Walter’s were not. We grew up in the military and for those that have not I have to tell you this small story. Daddy was often off to a school he needed for promotion or a new classification; we missed him and were always happy to see him come home. On time when he graduated from Noncommissioned officers academy in Massachusetts and came home he made us kids get yardsticks, attach masking tape to the edge, and catch all the dust bunnies under our beds. As a child of eleven, I was certain that this behavior was not normal. What I later realized though was that it was not normal, and that the values, ideas, hopes, and dreams inculcated at my home would serve me well as I lived through a fractured and chaotic life. My parents struggled with me to make me a responsible adult, sometimes it was not pretty, and I was about 26 years old before I came to an understanding about how right they had been and how wrong I was. I chose the military as a first career and I would call daddy sometimes and discuss things that military guys talk about. One time we were talking about my impending deployment to South America and every time I said the name of the country, the phone went dead. He finally said Dennis we have to talk about something else. Somehow, I have survived him and my thoughts are he is the very reason I have. He gave up so much so that I could have the things he did not. My prayer is that I will live long enough and well enough to deserve his sacrifice. I know that as I write this I am still struggling to pay a debt I cannot possibly repay. I can only hope that God is as merciful to me as my father has always been. I have missed him for a number of years, and now I get great comfort from remembering how good he was to me, my children, and all of you. “He truly laid down his life for his friends,” and my Lord said a greater thing a man couldn’t do. Dennis Edward Spillman LTC, IN, U.S. Army (Ret.) Professor, History, Anthropology, and psychology