The Dedalus Log

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow
Try to remember the kind of September
When love was an ember about to billow
Try to remember and if you remember
Then follow.

Deep in December, it’s nice to remember
Although you know the snow will follow
Deep in December, it’s nice to remember
The fire of September that made us mellow
Deep in December, our hearts should remember
And follow, follow, follow.
(Try to Remember: Tom Jones and Schmidt Harvey – 1960)

Last June, I drove into the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for the first time in my life. It struck me as odd that having lived in Los Angeles all my life, and frequented Hollywood so often, I never visited this historic resting place of famous movie stars and celebrities. But on this day, I wasn’t at all curious or interested in the elaborate graves and aging headstones that lined this leafy and shaded “campo santo” (holy ground). I was there to remember and pay tribute to Nancy Eileen Walsh, an extraordinary woman I met and esteemed in my youth – but only learned of her later life and her accomplishments from the memorial reminisces described by her two daughters, Jennifer and Melissa, at the service.


The tricky thing about memory is its haziness and unreliability as we get older, and further and further from the times and details we are trying to recall. I remember Nancy Walsh in a kaleidoscope of sporadic and intermittent vignettes and scenes that only cover the early years of her marriage with my Uncle Charlie and their two daughters.

I met Nancy in 1965, when she was a young, vivacious coed in her senior year at Cal State L.A. My Uncle Charlie had brought her to meet the large Delgado family, with all his 12 brothers and sisters, at the traditional Sunday dinners hosted by my grandparents at their Lincoln Heights home. I was seventeen at that time; a junior in high school; and very full of myself as a varsity soccer player, a scholar, and a budding intellectual. I felt free, independent, and on the cusp of a beckoning college career. Up until then, Charlie had been my sole guide to a vision of what collegiate life held in store – but he didn’t seem drawn to the artistic and intellectual influences which I imagined abounded there. However, Nancy Walsh, his girlfriend and soon to become fiancée, relished them. After my first introduction to her, and the opportunity to talk to her about college, her classes, and her interests, I was entranced.

Nancy was a charming, funny, intelligent, and attractive young woman in 1965. I immediately developed a crush on her and delighted when I could engage her in conversations. Rather than dismissing my intellectual pretensions, and my attempts at sophisticated dialogue, she listened and encouraged my budding interests in art, poetry, literature, and college life. Plus, she provided new and alluring perspectives. I learned that she attended Immaculate Heart High School and had taken art classes with Sister Corita. She introduced me to the thought-provoking beauty of serigraph art and the poetry of E.E. Cummings, which permeated so much of Corita’s artworks. She expanded my understanding of the modern American authors I was just beginning to learn about and read: John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemmingway, Joseph Heller, and J.D. Salinger. I loved being around her, and so I was delighted to learn that she and Charlie had decided to marry after their Spring graduation, and were then planning on joining the Peace Corp. I could not imagine a more romantic and heroic future for them – and one I envied.


The Summer of ’65 will always stand out as one of the most exciting times of my life. Charlie had asked me to be a member of his wedding party, so I was able to participate in all the anticipation, preparations, and parties that went along with a wedding. Charlie and Nancy invited me to all the beach parties, pool parties, and the shopping expeditions that preceded the actual ceremony. I glowed with pride as I accompanied Charlie with his three college buddies to be measured for our wedding day tuxedos, and I was adolescently flattered when Nancy would include me in her shopping forays. It was on one of these excursions that Nancy introduced me to the Pickwick Bookstore on Hollywood Blvd. Since she lived in the nearby Los Feliz area, she was very familiar with all the theatres, shops, and department stores that in those days still dotted Hollywood Blvd. Until Nancy walked me into Pickwick Bookstore, I had only frequented public libraries and used bookstores, trying to maximize the few dollars I had to spend. On this occasion, however, Nancy handed me a 5-dollar bill and encouraged me to look around. I spent what seemed hours selecting paperback novels and books of poetry, eliminating some, choosing more, and then finalizing my ultimate purchases. The one book I still remember to this day was Nancy’s recommendation – Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger.

From my young and naïve perspective, I felt that Nancy was a surprising novelty to my conservative Mexican-American family of aunts and uncles. I doubt they had ever had contact with such a brash and confident young college woman who was not afraid to speak and defend her liberal opinions about politics, religion, and the rising tide of feminism. Nor did Nancy suffer fools gladly – so there might have been an element of friction between some individuals. Whenever I was present at these discussions (arguments?), I secretly took Nancy’s side (since I wasn’t considered old enough to participate.



The parties, get-togethers, and pre-nuptial excitement ended after the ceremony and reception at St. Ambrose Catholic Church. I began my senior year of high school in September of 1965, and it was simply a matter of time before Nancy and Charlie left for Albuquerque, New Mexico, to begin their Peace Corp training. My last escapade during that marvelous time was defying my parents’ prohibition against seeing them off at the airport. On the morning of their departure for LAX, I resolutely dropped my brother and sister off at school and drove to the airport on my own. There, I said an envious goodbye to the glowing newlywed couple and wished them well on their grand adventure (although I also took the precaution of asking Charlie to write a parental excuse letter so I could return to school without penalty). My summer of novelty and excitement was over, my mentor-uncle and his bride were gone, and I was left to continue with my burgeoning life as a senior in high school.

I suppose a wiser man might have suspected an element of doomed foreshadowing when I learned that their Peace Corp adventure came to a disappointing end. A training injury disqualified Charlie as a candidate, thereby eliminating their combined participation in President Kennedy’s stellar New Frontier program. Nancy and Charlie returned to Los Angeles and began a more mundane life as a married couple, and soon two daughters followed. I went off to college at UCLA, and only occasionally saw Charlie and Nancy at large family functions at my grandparents’ home. Our tenuous connection became even more stretched when I learned of the disillusionment of their marriage and subsequent divorce. Over time I would only occasionally see and talk with Nancy at some Delgado family events, but mostly at funerals, as more and more of my uncles and aunts passed away. Nancy stayed faithful to the connection she and her daughters had with these Delgado families, and she always showed up.




Every funeral I have attended has presented me with the same question: why am I here? The answers vary to every situation. Sometimes it’s from a sense of love, duty, or obligation to the deceased, or the son, daughter, or relative of the deceased. Often, however, there is only an unexplained imperative to be there, and the answer will not materialize until I’m present. Such was the case with Nancy. News of her sudden death and memorial service came as a shock. I knew only that I had to attend. It wasn’t until I was present – sitting in the memorial chapel of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, listening to her two daughters describe the life and laughter of this hardworking, fun-loving, successful, single mother of two girls – that the answer came. I needed someone to help me remember, and to fill in the gaps in the story of this young woman I met in 1965, and her untimely death in 2021. Nancy had a full and happy life, and her daughters told her story well. I am fortunate to have known and appreciated her. Rest in Peace, Nancy.

You've got to live your religion
Deep inside, when you try
For the kingdom on high
By His grace, by His grace

Open your mind to the wisdom
When you try for the kingdom, on high
By His grace, by His grace

Open your heart to the wisdom
In your mind when you try
For the kingdom on high
By His grace, by His grace

One day at a time, you got to try
Open your eye, it will come
By and by, when you try
By His grace, by His grace
By His grace, by His grace.
(By His Grace: Van Morrison – 1990)

Last year, when visiting my mother, or calling her on the phone, she always mentioned my participation in the Catholic jail ministry.
“Are you still going to the jails?” She would ask in Spanish.
After replying that I went regularly on Mondays, she would pause for a moment, as if considering the best way to respond.
“You know”, she would finally resume, “visiting people in jail is one of the Church’s Seven Corporal Works of Mercy. It’s a wonderful thing to do. I’m very proud of you.”
“It’s not a big deal” I always replied. “I just show up.”






October and November loomed as very intimidating months for me this year because of the emotional significance of certain days. October 17^th was my mother’s birthday, when she would have turned 94. In 1971, my father died on November 1, celebrated as All Saints’ Day in the Catholic tradition and Dia de los Muertos in Mexico. It is also the day my mom suffered her precipitating stroke, which led to her death on November 22, 2017. I thought I was immune to the physiological effects that momentous dates such as these can have on people. I was never one to ascribe moods, or feelings of joy or depression to any particular date or time. In fact, Kathy has to remind me of birthdays, anniversaries, or commemorative dates, or I forget them. Somehow this year was different. I found myself feeling disconnected from people and events, and pondering the idea of grief, and how I have dealt (or not dealt) with it. In trying to get a handle on this subject, and putting words to my feelings, I sought out two sources – The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion, and A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis. Although the things Joan Didion said struck closer to home (perhaps because of her more secular perspective on the subject), Lewis was remarkably concrete in his own descriptions, which sounded similar to many of the reactions and sensations I had experienced after my mother’s stroke and death.





There is a feeling that everything changes with the death of a parent – that nothing will ever be the same again. Foremost there is a sense of emptiness and loss because something is absent, or someone is missing. Despite our most determined efforts, we flounder at grasping the cause, or giving it a name – even when it is obvious: dad is gone, and mom is dead, and we are orphans. “The death of a parent”, Joan Didion quoted, “despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago. We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean’s bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections.”


I suppose I navigated the first tumultuous months after my mother’s death by surrounding myself and staying in touch with people I loved: Kathy, my children, grandchildren, siblings, and friends. They were real, they were concrete, and they grounded me in the present. I also continued a practice I started after my mother’s stroke. Once it became obvious that her worsening conditon required around the clock observation and care, I would call my sister Stela on a daily basis to see how she was handling the primary burden, and visiting her two or three times a week to allow her some free time away from my mom’s care. At first I thought I was doing this for Stela’s sake, but as mom’s condition worsened with the encroaching specter of death, being with Stela, and talking to her about what we were experiencing, brought me a great deal of emotional reassurance and solace. After the funeral, I continued the practice, which gave me the chance to stay in touch with Stela as she hunted for and found an apartment, and settled into a separate existence, independent of our mom. Visiting with Stela allowed me to speak openly about the uncertainties of correctly handling mom’s care and illness, the absence caused by her death, and how we were dealing with loss and grief. I even started hoping that this continuing connection with friends and family would act as my therapy in dealing with grief. The trouble with grief, however, is trying to figure out what it is.

Oh all the money that e’er I spent,
I spent in good company.
And all the harm that e’er I’ve done,
Alas, it was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit,
To memory now I can’t recall.
So fill to me the parting glass,
Good night and joy be with us all.

