Please leave your thoughts and memories for our young children, so that they will always have a glimpse of their father through your eyes.
To the Pratz Family: My name will only be recognizable to Nancy, and only then most likely after some deep thought. I am Nancy's classmate at BHS '82, and as per my memory 2 years junior to Will. I just found out 2 days ago about Will's passing while speaking with my friend, and fellow classmate, Mike Genovese. I was instantly saddened. My sympathy goes out to your entire family, and I will offer 1 quick story that gives me comfort, and I hope and pray that it does to you as well. This is for Nancy: I imagine that during our 4 years at BHS, we heard thousands of prayers. After about 30 years, I remember one. Pete Repicz in the afternoon moments after it was announced via loudspeaker that President Reagan was shot, had us close our books and prayed. The first words out of his mouth were prasie to God that "...we know that this does not take You by surprise". I offer the same words to you. In our minds, we only think of how much we will miss him, but my confidence is 100% that this was not an accident. God be with you all. Love Kevin.....
There are sooooo many memories of Will...THE best one I have and I laugh every time I tell the story...Nan..Will, John and I are all at the shore with Jocelyn and Joshua and taking the kids on rides...Jocelyn and Josh were on the Dumbo ride in Ocean City...all of the other kids could figure out that you need to pull the handle to make the elephant go up in the air....not OUR kids...they just looked like 2 deer in the headlights and Will and I absolutely lost it right there...we were laughing so hard..tears were flowing...We kept trying to tell the kids (as they passed horizontally on one level in front of our eyes while the other kids were going up and down on the ride) to pull the handle and they just weren't getting it...well the more we yelled at the kids to pull the handle, the harder we laughed...Then theres the famous yell...eyeyayayayayaya!! at the top of his lungs. Didn't matter where we were..he would yell it and look around like it wasn't him that just screamed. Nancy do you remember that seafood resteraunt we went to and Will stood up and summoned the waiter right there in the middle of the resteraunt cause the guy was taking too long to come back with our all- you-can-eat king crab legs? How about when Will had John's back at the church baseball game...that's all I'm gonna say about that one..LOL...Poor league will never be the same...Oh man those are just a few of the many many great memories I have of Will. I can honestly tell you that I will always look back on him with a smile....
My favorite memory of Coach Pratz was when he greeted me and others with "Whatsssssss uuuppppppp" and refered to some select few as "morons". He took an interest in Kendall when she was in the 5th grade and was always talking to her. A few years later, she was playing basketball at BSBA and learned so much from Coach. (especially learned how to take a charge during the bb games). Will and his entire family became my family during the difficult time of going through a divorce. I so loved the way the family "loved" each other and though they did not have much in the material world, they had everything that I would have wanted...family, commitment and love for each other. They opened their home to me and it was an amazing time to be part of their lives.
I didn't have the opportunity to get to know Will very well, but we were on staff at Harmony Christian for a short while. I do know that my students loved him and I remember one student talking about how he had led them to know the Lord. Gabrielle was my student and it was obvious that she came from a family that deeply loved each other. There are some students that one never forgets and Gabrielle is one of those.
I am praying for your family. I know for certain that God can and will provide for each one of you exactly what you need for every step of this journey of grief .
In Prayer,
Judi Hedstrom