the many words of thanks...
I have offered up recently hardly suffice to accurately express how grateful I am to my family, my good friends, many of my fellow workers at Fishwrap Central, so here again, before I begin to digress, Muchisimas Gracias to Victoria, Dan, Dave, Ken, Victoria the Younger, Tia Ceci, Matt & Mike; to the four finest Steves I know, S. Baum, S.J. Green, S. Laidlaw & S. Lewis (& the lovely Lori), to MellieMel, pals Phillipe & Janey-kakes, Ms. Marti the satellite jockey, oh, I know I am gonna forget somebody so for now, please take it up with me in person and allow me the opportunity to make up for it in some real and immediate fashion when we next meet up.
For any of you curious enough to wonder, mineowndamnself is still in the desert southwest but will be returning to the Bay Area on Friday morning, back on duty at Fishwrap Classifieds on Monday. Much of my time here has been spent attempting to provide some assistance to the Momz with any number of things relating to the death of my father, but, again in some measure to be honest about it, I am here because it is where I can receive the kind of nourishment and healing that I feel I need presently, as much of it as possible from the folks I am closest to and who share much of the grief and sadness that has been the predominant state of psyche of late. Those of you who've experienced the loss of a loved one know that what appears to be some cessation of the pain & hurt is largely psychological, certainly something in the nature of healing as it would be just too much for anyone to bear that burden for too long. It has been barely a month since the day my Popz died so that stuff isn't far away at all, it lies there very circumspectly allowing one to feel some peace & rest and it takes very little to discover one reconnecting to that current of sadness & something akin to despair. My Mom and I were watching a cable TV movie last evening, something entitled A Rumour of Angels, neither of us knew anything about it, a story about a boy who develops a friendship with a reclusive older woman, and we discover along the way both of them have suffered a grievous loss, she her son and the boy his mother. Okay, so somewhere along the way, there I was weeping once again, tapped into that current of sadness yet ultimately buoyed up by the message the filmakers intended to pass along. Now know ye that yourstruly is a skeptic of longstanding, one who has attempted to incorporate into his world/life view the attitudes and practices of a confident disbeliever, one not willing to simply acquiesce in acceptance of some creed or dogma, so imagine our occasional befuddlement when discovering ourself coming to a streetlight as we're driving and it turns from red to green just as we are approaching and allowing us to continue along our way without slowing or stopping, and it happening again, then again and then saying aloud "Thanks Dad" as though his touch from somewhere out in the ether of the Great Beyond was responsible for allowing us unfettered passage. Oh, damn, I don't know, likely just another mechanism wired into the human psyche as another measure intending to protect one's psychological frame of reference when face to face with grief in all its huge monstrousness...
I had spoken with a friend recently about what happens to many of us eventually after undergoing this sort of experience, that most of us are enabled to return to our routines, the odd sort of comfort that lies embedded within them however mundane some aspect of them might be. For most of us that is a fine thing usually and once one proceeds and moves on, well, the passage of time and the resulting distance from the event allows most of us the opportunity to regain our emotional equilibrium. It's my Mom's routine that concerns me though, as we have had the opportunity here to keep one another company for the last few weeks, and soon she will begin to experience the immediacy of her life without my Dad around, not just because he is away for a few days on holiday but because he is gone and never to return. The Momz is a very strong woman and I know her well enough to feel pretty confident about how she will fare, but I do worry about those very quiet hours when she will be by herself, when that feeling of "aloneness" becomes palpable and terribly real, despite knowing my sister lives mere blocks away and two of my brothers easily within a 15-20 minute drive from Mom'z house; I hope that whenever that feeling makes its presence felt, that she finds it within herself to recall the many fine times she and my father shared, recalls the fact that together they raised five fully fledged adults, all of them pretty decent folk, that together they provided great succor and comfort to each of us, allowing us to learn from their example. I know that each day she is in this house that she will experience (like I have during the last few weeks) many reminders of my Dad and his life. I believe she will find great comfort in that, knowing in some fundamental way how important she was to him, and despite his occasional lapses and inability to articulate just how appreciative he was of her, that she will be comforted by the knowledge that his love for her was the basis for all that has passed between them, from those days of many years ago when they first became acquainted as youngsters, the early years of their marriage in Alaska, the return to Texas, the decades invested in raising a family, their shared joy and anguish all along the way, watching each one of their children mature and leave home, some of them to start families of their own and provide Vince and Esther the resulting experience of grandparenthood, the changes that appeared in their lives when the Popz retired, the grace and balance they managed to maintain as their lives together passed into the 6th and 7th decades of companionship.