Oh all the comrades the e’er I had,
Are sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts that e’er I’ve had,
Would wish me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call:
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all
(The Parting Glass: Irish Song – 1700’s)

The first time I faced the idea of one of my sisters dating a good friend of mine was probably early in the year of 1973. I had been living at home since my early discharge from the Air Force after the death of my father in November of 1971, and working as a history teacher at my alma mater, St. Bernard High School. A group of my high school friends, John and Jim Riley, and Greg Ryan, had moved into an apartment near the school in Playa del Rey. I would hang out there as often as I could, along with another good friend of Greg named Danny Holiday. Danny and Greg had met years before, after graduating from high school and discovering that they were dating girls who were best friends. When their relationships with these girls ended, Danny and Greg remained close, and Greg introduced him to me, and his other high school friends while we all attended college. In those college days, Greg, Jim, John, and Wayne Wilson were living in adjoining apartments in Hermosa Beach, and they always made a point of inviting Danny to parties because we could always count on him inviting a flock of extra girls (who unfortunately all had crushes on him). When these roommates disbanded in 1970, Greg and Danny roomed together for a year in Riverside while they attended the University of California there. They lived together until Greg graduated in 1972, when he returned to Los Angeles, working with Danny at a Pioneer Chicken restaurant in Van Nuys until he got a job teaching at a Catholic elementary school in Glendale and moved into Playa del Rey with our friends.




When I was not at this apartment on Redlands Avenue, these friends often came to my home, where I lived with my mom, two sisters, Stela and Gracie, and my two younger brothers, Eddie and David Alex. It became common practice to include the two now young women in many of our various excursions around the city, going to movies and concerts, visiting local wineries, or playing sports. I suppose that’s when Gracie and Danny were attracted to each other, because at some point in 1973, Gracie asked me if she could openly date him. The question caught me by surprise. I had no idea that Gracie was interested in Danny, and my immediate response was an emphatic “No!”


The trouble with friends dating your sisters is that you know your friend’s faults and benefits, weaknesses and strengths. Long time friends are at ease with you and you with them. Pretense evaporates with time and you see each other for who and what you are – the good and the bad. Danny was a good friend and generous to a fault. He made friends easily and quickly. He was a drummer in a band, upbeat, optimistic, and happy. People liked him, especially girls. He had a luxurious mop of auburn hair, and sad, melancholy eyes, which gave him a soulful, puppy dog look that elicited the immediate sympathy and affection of girls and young women (a quality all of us envied). Also in 1973, Danny was working as a driver for Schaefer Ambulance and looked quite dashing and handsome in his uniform, a paramedic jumpsuit. He was likeable, and even loveable. Though I never considered him a “Best Friend”, like Jim, Greg, or John, I truly considered him a good one, but I never thought of him as a romantic possibility for my sister.



Greg was probably the first person I shared the news of Gracie’s interest in dating Danny, and my response forbidding it. At that time, our teaching schedules were almost identical but at odds with the working hours of the other guys in his apartment, so we usually found ourselves sharing a bottle of Gallo Spañada wine on Friday nights, talking about school, lesson plans, and future projects. It was the perfect time to discuss his friend, Danny Holiday, and my sister Gracie. Except for his impulsive proclivity for taking road trips around California at the drop of a hat, Greg always analyzed problems carefully and gave solid, reasonable advice. So I was confident that he would agree with my actions.


“Are you crazy! What were you thinking?” I remember him exclaiming, after hearing of my response to Gracie’s request. “Saying ‘No’ was a mistake. They’re adults, and you are literally insuring that they will see each other behind your back. Come on Tony, calm down”, he continued, “you’re overreacting. It’s not like they’re getting married. All they want to do is see each other. Trust me. Let their relationship run its course. It will be over in less that a year. I’m sure of it.”




Greg’s assessment and advice finally made sense to me. Perhaps I was overreacting and making a bigger deal about this than it deserved. So I talked to Gracie when I returned home and told her that I had reconsidered her request and decided to approve of her seeing Danny. It was approximately 6 months later, when Greg and I had just arrived in Mexico City to attend summer classes at the Universidad Autónoma de Mexico (the National University of Mexico), that I received a frantic, surprise phone call from my mother in Los Angeles. Gracie and Danny, she told me, had decided to marry the following September. I spent the next three months berating Greg over his incredibly bad advice and faulty prognostication. “It’s not like they’re getting married”, I would constantly quote back to him. All he would do was shrug and say, “What are you going to do? It must be love”.






45 years later, on March 4, 2018, I received a text from my sister Gracie informing me that our friend Danny Holiday had been placed in a Hospice/Palliative Care program in Portland OR, with a prognosis of only two to eight weeks to live. For the first time in my life I was confronted with knowledge of the incipient death of an old friend who was younger than I – and a reminder of my own mortality.





In 1970 or 1971, I remember seeing the movie Husbands, with John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara. The indie film had gotten good reviews and I was a great fan of Falk and Gazzara at that time. IMDb summarized the film this way:

“Approaching middle age, best friends Archie, Gus, Harry and Stuart are suburban New Yorkers, white-collar professionals, husbands, and fathers. Stuart dies suddenly of a heart attack. Immediately following the funeral, Archie, Gus and Harry feel the need to spend time together not so much to mourn Stuart's death, but rather mourn their collective lost sense of immortality. After a two-day binge of trying to recapture the sense of their youth in various ways, the three know that they have to return to the realities of life, meaning returning to family and work.”


I’m sure some of my best friends accompanied me to see the movie – Jim, Wayne Wilson, or Greg – because I remember discussing it with them later. The movie was supposed to be a “buddy flick”, and the four of us had been best friends for years, weathering the ups and downs of high school and college, dating, dawning sexuality, different jobs, and putting up with each other through good times and bad. By the time we saw the movie we had graduated, or were close to graduating from college, and we sensed that we were coming to a crossroad in our lives. Our fates were at the point of going in many possible directions at that moment in time: being drafted; moving away to pursue other interests or careers; or getting married. For me, the movie was not so much about dealing with the death of a friend, but rather, I saw death as a metaphor for the end of a friendship. This interpretation made the film more personal and relevant to me, since I never saw death as a real possibility for any of us. Our mortality, at that moment, was impossible to accept or imagine. We were simply too young, too strong, too talented, and too full of ourselves – and glowing futures and long lives beckoned us forward. When I learned of Danny’s quickly diminishing heath, this movie came to mind again. Only this time I didn’t think of it in terms of a metaphor. I thought of it more in line with suddenly feeling the need to surround myself with old buddies to say goodbye to a dying friend, and to deal with our collective lost sense of immortality.


Greg, Jim, John, and I had talked about visiting Danny in Portland over the years, but had never acted on it. Greg was the last person to have seen him most recently. So when I phoned each of them to share the news I received from Gracie, I mentioned the idea of seeing Danny before it was too late. Greg was the quickest to decide, saying he would fly up from San Diego as soon as he could reserve a flight. I agreed to accompany him, as did John, and we arranged to fly up together from Los Angeles, meeting Greg in Portland on Wednesday, and returning home Friday morning. Honestly, I could not have gone alone. The only way I could see and talk with Danny was in the presence and company of old friends, who might share my mixed feeling, and emotions about his eminent death.




It was a difficult trip. Danny was in sad shape when we first saw him: cadaverous looking, rarely moving, with limp, lifeless hair that looked like straw, and his eyes closed. He breathed comfortably, for the most part, but sleeping the sleep of the soon departing. He never opened his eyes the first two times we saw him on Wednesday when we arrived, or the following morning. There was an absence of all energy or vitality. He was inert – silent and not present, except for the sounds of his breathing. In the stillness of his room, the only sounds and movement came from the hallway, with residents of the facility chatting as they walked or wheeled down the corridor, pushed by assistants or visitors. The vacuum of silence in the room begged to be filled – and so we did. Danny’s oldest son Tim arrived while we were there, and we talked. We talked to him and each other, wondering what had caused this rapid and seemingly sudden decline in our friend’s health and spirit. We recalled stories of times shared. How Greg and Danny met while dating girls who lived next door to each other, becoming best friends, and how Greg introduced us to Danny. We filled in details about seeing Danny play in a band at the Venetian Room as a drummer, and hanging out with Greg in the apartment in Hermosa Beach when he lived with Jim and Wayne. Of the days when Greg and Danny roomed together while attending UC Riverside, and how Danny always seemed to be sleeping over when Greg moved into the apartment in Playa del Rey. Greg spoke of the days they worked at Pioneer Chicken together, and how he, Danny, and John would make midnight runs to the restaurant after closing to fry up a batch of shrimp for a snack. How Danny influenced John into driving ambulances for Schaefer Ambulance Service, which subsequently led to his interest in becoming a paramedic for the Los Angeles Fire Department. I remembered how Danny and Greg entertained each other by making up absurd rhyming words with their names (“So jye, rye, nikki nikki, nye nye”), and then inviting John on pub crawls to a variety of places, their favorites being the Westward Ho Tavern on Jefferson Blvd, and Al Penny’s Restaurant in Culver City. Greg and John were ideal traveling companions for Danny; they were patient, dependable, and adventurous. Their enthusiasm for traveling, exploring, and discovering new places and experiences generated excitement and motivated Danny into joining them on countless trips to the desert, Ensenada, Mexico, the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas. They would eventually be included in Danny’s wedding party, when he married Gracie in 1973 – Greg as Best Man. These and other stories were the memories we shared with Tim, and his brother Tom the following day.




Danny was my friend and brother-in-law, and I loved him as kind-hearted husband and the father of two fine sons, Tim and Tom. Whenever I saw him we would talk nostalgically of the old days, and he would tell me what his sons were doing. He and Gracie loved hosting Thanksgiving for the entire Delgado family in their homes in Riverside and Costa Mesa. On those occasions, Danny kept himself busy preparing and cooking a sumptuous feast of turkey and assorted side dishes and desserts, while Gracie entertained and played hostess. Our family’s annual Christmas Eve get-together was the one occasion when Danny would take off his chef’s apron and enjoy the Mexican festivities, the gifts, and the meal that my mom and Stela prepared for us all. Those were the years Tim and Tom attended school, played baseball, and Pop Warner Football. Eventually, Gracie and Danny separated, the boys living with Gracie for a number of years, before moving to Oregon to live with their father. Their relations remained cordial and caring – the love for their boys maintaining their bond. The only times I saw Danny in Portland were for the weddings of his sons, Tim in 2001 and Tom in 2012. Until the communiqués from Gracie about Danny’s health, it was Greg, calling him by phone him on a regular basis, and occasionally visiting him, who maintained the most consistent connection with Danny. I think he took the news of Danny’s declining health the hardest.





The last time we saw Danny was the afternoon before we left Portland. Danny had slept during our previous two visits, so we were relieved to find him awake this time, with Karen, a nurse and longtime companion sitting by his side. She greeted us, and quickly directed Greg to stand next to him, urging us to talk to him while he was alert. With John and I standing on the opposite side of the bed, we talked to Danny until he again nodded off. Karen told us of Danny last few years, and we spoke of the times we shared with him, interrupted only by the arrival of Tim and Tom. We tried keeping the conversation animated and humorous, again talking of the old days and our adventures together, and hoping that Danny was listening. After an hour or so, with Danny seemingly asleep, John and I indicated to Greg that it was time to go. As Greg moved closer to Danny, saying his last goodbye in a quivering voice, Danny’s eyes shot open and widened. His mouth opened as if to speak, and he struggled to raise himself to a sitting position. But then he breathed out and fell back on his pillow, closing his eyes. We left him sleeping.





