When the bells all ring and the horns all blow

Friends, this is my sixth and final post of 2011. I could say that I am a ter­ri­ble blog­ger, but I’m not sure I was ever really a blog­ger in any con­sis­tent sense of the word. I can’t make any promises for the new year, just that I’ll try to remem­ber this blog is here and that a small smat­ter­ing of you are kind enough to stop by from time to time.

What a year, eh? Decem­ber has been hard, not only because it was our first hol­i­day sea­son with­out Dad, but because I’ve been over­whelmed think­ing about every­thing that’s hap­pened in the last twelve months. Three grand­ba­bies were born. Three! What would we have done with­out them this Christ­mas? Prob­a­bly sat around argu­ing and been one big lump of sad­ness, that’s what. I am con­vinced that the uni­verse timed their births for this year so that we’d have lit­tle peo­ple to take the sting out of Dad leav­ing this world so soon, too soon.

My first year of grad school was hard, but in a good way. I often say that it felt like one con­tin­u­ous punch in the face. I learned how much I didn’t know, how much I had yet to learn, how hard this writ­ing thing really is, and how glad I am to have this oppor­tu­nity to grow as an artist and as a per­son. This year I started teach­ing and untan­gled the mess that would become my the­sis. I found some peace in know­ing that I’m not here to imme­di­ately pub­lish some New York Times Best­seller. I’m here to learn and take that knowl­edge with me into some future where maybe, a best­seller awaits.

I’m look­ing for­ward to a post-grad school life. I get to start over again, career-wise, life-wise, which is awe­some and ter­ri­fy­ing at the same time. I’ll even­tu­ally end up in the Bay Area again, though I don’t know if it will be sooner or later. Maybe I’ll live in another coun­try first. I know I’ll travel a bit. That much I know. I get frus­trated with my sib­lings some­times for not reach­ing higher, far­ther. I often remind them that Mom and Dad weren’t able to give us much in mate­r­ial goods when we were grow­ing up, but what they did give us was oppor­tu­nity, and boat­loads of it. Seize it. Grab it by its horns and ride it out ’til another one comes by. As the guru Tim Gunn says, “Make it work, god­dammit!” (I’m paraphrasing.)

Oddly enough, I can’t say it was the worst year on record. I’ve got my health. I’ve got a part­ner who’s been here with me through the dark­ness and the light. I’ve got some dar­ling, amaz­ing, won­der­ful, beau­ti­ful friends who’ve been dears this year. I’ve got a crazy fam­ily who Dad would be proud to see are stick­ing together through it all, just like every­one remem­bers us, like how all eight of us would share a sin­gle room on vaca­tion when we were young.

This is the real shit, peo­ple. Life. We’re gonna be all right.

Happy new year.

Go, Johnny, Go

Dad took my sis­ter M and me to the Girl Scout Father-Daughter Sock Hop a few years in a row when we were lit­tle. He wore his high school let­ter sweater with the big blue L near the pock­ets and held our hands as we walked into the multi-purpose room of a local junior high, M in her pur­ple home­made poo­dle skirt, me in my pink. Dad twirled each of us around, smil­ing vic­to­ri­ously when he saw our skirts fan out around us and our glee­ful gig­gles ris­ing above “I Saw Her Stand­ing There” and “Shout.”

It was only a few years after Back to the Future hit the the­aters and a few months before the sequel made every­one anx­ious for Hover Boards and fly­ing cars in 2015. I can’t be cer­tain, but I’m con­vinced that the Girl Scouts got their idea for the sock hop from the 50s craze that fol­lowed BTTF. Remem­ber that scene near the end of the film, when Marty takes his mom to the Enchant­ment Under the Sea dance and he plays “Johnny B. Goode” with Chuck Berry’s cousin’s band? We loved that part, with the poofy skirts and the boys spin­ning the girls around. When we watched the movie at home in the pri­vacy of our liv­ing room, this scene was an event, a moment to drop every­thing and dance.

When “Johnny B. Goode” played at our sock hop, Dad did the same as he always did. He spun us both around, and made sure to throw us each up in the air with our black-and-white sad­dle shoes pointed at the ceil­ing. Just like the movie, this was our Enchant­ment Under the Sea dance. For six– and seven-year-olds, it was pure magic.

Marc and I were recently at The Last Book­store in L.A. for a poetry read­ing. They sell vinyl there, pure crack to our lat­est addic­tion. Marc left with a heavy arm­ful of records. I left with one dou­ble album, Chuck Berry’s Golden Decade.

I put it on the turntable a short while ago. Still in my jam­mies, I started danc­ing while Marc cooked behind me in the kitchen. I felt pure joy, and then came the sor­row, know­ing that the days of danc­ing with Dad to Chuck Berry are over. I laughed and I cried and it was one of those moments that comes along often these days where I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad or grate­ful or—

In the end I did a spin and set­tled on feel­ing, sim­ply feeling.

