When IU alumnus Bill Kapoun suffered burns on 64 percent of his body in a Feb. 24 apartment fire, his family rushed to help. Bill had been on another of his traveling adventures, teaching English in South Korea. IU senior Laura Kapoun, Bill’s sister, set up a fund to help pay for thousands of dollars in medical expenses, and parents Dan and Judy Kapoun stood by Bill’s disfigured body, hoping for a miracle. The family was told if the 25-year-old could make it two weeks, he’d likely survive. \nBut on March 8, just six hours shy of the two-week mark, his life ended. Bill’s body went into trauma, and his “organs just gave out,” Laura said. To spread Bill’s philosophy of living life to the fullest, the Kapoun family plans to set up a scholarship in his honor, which will benefit those who also like to travel.
Losing a vibrant life\nNow that the calls and sympathy cards have stopped pouring in, Judy finds herself alone, consumed by grief, trying to “figure out a different life.” Bill’s funeral services are over, and she fills her days writing thank you notes, looking after her other four children and driving her mother, who is battling cancer, to chemotherapy treatments. She also tries to cope with Bill’s wishes to be cremated, a step that was like “salt in the wounds, when fire killed him.” \n“Anguish. It just engulfs me,” Judy said. “Just knowing that there’s such a word as never.” \nIn order to get Bill’s body released and taken back home to Indiana, Judy and her husband, Dan, agreed the investigation would be called off. They will never know what caused the fire that killed their son and his girlfriend, Sejin, whom Judy said he intended to marry. \n“It was a matter of which was more important,” she said. “Of course I’ll always question and wonder what had happened. Always.” \nYet as Judy continues life at home in Alexandria, Ind., she can’t help but explain how proud she is of her unique son, one who was constantly traveling on adventures, never regretting anything or living in a dull moment. Never really wanting an average, 9-to-5 job, Bill spent a couple years working at a hotel in Germany after college and also spent time living in Romania and Portugal. He had spent years as a young child living in Germany with just Judy and Laura while Dan was in the military. \nDescribed as fun-loving and goofy, Bill was always up front and honest, never hiding anything. He was afraid of heights yet would do things in the face of it, Judy said. \n“He had kind of disdain for people who played it safe,” she said. “He would be so angry when people would say stuff to him, ‘Boy, I wish I could do what you do.’ ... He had so many strange hobbies that he was absolutely passionate about until he moved on to the next one. ... He was always looking for a new challenge.” \nJoanna Zgurzynski, one of Bill’s friends and co-workers in South Korea, wrote a letter about Bill, adding that he would eat any type of food in any country and simply never wasted a moment of life nor regretted anything. \n“He was honest, blunt and unapologetic about being so,” she wrote. “Sugar-coating around a subject was just a waste of time, and he had no time to waste.” \nJudy added that this attitude about life wasn’t something he did to impress anyone because nothing he did was for conventional reasons. \n“Anything that came to his fancy, that’s what he did,” Laura said. “Anything you feel inspired to do is what Bill would tell you you should do.”
Grasping ‘a precious moment’\nThe fund Laura set up to help her brother recover garnered about $160,000, providing more than enough to cover medical expenses. Now, the Kapoun family is working to set up a scholarship fund for students in Indiana wanting to go on adventures, just like Bill always did, Laura said. \n“If you have a crazy dream and you wanna do it – we’ll help you,” she said, adding that they hope to pass on Bill’s message that life can be awesome if one truly experiences it. “You can just grab hold of the wind and let it take you. He had an amazing time just letting that happen to him.” \nPeter Mehta, an IU alumnus and one of Bill’s Acacia fraternity brothers, said Bill opened up many of their friends’ eyes about not living a scripted life, which, for most people, means getting a degree, moving to the suburbs and getting a job they don’t really like.\n“He saw the American dream for what it was – all the flaws and how it can really change people, too,” he said. “He really opened people’s eyes to that.” \nLong before his death, Bill wrote an autobiography that he never published, but showed only to close friends. After his death, Laura shared the epilogue of his book, which revealed Bill’s outlook on life: \n“Many will shed a tear when we pass from this world, but besides our nearest loved ones, our days on this earth are quickly forgotten. Few will remember us a year later. The things we do, the attainment of the goals we spend so much time striving for, all mean little beyond the here and now. That is why, when I die, all I hope people to say of me is he lived life. The good, the bad, he took it all in, and relished it. Yes, he lived life for life. Which is how we should all live our lives, never letting a precious moment slip by.”