When we got back to the hotel, I was reminded of a trip John, Greg, and I took to Puerto Rico three years before. I wrote about it in my blog, and ended the essay with these words:

“Thoughts of aging, illness, and death did intrude at various times in Puerto Rico with Greg and John, especially on our last day there, when we finally made time to visit the beach and seashore of San Juan before departing. I had insisted that we couldn’t leave the island until we actually walked along its beaches and took photographs of the Atlantic Ocean. It was during those moments, moments of joy and laughter with two old friends who have shared so many other trips, secrets, and memories, that those thoughts occurred. These crazy and impulsive trips, with their gestalt moments, were unique experiences that no one else knew, shared, or could even imagine. These would be the stories that we tell each other, and argue over, as our memories fade and details become more and more hazy. When these friends die, those memories will be gone forever, and I will be lonelier because of it. This isolation, with the snuffing out of shared memories and the darkening of the past, was what Dr. Greaney [Kathy’s father] bemoaned when he told me that all his friends from medical school, World War II, and his practice were dead. As they died, their shared memories were also buried, and his children would eventually cease retelling them. In those moments with John and Greg, I realized that this life can end in an instant, or be unbearably drawn out through a long-suffering illness. That was life. And yet, thoughts of isolation, illness, and even the dying process, are dispelled when we are in joyous union with loved ones and friends. That is what happened in Puerto Rico. For 5 days we three friends were together in a blissful paradise – three amigos viejos, without jobs, wives, or families – joyfully at play in the tropical cities, beaches, rainforests, and mountains of Puerto Rico”.




That evening, sitting in Elmer’s Lounge near our hotel, the three of us, John, Greg, and I, raised a parting glass and toasted Danny, our stories, memories, and our friendship. The three of us talked long into the night, and departed together for home on the following morning.

We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight,
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s insane.
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near.
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror.
But she makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here.
The ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.
(Visions of Johanna: Bob Dylan – 1966)

About 15 years ago, after a particularly annoying morning presentation at a Principals’ Meeting, JoAnna Kunes and I decided to extend the 10-minute break time to finish our coffee and chat. We were both principals of neighboring middle schools at the time, and we were regular companions at these monthly meetings. Sitting side by side in a hall or auditorium, we could pass notes to each other, make side comments about the speaker or presentation, and occasionally discuss a school issue of special interest. On this occasion we took advantage of the break to fill each other in on family and personal developments. When I told her of an upcoming high school reunion, mentioning that I was still in close contact with three friends from that time, it spurred her to tell me a tale that I have never forgotten.


She said there was one particular boy she befriended in high school, maintaining contact with him through college and even a few years after. During the many years since losing touch with him, she would periodically remember and think about this boy – now man – and wonder how he was doing. What career did he pick? Had he married? Did he have a family? Was he still living in California or had he moved away? These questions and her speculations about him were usually prompted by thoughts of high school, college, and her own youth. She did this for many years, thinking that one day they would inevitably meet again. Then one day, while in a doctor’s office paging through a magazine, she read a story of a tragic and mysterious boating accident that resulted in the death of a young executive and his wife at sea. The doomed mariner was identified as her friend from high school and college. What shocked JoAnna most, she said, was not so much the sad news of two young lives cut short – but the fact that she was only learning of these deaths ten years after they occurred. Up until the moment she read the magazine article, her friend had been real. He had been vibrantly alive, living his life, and dreaming his dreams, in her thoughts, memories, and speculations about him. But it fact, he had ceased to exist long before. Time, distance, and separation had kept him alive only in her imagination, but now he was truly gone, and she felt the loss. This story came back to me a few months ago, when I learned that my old friend JoAnna had died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on November 19.

JoAnna occupies a prominent place in my personal gallery of brilliant women who were guides, mentors, and friends in the Los Angeles School District. I first met her in the Senior High School Division of LAUSD in 1984. She was the “Expulsion Lady” at the time, the administrator in charge of the Student Disciplinary Office for high schools. We had a nodding acquaintance at first that grew with the increasing support and encouragement of my own director, Joyce Peyton, who headed the Priority Staffing Program for high schools. JoAnna and Joyce were colleagues and part of a generation of female high school assistant principals that coalesced into a Movement to confront and challenge the “Old Boys Club” mentality of secondary educational leadership in the District. This male bias had created a self-sustaining, informal mechanism whereby better-qualified female assistant principals, and administrative deans, were systematically blocked from the position of principal in high schools and junior high schools. A Principals’ Meeting at Senior High School Division at that time was made up of a roomful of men, with only one or two women. Yet all the instructional advisers working at the Division realized that the quality instructional programs in high schools were being directed and improved by the leadership of their female assistant principals. I’ve come to believe that these women, in their respective administrative organizations, developed a common understanding to identify, nurture, and promote teachers, advisers, and other sub-administrators who showed instructional leadership and talent, regardless of sex. This unifying mission created an informal “sisterhood” of sorts, aimed at communicating, sharing information, and providing mutual support. A group of these women would eventually sue the District on its promotional practices and win a consent degree that finally opened the door to a large influx of female principals at the junior and senior high school level.



After a year of working in the Senior High School Division as an instructional adviser, Joyce encouraged me to apply for the position of Administrative Dean and go through the District’s promotional process. She also praised and recommended my qualifications and talents to other Division directors, asking for their support of my candidacy. This web of support was instrumental in my selection and assignment to Granada Hills High School as Administrative Dean in 1985. It was on the eve of my leaving the Division that JoAnna assumed her position as professional guide and counselor, a role she maintained for the rest of my career.

JoAnna pulled me aside one afternoon, and for an hour or more briefed me on what to expect and how to best maneuver the mechanisms of leadership and influence at Granada Hills. It remains to this day the most concise, penetrating, and insightful briefing on personnel, school culture, and administrative management I’ve ever received. When she left me, after wishing me luck, I sat in stunned silence for a long time, processing the kindness by this act of unsolicited confidence and support for a person she knew only slightly at the time.


As large as the District is in size, it always allowed people to create smaller communities of friends and colleagues through its regional divisions, administrative organizations, and meetings. In the years that followed my first school assignment, JoAnna’s career and mine often intersected as fellow administrators at high schools, and middle schools. Yet it was as a “Friend of JoAnna (FOJ)” that I made more and more intimate personal and professional connections in the District. If I happened to mention her name to principals or assistant principals who knew her, I was immediately welcomed and trusted. There was an assumption that JoAnna did not suffer fools or incompetents, and if she valued your friendship, you were in a special category that merited trust and confidence. A friend could count on JoAnna for counsel, help, and sympathy. She was the first person I called when I was assigned to my first principalship at El Sereno Middle School in 1992. I called to ask her to be “my person” – the trusted friend and colleague I could always count on for honest and confidential advice and support. Of all the principals I’d served with and known, she was the only one I could depend on for that kind of help and solace.



My best days as principal were at the monthly Principals Meeting where we would sit, side-by-side, listening, joking, sharing stories and achievements, and laughing – laughing over the absurdity of the impossible nature of our jobs. JoAnna loved to laugh and tell stories – usually long ones. On one District-sponsored bus trip to observe middle schools in San Diego, she regaled me with non-stop commentary, stories, and opinions about everything that came to her mind as we traveled there and back – and I listened, spellbound, for the entire two-way journey. We never judged each other – even when we disagreed. Once I matured as a principal, I became more and more cautious over financial and personnel matters, but I secretly envied her boldness. JoAnna was sometimes audacious and cavalier with her “creative accounting” methods and professional courtesies. The education and welfare of her students always came first, but she sometimes bent budgetary rules and guidelines to promote them and provide them with enrichment opportunities. She would also do a favor for a good friend – even if it meant taking a chance on hiring a supposedly weak teacher other principals would avoid. I sometimes shook my head in wonderment at her antics, which she would shamelessly describe to me – but they always worked out, and she ran a great school.

Middle School Principal meetings became flat and colorless affairs after JoAnna retired in 2006. No other colleague could replace her exuberant, animated style and wit during these meetings. With no one to keep me alert and critical of the presentations or reports being made, I pretended interest by writing stories and essays during the meetings, which I eventually posted on my blog. In the ensuing years, I’d hear how she was doing from mutual friends, and on a couple of occasions she surprised me with a visit while doing some District consulting work for John Liechty’s Beyond the Bell After School Program. But those sightings became less and less, and over the years we eventually lost touch.


For awhile, I wished I had never learned of JoAnna’s death, nor read the tender obituary written by her son. I would prefer thinking of her as vibrant and alive, visiting old friends in Palms Springs, or Calpine, California, or playing a piano duet with her son Mike. I could continue believing that our paths would cross again, and she would fill me in on the things she had done, or the trips she had taken. Time and distance would keep her suspended in this state, and I could continue pretending that we would see each other again. Yet I soon realized that by doing so, I ran the risk of feeling that double loss that JoAnna described to me when she related the story of her high school and college friend: his actual death, and then the death of the memories and speculations that had kept him seemingly alive for 10 more. I suppose that was the lesson of her story. Ignorance of a person’s death deludes us for a time, but the loss will be a two-fold pain when the truth is learned. So, I decided on keeping JoAnna present in my memories, my visions of her throughout the years we worked together, and in the stories of the times we laughed and talked together.

“Dia de los Muertos is the one day of the year
We get to celebrate the family
who aren’t with us anymore.
It’s like we’re throwing a party
and everyone we love is invited”.
(Disney’s Elena of Avalor: A Day to Remember – 2016)

Prisa brought her two girls, Sarah and Grace, over last month to spend the night. Her husband Joe was supervising a high school football game at a nearby school and she arranged for all of them to spend the night with us. It’s always a treat to have the girls over this early in the fall. The weather is temperate and the pool is readily available for afternoon and evening swims. The girls exhaust themselves in the water, making them very susceptible for an early dinner, video, and bed. This evening both girls were very eager to see the latest installment of the Disney Channel cartoon series, Elena of Avalor. Elena is an animated TV series of a Hispanic, Spanish speaking, teenaged princess who rules a mythical island. Each episode includes simple, catchy songs, or moral lessons. It reminded me of a more sophisticated version of an earlier animated TV series that Sarah watched as a two-year old, called Dora the Explorer, that also had a Hispanic, bilingual heroine. However, Prisa seemed particularly interested in her girls watching this latest episode, because it dealt with Dia de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead.



Dia de los Muertos is a uniquely Mexican festival, or holiday, celebrated on November 2, which coincides with the Catholic feast day of All Souls Day. This is the final event of the 3-day series of secular and religious celebrations that begin with Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve) on October 31, and All Saints Day, on November 1. But, I was curious as to why Prisa was so insistent that the girls watch it? I assumed it would simply be a reminder of their Mexican ancestry and culture. This hypothesis proved wrong. The underlying message of the episode was addressed very early in the story with the singing of the principal song, The Festival of Love:

Dia de los Muertos
Is my favorite day.
We honor all our loved ones
Who have passed away.