Half-mast

There is no other way to say this. Dad died on August 4. The last jour­nal entry I wrote was on July 12, the day before the doc­tors told us that he might not make it. The only piece of writ­ing I’ve com­pletely this entire sum­mer was his obit­u­ary. Like so many oth­ers who have had the air sucked out of them with the loss of a par­ent, words are inadequate.

Logis­ti­cally speak­ing, the hard­est part of the whole ordeal was coor­di­nat­ing all the decision-making among Dad’s seven chil­dren. Oy. But y’know? It all worked out in the end. The only things still lin­ger­ing at the moment are the thank-you cards and the grave marker.

I.
Mom, C, and I vis­ited the ceme­tery to find a plot a few days before he passed, as Dad had instructed weeks ear­lier. We were over­joyed (as much as one can be) to find a plot only three doors down (so to speak) from our dear neigh­bors and fam­ily friends who Dad had long held in high regard. “We found a plot for you prac­ti­cally next to Bill and Dorothy,” I said to him the next day at the hos­pi­tal. “Does that sound all right?” He could only barely muster a nod or shake of the head at that point. He nodded.

“What’s a word that means more than ‘beloved’?” my older half-brother, H2, asked as he browsed through rows of head­stones. It was the day after Dad died, and we were stand­ing around at the ceme­tery inspect­ing the plot where we would lay Dad to rest. “Everyone’s head­stone says ‘beloved’ here. But what is more than just ‘beloved’?”

I squinted at him and cocked my head. “Good ques­tion. I dunno. Some­thing to think about. We could check a thesaurus.”

“A what-us?”

I rolled my eyes, smil­ing. “It’s this book, usu­ally found next to a dic­tio­nary… You know what a book is, right?”

“I’ve heard of them, yes.” He smiled to him­self, as though react­ing to a joke that only he heard. “How about ‘less than a God, but more than a man’? Is there a word for that?”

I chuck­led. “Maybe in Greek.” I thought about it. “I know what you mean, though. There’s gotta be something.”

II.
I made it my job to ensure we didn’t get ripped off in plan­ning the funeral. An hour or two of googling the week­end before Dad died yielded a moun­tain of help­ful tips, the gen­eral rec­om­men­da­tion being, “Shop around, shop around, shop around.” I remem­bered the cas­ket store near my house and stopped in on the way to my family’s home one day. The man who worked there gave me loads of tips about cas­ket shop­ping and how the mor­tu­ar­ies work it into their totals. When I asked about the grave mark­ers they had avail­able, he gave me his two cents about what belongs on a head­stone. “Some peo­ple like to put ‘Beloved father, grand­fa­ther’ et cetera. But you have to remem­ber that this is a mon­u­ment to that per­son, that this will out­last all those peo­ple he’s a father or grand­fa­ther to. This mon­u­ment is about him, not all those other peo­ple.” Sure, it’s not about those other peo­ple, but what if the deceased would claim those roles him­self? I took his busi­ness card, but not these words.

III.
We asked our cousin Barry to give a eulogy at the Mass. I antic­i­pated that he would men­tion a con­ver­sa­tion with Dad from many years before, a con­ver­sa­tion Barry once told me about dur­ing a night of heavy drink­ing in San Fran­cisco. “‘Barry Boy,’” he recited from mem­ory. “‘I’ve learned that I have a pur­pose in this life.’” Barry’s voice started waver­ing. “‘My pur­pose in life is to be a father.’”

The thing is, Dad was a father. That is who he was and he was com­pletely happy being that per­son. He suf­fered as much as he did in these last years, through surg­eries and treat­ments that would pre­sum­ably give him extra time, not for him­self but for us.

I have not cried nearly as much since he died as in the weeks before. Right now, I feel relief that he his no longer suf­fer­ing. I feel grat­i­tude for hav­ing had such an amaz­ing father. I now carry a life­time of his love for me into the future. Know­ing Dad, that’s exactly how he planned it.

Vinyl, Zeroes, and Ones

A few years ago at a fam­ily gath­er­ing, JL, one of my dad’s cousins gave him a CD that fea­tured only two tracks. He explained to Dad that he’d held on to two vinyl 45s for over fifty years, the kind you could record in a booth at the drug­store or train sta­tion to send to loved ones, and had them dig­i­tally trans­ferred onto the CD. I remem­bered hear­ing about such records; musi­cians abused these booths, instead record­ing songs to pass around to pro­mot­ers, sort of like the YouTube of its day. I’d always won­dered if some­one in the fam­ily had any of these discs, and was excited when I found out they did.

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