Those many words of thanks I mentioned earlier, again, so inadequate and insufficient in some way, but I offer them up nevertheless, to my father Vincent, whom I miss terribly, and of course, to his partner and loving companion, my mom Esther; we are all of us grateful for providing for us as you have, and no doubt, as you will continue to do.
the true story continues...
Believe me when I tell you, some of the most difficult days of my life have just taken place and I am awfully glad they are behind me. This morning I head west for a few days to take care of a few matters that I cannot manage from here, many thanks to excellent neighbor Jamie, many wonderful friends, some of whom I've yet to acknowledge with a personal note of thanks, as I am still only able to utilize the hotmail address you'll find linked on this page currently. I will be returning to El Paso on Sunday, staying thru the end of January; appreciative of the efforts put forth by the folks at Fishwrap Classifieds to allow me personal leave to be with my family, and in particular want to pass along deeply heartfelt thanks to the excellent crew there who made a donation in my father's name to the National Marrow Donor Program, and please go easy on me when I return folks, l'Marquis' psyche will yet be awfully tender...
Alright, so some of you have gotten through to me via hotmail, and there are many notes I've begun only to find myself unable to complete them, again, pretty sure you will all understand why, and that is why, for now, I am going to ask the forebearance of one very dear friend, that she will not mind my utilizing a portion of a note I sent her a few days ago and allow me to share that here with those of you who stopping by to see how jp is managing (I walked right into a glass patio door the other day, with a glass of wine in my hand; it had been something around 20 years or so since I last set foot in my sister's house -- that is a long story in itself -- and she and spouse Tim had invited the family over for a fine feast on a pretty darned nice January afternoon in the high desert. Oh, no, didn't hurt myself terribly, just bumped my head and stood there for a moment afterwards trying to figure out what had happened, but that's been goin' on a lot lately, take my word for it) SO, without further ado:
hiya pal of mine,
my Dad knew a LOT of people, I mean he was the kind of guy that had friends
from WAY back in the day, the equiv of his elem., jr high and high school
years, guys (and their wives, sometimes their children) that he knew when he
was working in the post office, all his years with snake farm insurance, his
volunteer work, oh, there was a lot of handshaking and conversation I had
with many of these folks on Tues eve and Weds.
there were many moments when all the emotion one was attempting to ride
herd on was able to break loose a little, the moment one would be embraced
by one of Dad's old pals, or an auntie of his (great aunt to me), one of his
friends in particular, this wonderful Falstaffian figure of a guy, named
Charles but everybody who knows him calls him McAdoo, oh, man, he was so
torn up, he couldn't approach the figure on display in his casket, and could
barely whisper a word, both at the visitation and the mass, and then
afterwards at what could best be described as a wake, when we saw one
another and hugged just before he was leaving, both of us with tears running
down our faces. There was something between 40-45 cars in the funeral
procession.
My Mom was so strong, of course there were moments when she openly wept,
and you could hear the heartrending sadness in her voice, but of all us, we
the brothers plus my beautiful nephews who acted as the pallbearers, the
family members sitting alongside my Mom during the ceremony at the cemetary
(military honors plus the catholic burial ceremony), all up until the moment
when several veterans in attendance were walking past the casket, each of
them placing a red poppy atop it, part of an Amer. Legion observance, there
is this great old family friend, been part of every family gathering during
holidays etc., his name is Arthur Evans, must be 90 or 91 by now, my Mom
takes a walk with him every morning (she is out there doing that now, I was
with them both yesterday morn), the moment he came around the corner and
marched towards the casket to place the poppy he held upon it, I knew I was
going to lose it and then I heard my mother's wail of grief and I am certain
everybody standing there in that large assemblage wept along with my mom at
that moment. I will never forget it.
we have been staying busy doing things around the house, I am making
arrangements to come back to the Bay Area for a few days, leaving here Tues
instead of Sun, staying likely till Fri or Sun, then returning here until
the end of the month, possibly thru the first week of Feb. Just want to get
a lot of things done here, not removing evidence of my Dad being here, but
just reducing the amount of stuff that he was involved with that no longer
needs to be in the house, for any number of reasons, make sure the Momz
knows where all the things that she is going to have to pay attention to
know are filed, and set up something she is comfortable with dealing with
when it comes to matters like that. My Dad ALWAYS took care of that stuff
and tried to make sure Mom never had to deal with it, sort of sweet in one way,
but completely unrealistic in another...