We go to the graveyards
Build altars in their name.
Share our memories of them
By the candle flame.

Dia de los Muertos
The one day of the year.
We bake up treats so tasty
To fill us with good cheer.
Sugar skulls and sweet bread
Are made with love and care,
Then brought down to the altar
For everyone to share.

This is the day we all await.
This is the day we celebrate.
The Festival of Love,
The Festival of Love.

Dia de los Muertos
Means more to me this year,
Since Mami and Papi
Are no longer here.
But I’m not feeling sad now,
I’m feeling joy inside.
Because this festival
Keeps their memory alive.

This is the day we all await.
This is the day we celebrate.
The Festival of Love,
The Festival of Love.
(Dia de los Muertos: Elenor of Avalor – 2016)


I have to admit that I was a bit teary by the end of the song. The lyrics of the last stanza before the final refrain had brought up a flood of images and memories of family members who have passed away recently: my father-in-law, the Doctor, my Aunt Espie, and my Uncle Fausto – but especially my Uncle Pepe, who had just died that week. A few months ago, I was forced to cancel a trip to Mexico to celebrate his 90^th birthday because he had suffered a stroke, and had rescheduled a flight for December. I hoped to visit him before his condition worsened – but I was too late. Deaths that occur so far away, especially those we can’t attend their funerals, are difficult to process. In some way, because we never see or touch the remains or casket, they never really die. That was the way I still felt about my uncle. How does one remember those we have lost without also calling up the shock and pain of the separation, or coming to grips with the notion that they have ceased to exist? I could not. But Elena, in this episode showed my granddaughters through song and story how we can transcend the pain by celebrating their memories and keeping them alive in our hearts and minds every year.




I really admire Prisa as a parent, and respect her ability to use children’s television programming to introduce and reinforce proper values, behaviors, and traditions. I first got a glimpse of this when I saw Sarah watching Daniel Tiger, the PBS animated children’s series that guided behaviors through instructional songs and stories. Songs like “Grownups Come Back”, “Clothes on, Eat Breakfast, Brush Teeth, Put on Shoes, and Off to School”, and “Stop, Think, and Choose” were simple, easy to remember lessons that could be recalled and reinforced by parents through song and repetition. In this episode of Elena of Avelar, Prisa was clearly teaching a double lesson about death by introducing the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos, and emphasizing the importance of keeping alive the memories of great-grandparents and other deceased relatives and friends. At the end of the program, we praised the story and its song, and Kathy made arrangements for a sleepover with Sarah on the following weekend of November 5^th, and then taking both girls to the Canoga Park street festival of Dia de los Muertos on Sunday, November 6.


Many native Angelenos are surprised to discover that Canoga Park (originally called Owensmouth) was one of the two original towns in the San Fernando Valley – the other being Van Nuys. Both towns were established circa 1911-1912 and they represented the East and West extremities of the Valley, and the focal points of its future development from agriculture to housing. Canoga Park, probably because of its greater distance from Los Angeles, managed to hold on to many aspects of a small town, along with a large resident Mexican-American community and neighborhood (or barrio) near its Old Town location along Sherman Way. These last vestiges of small town life can still be seen in its two November events: the Memorial Day Parade on November 11, and the Dia de los Muertos Street Festival on (or around) November 2.


Dia de los Muertos, the event central to the Elena of Avalor episode, is a Mexican celebration that fuses two cultures and traditions – the Catholicism of the Spanish empire and the indigenous civilizations in Mexico. Before the Europeans arrived, Indians had an understanding that the spiritual world and the material world were not separated. Those who were of the natural world had flesh, while those in the spiritual realm were fleshless, and depicted as skeletons (calaveras). The Catholic and indigenous traditions fused seamlessly in the religious feast day of All Souls, on November 2. Mexicans would often paint their faces, or half of the face, as skeletons. Families would create altars, with levels representing heaven and earth, to help remember loved ones who had passed away. Altars vary, but they usually include a photograph of the deceased, along with their favorite food, drink, and music. In Mexico and in the American Southwest, families gather at the cemeteries on the vigil, November 1, and decorate the gravesites. After the time at the cemeteries, families gather around their family altars at home and continue celebrating and sharing stories of their loved ones. I had gone to the Canoga Park Dia de los Muertos Festival on previous occasions, and had even taken my granddaughter Sarah when she was three-years old, but I had never really tied the festival, or the Mexican traditions, with our own families, or our deceased relatives. I hoped to change that on the night of Sarah’s sleepover with us. My plan was to build on the groundwork laid out in the Elena of Avalor episode with actual participation in the customs and traditions of Dia de los Muertos.





When Kathy brought Sarah home for her sleepover, we had prepared a full agenda of activities. We had purchased an early birthday gift since we would be out of town on the actual day, and we had prepared a craft project that would foreshadow our participation at the Dia de los Muertos Festival on Sunday. So, once Sarah had opened her wrapped oversized present to reveal a dynamically flexible scooter, and spent an hour breaking it in on the sidewalk of our cul de sac, we were ready to work. I laid out all the materials I had accumulated: an original Dia de los Muertos shadowbox we had purchased years ago, and wished to update; a large selection of wallet-sized photographs of recently, and long-time deceased family members; and a large collection of religious and Dia de los Muertos stickers and decorations. The idea was to construct two brand new Dia de los Muertos shadowboxes and decorate them as if they were part of an altar tradition. We wanted to tie this activity to the Elena of Avelor episode Sarah had watched with the Festival that would follow – concentrating on the most immediate family members who had passed away. Sarah loved the project and the assignment. On Sunday, reunited with her sister and parents, we celebrated Dia de los Muertos and went a little crazy. Sarah had always wanted her face painted in the Mexican tradition of calaveras, or skeletons. So as soon as the festival began at 10:00 am we were in line to have her face decorated. Of course, once Kathy and I saw her gorgeous calavera face and hair ribbon, we had to complement it with a dress styled in the china poblana fashion of Mexico. Sarah literally resembled the fashionable representation of the catrina figurines that are part of the Dia de los Muertos iconography. All of these activities were subsequently repeated with her sister Gracie, when she arrived at the festival with her parents.





All granddaughter sleepovers with daylong activities are wonderfully tiring for two old-timers like Kathy and me. At the conclusion of the day, when we are alone together and everything is quiet, we always look back at those moments with the girls and reflect on the day. On this occasion, however, I couldn’t help thinking again of my uncle Pepe.  I had slipped his photograph into one of the Dia de los Muertos shadowboxes we had made, and he still loomed large in my mind. I have two images of my uncle Pepe that have withstood time and age. They are both images from the awed perspective of a child that have never changed. Pepe, whose real name was Jose Manuel Villalpando Nava was a stylishly tall, slim man with refined, delicate features and wispy blondish hair. He always wore tailored suits with starched, long-sleeved, white shirts, and freshly shined shoes. He was a multi-talented intellectual in the classic Mexican and European style. He was a published Doctor of Pedagogy and a busy professor of Philosophy who also taught at the National Preparatory School and the Mexican Naval College (with a rank of naval commander). “El Profe”, as he was sometimes called within the family, was the archetype of the kind of man I dreamed of becoming, and I schemed at establishing closer ties, and a viable relationship with him. Since it was too late to make him my traditional Godfather (padrino) at baptism, I named him my padrino for Confirmation at age 14. However it wasn’t until 1970, at the age of 21, that I made a real connection with him during a two-month stay in Mexico City. All future encounters with Pepe never reached the level of that summer again, even during extended visits in Mexico. He would always make time for me during those subsequent visits, but the intimacy was never the same. In 1975 I invited him to be a part of my wedding as Father of the Groom, and he gave a very elegant and formal speech at the reception, one you would expect from a prominent scholar and author.




The last time I saw Pepe was when I attended a Family Reunion celebration in Mexico in 2009. The party was publicized as a combination birthday/reunion to attract as many family members as possible. I went as the sole representative of the American contingent. By then Pepe had retired from teaching and did very little writing. I was almost saddened about my decision to attend when I saw how he looked, and I only talked with him a bit. He was a bent and aging figure of a man in his declining years. He was often distracted, and his mobility was very limited, forcing him to spend most of the party seated and silently watching the movement and interactions around him. I would occasionally sneak sidelong glances at him, cursing the remorseless deterioration of aging.


In late October I received a phone call from my sister Estela with news of Pepe’s passing. She gave me few details, but I suspected that death was a result of a stroke he had suffered earlier. The sad news left me with a puzzling dilemma. I felt an overwhelming compulsion to write about Pepe, about what he meant to me and how much I loved him, but I was also hesitant about revealing too much. Any recollection of Pepe would have to center on the time we spent together in 1970. Yet the things I learned about him might be considered too revealing – especially for my mom. She, like all her now deceased sisters and mother, adored Pepe and never saw any faults or weakness. Yet it was those same human foibles that made him a real person to me, and not merely an idealized picture of the proper educator, intellectual, author, brother, and son. It was during this maelstrom of conflicting impulses that one of those graced moments of serendipity occurred. While driving I heard one of the songs on my iTunes list. It was K.D. Lang’s The Valley, from her album, Hymns of the 49^th Parallel. It’s a sad, haunting song that has always puzzled me about its point and purpose. Driving home alone I heard the lyrics in a new light, and they awakened my recollection of the second timeless image I have of Pepe:

                                                I love the best in you,
                                                You love the best in me,
                                                Though it is not always easy.
                                                Lovely? Lonely?
                                                We will walk,
                                                We will walk,
                                                In good company.

During one of our family’s earliest visits to Mexico, when I was still a child and Pepe a recently married young man, I remember my mother organizing a family trip to La Villa, the Old Cathedral that once housed the miraculous image of La Virgen de Guadalupe. The Sunday morning excursion would combine a pilgrimage to the shrine, a mass at the main altar in front of the image, and a family brunch at a downtown restaurant. After entering the crowded Cathedral and making our way to the front altar, I was stunned to recognize my uncle Pepe, kneeling meekly in back of the priest saying the Mass, while serving as his sole altar boy. There he was, this slim, handsome figure, wearing his tailored suit, and placing himself at the service of the Virgen and the Church. Gone was the pose of the cynical anti-cleric, or swaggering Mexican male, who criticized sermons and debunked religious formulas and superstitions. He was simply “un joven güero” placing himself at the call of his Church, Savior, and the Virgin Mary. He was a young man of Faith.




That was my relationship with my uncle, Jose Manuel Villalpando Nava, PhD. I loved the best of him, while recognizing the worst. It was not always easy because sometimes his opinions and prejudices got in the way. But, if I can paraphrase a quotation from St. Paul, “Love is patient, Love is kind, it does not dishonor others, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love rejoices with the truth.” I rejoice in knowing that Pepe lived a full, happy life and that many, many people, especially his family, loved him. With his death, Pepe joins Mima, Carlos, Beto, Rorra, Helen, Chita, and Rosita in eternal peace. As K.D. Lang proclaimed in her song – he will walk in good company.



