Willy's Memorial Fund

At 2:45am Arizona time on Oct. 2nd my dad, Willie Ottinger, went home to God. He was supposed to come to Arizona to enjoy life and wait for a liver transplant. He had developed an infection in his legs recently. The Thursday before he passed his legs and stomach were bothering him and mom took him to the emergency room where he was diagnosed as having sepsis. Next thing you know he was on a ventilator by Friday. He never woke up again. They kept him heavily sedated as his body filled with fluid and his organs gave out. By Saturday afternoon he was fully on life support. Sunday they said there was nothing left to be done and we had to let him go.  He held on for almost 12 hours without the machines and every time my mom cried and kissed his forehead his numbers would go up.  He was everything to us and we don't know how to go on without him. My poor mom just sobs. We never saw this coming. My husband Kenny watched our babies so I could fly to Arizona to say good bye to my daddy. Dad loved Kenny so much. If it wasn’t for Kenny, I couldn’t have gone to see dad.

Losing him is the hardest thing we have ever gone thru. He was such a wonderful dad, husband, and grandpa. He was too young and this happened so fast and unexpectedly. But we are so happy that he touched the lives of so many other people. We’ve received wonderful comments from people that were his customers at the Marathon where he worked. The Gas Station was his second home because of his customers. He loved his customers a lot. It seems that a lot of his customers loved him too.

Unfortunately, we had to have dad cremated due to the expenses for the cost of a funeral. We are setting up this Memorial Fund in order to help my mom cover the cremation costs and also to help pay for dad’s brother and sister to fly to Arizona for a memorial we’re going to have for him. The funds will aide mom in paying medical costs from the hospital too.

Any donation you can make will be very greatly appreciated.

-         Nicole (Ottinger) LaForge