thanks for your wishes and heartfelt sympathy. Yesterday morning I
really began to discern the permanence of the change, how my life is different,
truly different from here on out. I will have to get used to this feeling,
am still numb in some ways, and in others, certain nerves and emotions are
absolutely raw and painfully tender.
true story...
some decades ago, when my literary dreams were fueled by the greater desire provided by as yet untrammeled aspirations, I had begun a chapter of a story with the description of a trip via air travel, meeting our main character already onboard, the plane winging its way someplace in the desert southwest while our erstwhile protagonist ruminated upon his recent failures & disappointments. He imagines the plane crashing into the mountains that the city he is visiting is laid out around, how it would save him the grief and unhappiness he is about to endure. Upon arrival his brother is there to meet him, and part of the closing of that chapter is a record of their conversation together, driving in his brother's car, both of them renewing blood ties, not having seen one another for many years. You learn they are on their way to a hospital on the west side of town, where their father lay hospitalized, nearing death, still conscious, but very weak, his prognosis leaving little room for any hope. I never got past the second chapter of that effort, perhaps now the experience I am undergoing might allow me to revisit the kernel of idea that provided the impulse to begin telling that story, then again, who knows. My working title at that time was The Dutiful Son.
My father died Tuesday morning a week ago today. It had been a tough year for the old guy, some setbacks in his overall health, a couple of surgeries, his condition being the primary reason for
the cancellation of the trip he and my mother have made every year for over 10 years, out to visit myowndamnself in Albany, CA for the Thanxgiving holiday. I had been calling and speaking with them both, oh, probably 3 or 4 times a week, listening carefully to the tenor of his voice, attempting to gauge just how poorly he was feeling. I think he managed to fool me for several weeks, It was just before the Xmas holiday that I began to hear how tired he was, this was when I began to chafe a bit at the reality I was facing, workplace where holiday schedules are determined a year ahead of time and anybody seeking vacation out of the already assigned schedules was likely to meet with a negative response, but I thought he'd hang in there, I thought I had enough time to make it out there five days after Xmas and spend New Year's Eve with my Dad, see for myself firsthand just how diminished he may have become, maybe assist my Mom in forcing the issue if hospitalization might be an option that could provide some hope for more time with him, more time for him with us.In the days just before my intended departure I had some lengthy conversations with my mother, while the ones I was able to have with my dad were very brief, his weariness terribly obvious, but he maintained he was "feeling better". That holiday took a lot out of him, but I know it also brought him great joy and pleasure. In the conversation I had with mom on Monday night, I learned of some very worrisome details that had taken place that day and the day before, and my mom's concern was obvious, she even "threatened" to put him in hospital, but he bade her not to, telling her that he'd be fine with a good night's sleep.
The shuttle was due to arrive around 5:45 Am, and I hadn't slept very well, yet managed to snooze a couple of hours away before getting out of bed and showering. Then the phone rang and at that moment I was seized by some horrific knowledge that it would be my mother on the other end of the line. She had awakened to find my father unresponsive, and my mother being a very resilient gal, one not easily moved to tears, well, it was obvious she was shaken. She'd already called emergency services, I told her I would call my brothers and attempted to provide some reassurance before hanging up. I called her back shortly after to advise her that I had contacted my brothers (two who live in El Paso, one in Santa Rosa) and learned that the paramedics were attempting resusitation and the hope in my mom's voice cheered me a bit, and after hanging up that time knowing they were on their way to hospital I imagined that I would still have the opportunity to see my father in a matter of hours. I had just moved the two bags I was traveling with onto the front porch before closing up the house and waiting for the airport shuttle to arrive when the phone rang again. It was Mom, "He didn't make it, mijo..."
There are no doubt a good many of you out there who have experienced the loss of a good friend, a lover perhaps, a sibling, a relative, a parent; the huge and terrible finality of it, the awesome power of emotion that can leave you shaking, your bones and joints turning to jelly, dropping to your knees with the weight of grief that had descended upon you, regardless of the comforting embraces offered to provide some measure of consolation and comfort. I haven't seen my father yet. I arrived here late afternoon a week ago, and the arrival of the New Year holiday prevented our making arrangements any sooner than the ones we've made with the visitation scheduled for this evening, the commemorative mass being held on Wednesday morning. Yesterday afternoon I was breaking up a cardboard box, you know, flattening the thing out so that it could be put out with the recycling, and in the moment of doing that I thought to myself it's time to wake up now John, this bad dream is over, Wake Up Now...
oh brother, do I ever wish I could.
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