One never knows how much young children remember of family events or occasions, as they grow older. Will Sarah and Gracie remember what we did that weekend, what was said, and what they learned about Dia de los Muertos? Judging from conversations with our grown children, Toñito and Prisa, some events do manage to standout. Our hope is that Dia de los Muertos, with all its iconography, art, color, decorations and associations with deceased family members will survive. It’s a wonderful way to remember our religious and cultural heritage and faith that the spirit survives death, and that death itself is simply a transition to that place from which we all sprang. So on this Dia de los Muertos we renewed that faith, that hope, that expectation that we shall one day reunite with those we love, and once again, we will walk in good company.

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling,
Michael they are taking you away.
For you stole Trevelyn’s corn,
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.

Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing, we had dreams and songs to sing.
It’s so lonely ‘round the Fields of Athenry.
(The Fields of Athenry – Pete St. John: 1970)

Many years ago, Kathleen shared an old Irish superstition that was often quoted by her mother. Whenever a bevy of celebrity deaths occurred in a short space of time, Mary Cavanaugh Greaney would say, “Death always comes in 3’s”.  I have to confess that this macabre Irish saying occurred to me a few times in the course of 4 days: on Saturday, July 11, when I received news of the death of my Aunt Espie (Esperanza Delgado Parker) in Tennessee, after her on-again, off-again battle with cancer, and again on Tuesday, July 14, when my father-in-law Dr. Edward Michael Greaney died at home of natural causes. Ridiculous questions, like “Who else died recently, and who will be next?” popped into my head on each occasion. Thankfully I realized that these ludicrous thoughts were just samples of the plethora of feelings, ideas, and reactions that were swirling in my head as I tried processing these two disparate deaths.


Espie was a sparkling and active woman of 70 years – a sister, aunt, wife, friend, mother, and grandmother, who had seemingly won a recent battle with cancer after moving to Tennessee with her husband Larry to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. Doctor Greaney, on the other hand, had lived a long and full life, finally expiring in his home at the ripe old age of 96. Espie died too soon, I secretly felt, while Dr. Greaney lived long enough. But these private feelings were personal and emotionally powered. Another person could just as easily shrugged off both deaths, explaining them away as “karma”. One thing is sure to me however, deaths to family members and close friends are always “too soon” and disquieting, because we suffer a personal loss and are forced to look at our own mortality, posing unanswerable questions about dying and what we leave behind us.

• 

Espie was born August 8, 1944, the 14^th and youngest child in the Delgado family. I was the first grandchild and nephew, born 3 years later to the eldest sibling of the clan, my father, Antonio (Tony) Delgado. My earliest memories of Espie always included the two siblings who preceded her, my aunt Lisa and uncle Charlie. Those memories tend to be episodic because they occurred when my parents visited our grandparent’s home on Workman Street in Lincoln Heights on weekends and on holidays. I vaguely remember being introduced to coloring books and paper dolls by Lisa and Espie in their upstairs bedroom, and then, in later years, gravitating to Charlie’s room where I could see his comic books, or play make-believe games with him in the backyard with toy weapons or plastic soldiers. I remember learning Christmas carols from this trio as we helped assemble the annual Nacimiento (Nativity Scene) in the living room; being taught the art of  “sparkler drawing/writing in the air” on Independence Day; and comparing costumes on Halloween and learning the finer points of “Trick-or-Treating”. Despite this crazy mishmash of early scenes and vague chronology, I do recall 3 particular incidents that left a profound impression on me.




The first incident involved Charlie’s bike. From my perspective as a 5 or 6-year-old, Charlie (at 10 or 11) was a master cyclist. It didn’t matter that Lisa could ride one too; Charlie was the daredevil who leapt onto the seat from a running start, peddled with no hands, and transported passengers on his handle bars. If Charlie needed to deliver a message or travel somewhere on a chore or errand, he would often take along a passenger. I found this trick to be amazing, and I accompanied him on many excursions until I witnessed its risks.


It occurred one Saturday, when many of my older aunts and uncles were present in the house, but adult topics and endless conversation had driven the younger children outdoors. I remember Charlie with raven-haired Espie, proud as a queen and balanced on the front handlebars of his bike, telling us he was going to the 5 and Dime store around the corner. It must have happened on the way back that I heard a piercing scream of pain and a crash. Instantly Lisa rushed past me to the front door of the house and yelled that Espie was hurt and needed help. The image of a thundering herd of wild-eyed uncles stampeding through the front door to rescue their baby sister is forever burned into my memory. Although in fact there were probably only 5 brothers present (Tarsi, Henry, Kado, Victor, and my dad) it seemed like a tidal wave of brotherly concern and affection descended on Espie and Charlie, and it was comforting to realize that this emergency squad of uncles was always at the ready to rescue me, and any family member in trouble. Softly weeping, Espie returned to the house cradled in Henry’s arms, with other uncles tending her injured foot and cooing reassurances. There was concern for Charlie (who escaped with only minor scrapes and bruises) and praise for Lisa’s speedy alertness in calling for help, but what struck me most was the realization that Espie was the darling of the family. She was the youngest, “the baby”, “la consentida”, and “the favored one”.


“Esperanza” is the Spanish word for Hope, and in many ways, I think Espie, as the last child, was an avatar, or embodiment, of many of the best Delgado family traits and qualities. She had Lupe’s gaiety, Helen’s confidence and intelligence, Jay Jay’s kindness, Tillie’s innocence, and Lisa’s goodness. She also manifested the disciplined and practical mind that was seen in some of her brothers. But she had something extra. Despite her youth, she had a special way of doing things, and a willingness to be different. I started noticing these traits when she was in high school and before and after her marriage to Larry Parker in 1965.

As far as I know, Espie and Charlie were the only members of the family to attend and graduate from Lincoln High School, the public school up the street from their home on So. Broadway. The fact that my aunt was attending a public school was astounding to me. I was sheltered in a confining Catholic parochial school environment, and Espie, 4 years ahead of me, was attending classes and mixing with Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Anglos, Nisei, and other Mexican-Americans. She was experiencing the Brave New World of the late 50’s and early 60’s, during the heyday of Rock and Roll, teenage rebellion, James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. On one particular Saturday Espie told me all about her high school friends, her classes, clubs, and the career opportunities that beckoned after graduation. At the time, she used words and phrases I didn’t really understand until I entered high school myself –  co-eds, sock hops, pep rallies, homecoming, and especially prom. Even though she graduated from Lincoln HS 6 years before the Student Walkouts of 1968, she was already expressing many of the new Chicano views about discrimination, higher education, and equal rights. She used the slang “paddies” when referring to Anglo students. In my Mexican and Mexican-American worlds I’d heard the term “gringos” used sometimes, but never “paddy” (many years later I learned the origins of this pejorative term for the Irish). Like all her sisters, Espie went straight to work after graduation in 1962, and during the next 3 years she worked, partied, and to everyone’s surprise, met, and married a young, fresh-faced, red-haired, Palmdale “paddy” who was recently discharged from the Navy and attending classes at Los Angeles City College on Vermont Blvd.


I was completing my junior year in high school when Espie and Larry Parker wed in 1965, and their parties and wedding celebrations were the perfect testing ground for teenage romance and flirtation. Espie’s wedding (and Charlie’s, which followed later that summer) was my unofficial “coming out” event. In the parties and social gatherings that followed, I chatted, joked, danced, and flirted with cousins and strangers alike, and for the first time got a whiff of that heady brew called infatuation. But of more lasting significance were the times I spent with Larry and Espie hearing about the decisions they were contemplating and the future they were planning. Espie was charting an independently modern course different from any of her sisters. Until her union with Larry, the Delgado family treated marriage as a parenting endeavor, with the husband working close to home and a wife raising a family. Espie and Larry, however, visualized marriage as a lifetime and moveable partnership. Their intertwined futures consisted of leaving Los Angeles and moving to San Francisco, where Larry enrolled and eventually graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in engineering, while Espie worked full time. He then transitioned into a full time career in Southern California, freeing Espie for motherhood, raising a family, and then pursuing future educational opportunities. It was a revolutionary plan in 1965, but to their hardworking credit, they succeeded happily and marvelously for 50 years.


I followed Espie on Facebook in the years after she and Larry moved to Tennessee in 2009, and the last time I saw her was at the funeral of my Aunt Lupe, in 2013. She spent the 24 hours before the funeral dining, talking, laughing, and reminiscing with her eternal sidekicks Lisa and Charlie. She was vibrant, upbeat, and optimistic of the future, talking of her plans for a Golden Wedding Anniversary in the spring of 2015.




While these memories of Espie occurred to me quickly upon hearing the news of her death, I had no sudden insights as to how to approach Dr. Greaney’s life. I’d mentioned him in past essays and I didn’t want to rehash old tales, nor tread on the many stories and anecdotes of his 9 surviving children. It was only when I started thinking back on the liturgy and readings for the Doctor’s funeral mass, and especially the homily given by Monsignor Clement Connolly, that some ideas started to percolate. I was first struck by something Patti, Kathy’s sister, mentioned on the day of the Doctor’s death, while explaining the readings they had chosen for the mass. “The point of the liturgy”, she said, “with it prayers, hymns, readings, and homily, is to teach. People should come away from the liturgy having learned something.” Monsignor Connolly reinforced this message at the beginning of his homily the following Saturday, adding that “every life is the ‘Good News’, or the ‘Gospel’ of that person”, meaning that the life of every person was meant to instruct us as to how to live, and perhaps, how to act. Since there was to be no official eulogy for Dr. Edward Michael Greaney at the mass, the Monsignor’s remarks proceeded to intertwine the readings and the Gospel of the day with his remarks about “the gospel according to Mike”. It was that liturgy and the Monsignor’s homily that finally provided the impetus for the remainder of this essay.


The first reading from the Letter of James, exhorted us to “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves”, and Doctor Greaney was certainly a man of deeds and action. His life was checkered with noteworthy and significant achievements and professional accomplishments: a graduate of Fordham University and Jefferson Medical College, and immediately commissioned in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant, serving as Battalion Surgeon of the 3^rd Marine Division in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He married Mary Cavanaugh of Stamford, CT in 1943, and had two of eventually 10 children born during the war years. Upon his discharge in 1947 he completed a residency in general surgery at the Long Beach Veteran’s Hospital in 1951, and began a long and successful private practice in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Monsignor Connolly also noted that despite his towering pride and need for control, “Mike was an enchanter – he enchanted people”. This quality was apparent to me throughout my 40-year association with the Doctor. He had many, many loyal and devoted friends and acquaintances, who came in all sexes, ages, professions, ethnicities, and social levels. He knew cardinals and priests, architects and gardeners, movie stars and parking lot attendants. Some he met at his country club, some he operated on, and some he’d encounter on the beach, walking a dog or inspecting the surf. There was a glamour around Dr. Greaney and his “bedside manner” that stayed with people he met and patients he tended. Kathy would tell me stories of how complete strangers, upon hearing her maiden name of Greaney and discovering she was the daughter of their former surgeon, would go on and on with tales of his care, concern, and expertise. “He saved my life”, they would often conclude, pressing her hand, as if that tactile connection with a daughter would somehow renewed their association with the Doctor. It was at that point of the “gospel according to Mike” when Monsignor Connolly introduced a surprising twist with a parable from the Gospel of Luke.




Monsignor Connolly told of the righteous man and the tax collector: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” I’m no longer sure what Monsignor Connolly was proposing with this parable, and how it applied to the “gospel according to Mike”. Was the Doctor the righteous man or the sinner? Was he the successful surgeon, the glamorous enchanter, who patted himself on the back and went home “justified”, or was he the outcast in the rear, the flawed, imperfect, and sinful man who beat his breast and called to God for mercy. I had expected a veiled but glowing eulogy, and what I heard instead was an unsettling tale of two men, an enchanter and an outcast, a self-righteous professional and a sinner. If “every life is the ‘Good News’, or the ‘Gospel’ of that person”, as Monsignor Connolly suggested, what then were the lessons to be learned from the lives and deaths of Espie and Mike?




For the “gospel of Espie”, I would point to the Letter of James used in the Doctor’s funeral liturgy:

“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Espie was easy to love, and graceful endurance is how I think she lived her final years in retirement with Larry after the cancer was discovered. After blossoming as a wife, partner, mother, and mature woman in Southern California, Espie again packed up and moved with Larry, the love of her life, to live in Tennessee with her children and grandchildren. From what I learned in conversations and in Facebook, she and Larry built a house there and enjoyed each day as it came, until those days ran out. Sadly, her death has left a huge gap in my life that only old memories can now substitute.




As for the “gospel of Mike”, I fear that I have done poor justice to the liturgy planned by Kathy’s siblings and Monsignor Connolly’s homily. I hope this essay somehow reflects the powerful impression they left on me that day. I suspect that I will never again hear a more honest and compassionate tribute to person at a funeral. Doctor Greaney, especially during the waning months of his life, was a difficult and demanding man on family members and caregivers alike. No one saw this better, I believe, than Monsignor Connolly who visited him regularly and faithfully, and who heard his confession and gave him the Last Rites the night before he died. In those last days, I’m sure Monsignor saw past the glamour and enchantment of Dr. Greaney and recognized Mike, the flawed and imperfect man, husband, friend, and father who lay before him. Perhaps there is not one but many lessons to be learned from the gospel of Mike. Some in his actions and deeds, and some in what his 9 surviving children and 26 grandchildren take away from those accomplishments. Then again, in the end, the outcast tax collector in Monsignor’s parable simply asked God for mercy and compassion – perhaps that is what that the gospel of Mike asks of us.

Who is the tall, dark stranger there?
Maverick is the name.
Ridin’ the trail to who knows where,
Luck is his companion,
Gamblin’ is his game.

Riverboat, ring your bell,
Fair thee well, Annabel.
Luck is the lady that he loves the best.
Natchez to New Orleans,
Livin’ on jacks and queens,
Maverick is a legend of the west.
(Theme song of Maverick: 1957)

James Garner died last month, on Saturday, July 19, 2014. He was 86 years old, and had previously suffered a stroke in 2008. I think I was saddened by his death because he was such a part of my childhood. Garner was the first adult T.V. and movie star who I truly related to as a youth, when I first saw him in Maverick in 1957. Bret Maverick signaled a new type of hero for me. He was not the cut-out, one-dimensional, childhood hero I enjoyed watching in the late 50’s, like Superman, the Lone Ranger, Davey Crockett, or Zorro. James Garner played a charming but complex, adult hero who defied simple characterization. Bret Maverick was self-deprecating, humorous, smart, and human. He was the new kind of protagonist who did not see himself as fearless, brave, or courageous. In fact, Bret would rather talk than throw punches, deal cards than shoot guns, and altogether avoid conflict and dangerous situations whenever possible. Bret was the reluctant hero who rarely “got the girl”, and didn’t always win. His greatest romances tended to be with women he competed with, rarely out-foxed, and always respected. With its timeslot on Sunday nights on ABC, Maverick was the first “adult” western TV series I was allowed to watch as a child. Programs like Gunsmoke and the Naked City were taboo to me, in those strict days of parental censorship. Although Garner shared the billing for Maverick, and alternated episodes, with Jack Kelly, he was the star who carried the show with his rugged good looks and personality, and made it a highly rated hit until 1960. After only three brief years as Maverick, Garner left Warner Brothers over a contract dispute and pursued a full time, independent career in movies. He was one of the first TV stars to make this transition successfully.





I loved James Garner’s movies. Even on the big screen, he was able to consistently come across as such a friendly, likeable and relatable figure. He proved to be a formidable actor as well. He stood out in his role as a Marine captain, playing opposite Marlon Brando in Sayonara in 1957, was traditionally heroic as Col. William Darby in the WWII movie, Darby’s Rangers in 1958, and clearly captivated Natalie Wood in the 1960 romantic comedy, Cash McCall. But his real breakout film roles came in 1963 when he starred as the All-American “scrounger”, in The Great Escape, and the loveable coward opposite Julie Andrews in The Americanization of Emily.





The characters that James Garner played were the perfect models for me. As a teenager in a Catholic high school, I was desperately searching outside my family for positive male figures to imitate. I had outgrown the “good boy” types portrayed in Leave It To Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Donna Reed Show, and I was not inclined toward the “bad boy” types characterized in Marlon Brando and James Dean movies. Instead, James Garner offered a Third Way – not an anti-hero, like Clint Eastwood, but a non-heroic, regular guy, who was still good-looking, smart, funny, and could step-up, if called for, to deal with difficult situations. He was the type of man I wanted to be for a long time. By the time James Garner returned to TV, starring in the Rockford Files (1974-1980), I had outgrown my early need for role models, and would only occasionally watch his show. Interestingly enough, I happened to catch the episode when the show spun off a new character that would soon carry on the tradition of the non-heroic/regular guy. Tom Selleck, in Magnum P.I. (1980-1988), continued many of the mannerisms and style that made Garner’s TV characters so successful. Thomas Magnum was the Bret Maverick of the 80’s.




I suppose teenagers are always looking for people to imitate and copy who are outside their immediate environments. The men and women they grew up with in their families, or their circle of friends and acquaintances, seem too familiar and ordinary. Stories and novels offered me one method to study male characters and types, but television provided a more contemporary vehicle to observe men and women who seemed more real. I’m glad that James Garner appeared when he did in my life. He portrayed characters that satisfied all of my secret yearnings and questions about male role models. Garner became the dad, uncle, teacher, and hero I wanted to imitate and become. I’ll always remember him in that way. Rest in Peace Bret Maverick.

The whole world’s broke and it ain’t worth fixing
It’s time to start all over, make a new beginning
There’s too much pain, too much suffering
Let’s resolve to start all over, make a new beginning.
Now don’t get me wrong – I love life and living
But when you wake up and look around
At everything that’s going down – all wrong
You see we need to change it now,
This world with too few happy endings
We can resolve to start all over make a new beginning.
(New Beginning – Tracy Chapman: 1995)

Late in May I happened to look at the kitchen calendar for June and noticed that the name Debbie was inscribed in my handwriting on the 17^th. I recalled doing so a while back, hoping that it would act as a triggering reminder. June 17 is the day Debbie Greaney Parker died in 2003. I never had the courage to write about her, and I wasn’t sure why. You see, I have some very clear memories and images of Debbie as a woman and a mother, but they are inconsistent with the person who died alone in Sherman Oaks.


The details of that day are murky and sporadic. The discovery was made in the waning days of one of the most difficult school years in my career as a principal. 2002-2003 was the year of the Red Team Scare. It was the year the school staff, from principal to cafeteria worker, had to implement an immediate academic reform plan to offset our inadequate achievement scores over the previous years. The school had undergone a blisteringly critical review the prior spring, which forced us to question our competence as a school. We struggled that entire year under a cloud of suspected inferiority. We were driven to prove to the District that the negative evaluation of the Red Team was wrong. We were convinced that we were a great school with excellent students and fine teachers, and so the goal of 2002-2003 was to show it on the May achievement tests, even though the results would not be known until November. Honestly, I just wanted the school year to end. The tests had been given, and I was addressing the aftermath of the urgency and pressure that had driven us all year. The stress to excel had been too much for many teachers and administrators, and I was looking at many staff vacancies and transfers. The school and its students, teachers, and staff were worn out, tired, and depressed.

It was on the Tuesday morning of graduation week, on a grey and gloomy day, that I received a phone call from Kathy telling me of Debbie’s death. From that point, my memory of events is fractured and uneven. The events sometimes merge with past and future scenes of rooms, faces, mortuaries, and the funerals of Kathy’s Aunt Mary and her mother. As best I can recall, Kathy told me that she was driving directly to Debbie’s home, and I was to call my daughter Prisa. The plan was to have Prisa meet me at school and then drive together to Debbie’s house. Prisa tells me now that I was very cool and detached when I called her, not volunteering any emotional information about her godmother, other than there was an emergency at her residence and we needed to investigate it. Prisa had just completed her first year of teaching, and I think meeting me in a school environment helped her maintain a calm and professional demeanor after I told her what we might find at the Sherman Oaks house. When we arrived at the house on Longridge Ave, and saw the Coroner’s van parked in front of the house, with two police officers lounging next to it, we stayed in the car for a long time – neither of us wanting to enter.

Three words always leaped to my mind when describing Debbie: elegant, fashionable, and glamorous. Among all the lovely Greaney girls, she stood out as uniquely beautiful. She was tall and statuesque, with clean lines, and sharp distinctive features. Kathy told me that Debbie imagined herself as Audrey Hepburn, in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, but I thought of her more as a brunette version of Grace Kelly, in High Society. I suppose that’s how I thought of her, until I got to know her better. I ultimately fell in love with Debbie on the day my son Toñito was born in 1978.


At first, I thought I was handling Kathy’s labor pains pretty well – until they kept going on and on through the early morning hours at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank. During that time, I think Kathy’s mother, Mary, and her dad stopped by to check on their daughter, but I was alone when her doctors came out to speak with me. After more than 15 hours of painful labor, Kathy had not dilated sufficiently and they were recommending a C-section. A C-section! What was that? I’d somehow managed to miss that chapter in the Lamaze childbirth classes we attended. I was prepared to support her back, coach her breathing, speak supportively while holding her hand, and ignore the pain-induced taunts and accusations she would fling at me for getting her pregnant. But I never expected this! A C-section was surgery – cutting Kathy open and removing out child. Was my son doomed to suffer Macduff’s fate and be “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb? Panicked visions filled my head. For a moment, I mistranslated the doctor’s words to mean that they were trying to save both mother and child, but there was no guarantee that Kathy would survive the procedure. Were they asking me to choose who should live? After these first waves of irrational terror swept past, I managed to gulp down some air and listened more carefully. A Caesarean procedure was being recommended because the labor had gone on too long without sufficient dilation for a natural birth. They made the procedure sound reasonable and safe, and so I finally agreed – but I was shaken and afraid. I’m sure now that they also conferred with Kathy’s father, who was a general surgeon, about this situation. I was told later that he even had blood donors lined up and a surgical team on standby in case any problems arose during the procedure. But at the time I was shaken, afraid, and alone. It was at that precise moment, in the rainy, solitary dawn of morning, that Debbie appeared. She was bathed in a spotlight of golden radiance as she moved effortlessly down the corridor in her voguish outfit and stepped into the waiting room. Her beguiling smile was so gentle and reassuring, that when she asked me how I was doing, I fell into her arms and wept. Heaving sobs shook me, and she held me in her embrace until I was calm and able to speak. After I described what the doctors had said, she gently explained the benefits of a C-section, and the risks of an extended labor on mother and child. This was my first glimpse of Deborah, the certified, nursing graduate of Mount St. Mary’s College, and the mature and experienced mother of three children. I eventually let her go to see Kathy and check on her progress. I was fine after her intervention and reassurances.



After Toñito’s birth, my relationship with Debbie changed. Despite revealing my fears and uncertainties about childbirth and parenting, Debbie wholeheartedly accepted me and loved me as a member of her family. I stopped characterizing her simply as a beautiful woman with excellent taste, and saw her as a reliable friend and confidant, someone you could count on for help and support, because she always showed up. This was the family trait I would eventually recognize in all the Greaney siblings – especially the women. But Debbie was the first. She would show up if you were in trouble and needed help. She showed up to family events, games, performances, and birthdays. She opened her home to all who needed a place to stay, or hosted family events that needed a large venue. She was generous to a fault and loved throwing parties, but she demanded honesty, loyalty, good value, and quality effort in return. In many ways her parenting activities and devotion to her three children, Jeff, Christy, and Alicia, also provided a model for Kathy and me. We followed her lead and introduced Toñito and Prisa to AYSO soccer, swim clubs and parish swim meets, children’s theatre groups, and female athletics. We could not think of a better example for our only daughter, Prisa, and we asked her and Mike to serve as godparents when she was baptized in 1980.



There was one characterization of Debbie that I could never understand. As she became more involved in various charity aspects of the TV and movie business in Hollywood, and in the community theatre group that formed at her parish church, she assumed more responsibility in the production of its musicals. A nickname slowly evolved over time and it somehow took hold. Mentioned at first in whispers behind her back, and then quite brazenly by friends and co-workers, Debbie was called “The Dragon Lady”, the terrifying chairperson, producer, or director you didn’t mess with. Although I recognized her desire for quality and excellence in this moniker, it was never an acceptable name for me. I detested hearing it, and I distrusted people who used it to describe her. The name confused her strengths for toughness, and Debbie was never hard. In some ways Debbie reminded me of my beloved Tia Totis, my mother’s closest sister (see Forever Young). Totis was elegant and smart, strong and demanding, and charming and funny. Debbie was all of these things too, but while Totis was tough enough to weather family difficulties and tragedies, Debbie was vulnerable. In the questions she asked me, or the advice she sought from me, when I joined her in kitchen conversations, helping to prepare drinks, appetizers, and hors d’oeuvres for parties or family events, Debbie betrayed a depth of doubts and insecurities I could never fathom. I can only imagine that these long hidden vulnerabilities only grew and expanded with time, as her children became more independent, left home for colleges and jobs, and married and moved away. What became noticeable was that Debbie stopped showing up. She missed Prisa’s games, Toñito’s performances, and family events. After a while, Debbie’s presence was the exception rather than the rule.


The last time I saw Debbie was at her parent’s 60^th Wedding Anniversary party. She was elegantly dressed and coiffed, but despite the heavy makeup, she looked tired, drained, and weary. Kathy and her sisters were worried, and attempted making contact with her later, but Debbie continued drifting farther and farther away. On Tuesday, June 17, 2003, in the only notations in my office notebook for that day, I wrote:

• Call LAUSD @ 866-633-8110


• Take car for service


• Talked to Kathy – Debbie found dead @ home.

All written records of the events that followed were absent from my journals and notebooks.


My memories of June 17, and the days that followed, up to the funeral and burial, are a blur. The happiest moments occurred on Friday night, when Debbie’s 7 younger siblings met at our home for their private version of a Sibling’s Wake. Laughs were shared, family photographs were examined and commented on, and stories were told of Debbie and the Greaney family. Through the prism of eight pair of eyes, and the reflections of eight minds, a spectrum of scenes and images of Debbie emerged which were able to bring her back to life for one more evening – one more party, one more feast. The tears came in private, at the funeral, and at the burial. The only photographs I took were at the Sibling Wake and during the reception after the burial. Greg’s three boys escaped the somber and morose atmosphere of the reception and started a spontaneous volleyball game on the country club lawn. It was an idyllic scene of children at play during a time of grief and sadness. It would have brought a tender smile to Debbie’s lovely face.



After those gloomy final days of June, and the end of that awful school year, life resumed in the family and at school. Things began happening, and changes occurred over the summer that promised of new beginnings. A colorful wall mural was completed in the school quad, depicting the fulfillment of youthful dreams emerging from the spiritual and cultural diversity of Los Angeles. A labyrinth, modeled on the one in the Cathedral of Chartres in France was also constructed in the quad. Although interpretations of its function and symbolism varied among faculty and staff members, I liked to think of it as an instrument depicting the human journey through life; a path in which each step should be a timeless moment to be experienced, enjoyed and cherished. Eight young and enthusiastic new teachers were hired, and their melding into the renewed school energy of the veteran staff promised for an exciting year. It was also the summer that Kathy, Prisa, and I traveled to Chicago to watch Debbie’s son Jeff perform in Stephen Sondheim’s pre-Broadway production of the musical Bounce at the Goodman Theatre. It was a joyous chance to experience Chicago, watch Jeff participate in the career Debbie promoted and supported for her son, and visit with Jeff and Lynn’s two girls at Northwestern University. Finally, at the beginning of the new school year, the scores of the California Academic Performance Index were released for all public schools. The students and staff of Shangri-la Middle School had raised its combined score by 45 points, marking the greatest academic gain of all other middle schools in District.



It’s taken me eleven years to overcome my denial of Debbie’s deteriorating illnesses, the shock of her sudden death, and my fears of writing about it. I wanted to remember her the way she was when she soothed my fears in the maternity ward of St. Joe’s. The way she greeted me, radiant and luminous, at the CIMA (Catholics In Media Awards) banquets she organized and hosted. The way she chatted with me wistfully in her kitchen, chopping carrots and celery, and spreading plates of shrimp cocktails before a party at her home. The way she always showed up at family events and important occasions. Those scenes and images were glimpses into the soul and essence of my sister-in-law Debbie, and that essence has never waned or evaporated. I see Debbie in her roses that continue to bloom, year after year, in Kathy’s garden. I see her in her children, Jeff, Christy, and Alicia, and their children. Debbie is with me still, and will always be a part of my life, and the lives of my children. She will be a part of our lives until we join her in the next.

Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions.
I keep my visions to myself.
It’s only me who wants to wrap around your dreams,
And have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness like a heartbeat, drives you mad.
In the stillness of remembering
What you had, and what you lost,
And what you had, oh what you lost!

Thunder only happens when it’s raining.
Players only love you when they’re playing.
Women, they will come and they will go.
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know.
You will know.
(Dreams: Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks – 1977

I had a dream of sorts on the morning of March 26^th that literally scared me awake. It was like being in the final round of a quiz show on death and nothingness, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with a series of questions about what happens after death. I was totally unprepared and I panicked, waking myself up.
“Do I suddenly go up in smoke,” I was left wondering, “like a snuffed-out candle flame? Do I remain conscious and aware, like a mind in a coma? Is death an instant state of now-ness, in which my consciousness is finally freed from its physical shell, past attachments, and fading memories?”
Yet, even in the midst of this fearful quizzing, I knew that these worries were no strangers to me. I had been to that questioning dream-place before.


I had another dream about death many, many, years ago, when I was going to college and living at home with my mom and dad. I must have been 18 or 19 years old at the time, and slept in a large back bedroom with my brothers, Arthur, Eddie, and Alex. My dream started with the sensation of floating. In the dream my body was weightless and buoyant. I remember soaring around my house and neighborhood, and then gliding over the Marina del Rey Harbor and along the Santa Monica Bay coast. At some point it occurred to me that I could probably fly to heaven and seek out God. How and why this absurd notion popped into my head is no longer clear. All I remember was thinking that it was a great idea. I’d developed considerable skill and dexterity in my flying ability and I was confident I could do it. I would find God! Then the first of a series of paradoxical maneuvers commenced. Instead of taking off straight into the heavens like a rocket, I went flying across the country instead, passing deserts, mountains, rivers and cities. I traveled eastward, toward the darkening sky, away from the sinking sun at my back. Soon only pinpoints of light were visible in the stygian blackness below. Suddenly my direction changed again, and I was plunging downward toward the center of darkness. I wasn’t falling, nor was I out of control; I simply dove downward, knowing it was the right way to go. But I never struck bottom. I kept spiraling lower and lower, until I sensed a change in my surroundings. I was now flying inward! A sense of peace and euphoria flooded over me as I suspected that my quest was reaching its climax. I was close. I would see it soon – Paradise, and the Beatific Vision of God. Then, Bam! I stopped – frozen in time, movement, and space. I had penetrated an invisible barrier of some kind, and slipped through a transparent membrane of darkness. There I found – Nothing! I was motionless in a Void – floating in a cold, shivering space of emptiness, with no light, no sound, and no sense of up or down. I had never felt such a panic of loneliness before. I was utterly and desperately alone.
“I’m dead”, I sobbed aloud, feeling the bitter dream tears coursing down my cheeks. “I’m dead and there’s nothing here.”




That’s when I woke up, touching my face for traces of tears, and looking around at the sleeping shapes of my brothers to see if my cries of despair had awakened them. All was silent and dark, with just a hint of redeeming daylight cracking through the window curtain. I never spoke of that dream to anyone, pushing it aside as Scrooge did in A Christmas Carol, calling his first nightly visitor “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese.” But the truth was I never forgot it. That dream remained, in the darkest recesses of my memory, assuming a Cheshire cat position there, and stalking me with a mocking, crescent grin.





Actually, this most recent twilight experience, which called up memories of that college dream, wasn’t a dream at all. In that Netherworld between consciousness and slumber, a flood of morbid questions just erupted in my head.
“Where will I go when I die? What will happen when my body stops functioning, and my breathing stops, and my heart comes to a halt? What will be left? Will the consciousness I experience when dreaming take over? How will it know what to do?”
Can you blame me for wanting to wake up? What else could I do with all those questions buzzing over me like a plague of locust? I needed to escape and analyze this dream. I had to figure out where it came from and what was the meaning for all of those questions.



At first it occurred to me that these ideas of death and dying were in my head because of the essay I had just written about my Great-aunt, Tia Petrita, and her generation of Mexican immigrants who settled in Los Angeles in the 1920’s. Resurrecting memories and images of Tia Petrita, Tia Ernestina, and my Great-grandmothers, Granny and Mima Rosi, had stirred thoughts of their funerals, and must have also unconsciously provoked some anxieties about death and dying. Funny, though, I always thought death was nothing to fear. I’d grown too comfortable rationalizing that death was merely a natural progression of our living experience. Blues songs described it all the time. We are born, and experience love, wonder, and joy as children; then suffer and mature as adults, struggling to raise a family; and finally, grow old and die. It’s the Circle of Life, the drama of living, the gift we were given by God. Being in close contact with a new life like my 2 year-old granddaughter Sarah has only confirmed its blessing, and given testimony to the wonders of childhood. At the other end of the spectrum are my mother and father-in-law, the Doctor. My mom will be turning 89 this year, and my wife’s father 94. They both provide an interesting preview of life’s Third Act, especially since they seem to approach it so differently.




My mother is still relatively active and vital (using an exercise chair and walking, unassisted, on a daily basis to the end of the block and back), and no longer agonizes over her inability to manage and maintain a household. She was a stay-at-home housewife for 23 years, raising a family of 6 children, until my father died in 1971. As a widow, she evolved into the full-time Bilingual Religious Education Coordinator of her parish church until she retired in 2002. She lives with my sister, Estela, a retired elementary school teacher, in our family home in Venice, California. Although she regularly bemoans her declining faculties, she doesn’t obsess too much over their loss and her disabilities. She’s slowly losing her sight, hearing, balance, appetite, and strength. She finds it difficult to recall recent events, and the ones that do stick in her mind (presidential elections and the new pope), are mentioned over, and over, and over again. Her greatest fear is falling and precipitating a cascading series of medical treatments that would lead to long-term hospitalization. Yet she doesn’t seem to fear death. In fact, she often gives the impression that she would welcome it, as long as it did not burden her family. She’s thankful for her Catholic faith, and her staunch belief in the promise of Eternal Life with God. This is her Next Stage – the place where she will reunite with her deceased husband, her sisters, mother, and grandmother. On the other hand, I believe that the Doctor is deathly afraid of possible oblivion at the end of his life.




(Disclosure Alert: In speculating about my father-in-law’s views on aging and death, I enter, as my wife would point out, highly questionable territory. Therefore, let me try limiting myself to just pointing out the ways I believe he is different from my mom, beginning with the fact that he is 5 years older).

When my mother turned 85, she agreed to take the anti-anxiety medication that her children and doctor recommended for treating her fears, her insomnia, and her excessive worrying over problems (real and imagined) that she was no longer capable of handling. By doing so, I think she finally resigned from the role of being the custodial parent responsible for family, children, home, finances, and emergencies. In short, she gave over control and allowed herself to be advised and cared for in her old age, primarily by her two daughters (who thankfully assumed the lions share of duties), and peripherally by her three married sons. In contrast to this situation, I still introduce The Doctor as a retired General Surgeon, forgetting that he hasn’t practiced medicine (especially surgery) for over 20 years. He’s sharp as a tack and has never given up control of his patriarchal domain, or agreed to take any form of anti-depressant medication. He has lived alone since the death of his wife, Mary, in 2006, and refuses to employ a full time housekeeper or cook. He maintains the part-time help that Mary originally hired long ago, and sees to his own needs by attempting to manipulate the timetables and actions of his 7 daughters (one of whom lives in Washington D.C.). The six local sisters juggle a schedule that involves daily visits and phone calls, grocery and shopping visits, and trying to keep tabs on his physical, medical, and mental wellbeing. The Doctor also has neighbors and friends who drop by to visit, bring food, and occasionally drive him to his golf club for lunch. He finally stopped driving himself at the age of 92. As opposed to my mother, however, a conversation with the Doctor continues to be a fully interactive and dynamic experience.




I still harbor the suspicion that the Doctor carefully prepares a list of talking points whenever I visit him, because he always seems to have a new series of timely topics to discuss. He’ll mention sports and current events, and always takes care to avoid the political issues over which we might disagree (of which there are many). Although he gets a little miffed if I wander away from his agenda, by interjecting new subjects, he still astounds me with his ability to follow along and snatch arcane bits of information out of thin air. On one occasion when discussing sports over lunch, I struggled to recall the name of the redheaded, freshman quarterback at USC, who was known as a scientifically engineered and trained athlete.
“Oh,” the Doctor interjected, quickly. “You mean Todd Marinovich!”
“Yes,” I exclaimed with a laugh, trying to cover up my amazement.
However, despite this mental acumen, he continues one annoying tendency that, thankfully, my mother abandoned when her medication began. If I find him in a particularly depressed, or self-pitying mood, he will begin expressing regrets that at first sound like an inventory of personal shortcomings, but soon turn into a list of complaints about other people. He might begin by expressing teary regrets at not having been a better husband to Mary, or a better father to his two sons. Then his direction changes to complaining about his grandchildren never calling or visiting him, and how he rarely sees his great-grandchildren. Silence has been my usual response to this guilt-generating ploy, unless my patience wears thin and I retort that I never found nagging or whining to be effective parenting tools for changing behaviors in children or adults.




The Doctor and I rarely mention religion and never speak of death. He is a Jesuit-trained, World War II era, Irish-American Catholic who followed the outward dictates and rituals of the Church, and counted many priests among his friends. However, he never talked about the spiritual aspect of our faith or the radical gospels of Jesus Christ. He seemed more comfortable with the Cold War mentality before Vatican II, when the Church preached that if the rites, rules, and dogma were practiced, Catholics were guaranteed the Kingdom of God. As opposed to my mother who relished learning and discussing the new Liturgy, Liberation Theology, and the Social Justice issues that percolated in the Church in the 1960’s and 70’s, these concepts had no relevance for the Doctor. While I suspected that he took the precaution of creating a will with his financial consultant, I doubted he had taken the time or trouble to itemize his funeral, reception, and burial desires the way my mom had. She stipulated the priest and deacon she wished to officiate the funeral and burial. She selected the readings and music, and chose the venues for the funeral and reception. This was the only area where vestiges of my mother’s need for control still manifested itself publically. I don’t think the Doctor had spelled out anything about his death, depending, I suppose, on the collective memory of his children to sort out his verbalized preferences and opinions about his funeral and burial. I always assumed that I leaned more toward my mother’s attitude toward death than the Doctor’s. But this latest dream-state episode about death and dying had unsettled me to the point that I was no longer sure.



I was particularly puzzled that the dream of a 18-year old youth would reappear in a new form to a 65 year old man. It’s as if my unconscious, which first raised the question years ago, had returned to me in a dream to find out what I had learned of death.
Unconscious: “Tony, I’m coming to you again in the form of a dream. You’ve spent 46 years learning, loving, suffering, and living. So now tell me, what have you learned about life and death? What happens to you when you die?”
Tony: “Oh my God, you know what? I’m not sure! Over all, 65 years of living has been fantastic! Meeting, loving, and being with family, wife, children, and friends have been great. Paradoxically, the times of greatest learning came during periods of trials and suffering. Those were also the times when I felt most alive! I sought answers through formal education, job experiences, and spiritual training. Besides receiving solid Catholic elementary and high school instruction, I also received a great public university education. I independently studied all the religions, and searched for spiritual guides and training. Those were the times of deepest prayer and meditation when I experienced my closest connection with God. But I can’t tell you what I know about death, or what will happen to my soul and unconscious when I die.”
I was stumped for answers, so I let the matter simmer, until March 31.





I figure that of the, more or less, 62 Easter Sunday masses that I’ve attended in my life, I’ve only reflected on the true significance of that day on a handful of occasions. The religious importance of celebrations like Christmas and Easter are too often lost in the glitter and glamour of the commercialization that surrounds them. It occurred to me, though, as I sat waiting for the 1 o’clock mass to begin at Our Lady of Valley Church, that the key to my questions about death might be rediscovered there on Easter Sunday. However, when Kathleen pointed out who the celebrant was to be, I despaired and quickly started reading ahead. You see, Father Jeff says a speedy mass, but he can be a little too spare in his homily content.


The Collect went straight to the point about the significance of the day:
“Oh God,” the prayer began, “who on this day, through your Only begotten Son, have conquered death and unlocked for us the path to eternity, grant we pray, that we who keep the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit, rise up in the light of life. Amen.”
This was followed by the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 10:34a, 37-43), where Peter explained,
“… How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses… who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
The Gospel was a short selection from John (20:1-9), in which he recounted the story of Easter morning, when, after being notified by Mary of Magdala that the tomb was empty, he and Peter ran to the tomb, which Peter entered. Then,
“The other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”


As I feared, Father Jeff failed to expound on the readings of the day, or how Christ’s Resurrection is the central tenet to our Christian faith. Instead of joyously proclaiming, “Christ is risen! Alleluia!” and explaining the significance of the Resurrection, he joked about giving us a 20-minute Easter Sunday sermon, or a quick homily. His short talk consisted of a plea to apply Christ’s love and patience to difficult people and situations in our daily lives. His example was when he was recently informed by the pastor that the third priest at the church had been reassigned elsewhere, resulting in his having to shoulder more pastoral duties. He characterized this doleful news, as “one of the many bumps in the road that we have to accept and live with.” Somehow, Father Jeff’s personal problems didn’t quite measure up to Christ’s trials during his Passion, and using the Resurrection as an example of overcoming occupational hardships seemed childish. But rather than sulking over this missed opportunity, I let the readings and the continuing liturgy of the mass settle over me, as I mused over two questions. What do I really know of death? I wondered, again. And what does my Church and faith tell me about it?


I vaguely recalled two tenets of death that Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross cited in her book, On Death and Dying: 1) “… in our unconscious, death is never possible in regard to ourselves. It is inconceivable for our unconscious to image an actual ending of our own life here on earth, and if this life of ours has to end, the ending is always attributed to a malicious intervention from the outside by someone else. In simple terms, in our unconscious mind we can only be killed; it is inconceivable to die of a natural cause or of old age; and 2) Death is still a fearful, frightening happening, and the fear of death is a universal fear even if we think we have mastered it on many levels.” Slowly, the creeping suspicion returned that although I might be different from my medically trained father-in-law, the 94-year old Doctor, in my unconscious denial of death, I still shared his fear of dying and not being prepared for it.




Father Jeff interrupted this train of thought by asking the congregation to rise, explaining that on Easter Sunday we would renew our Baptismal Promises, instead of the usual recital of the Nicene Creed, or Profession of Faith. These are the vows made by adult Godparents on behalf of the infants being baptized in the Catholic faith. I have spoken these promises on numerous occasions for countless nieces, nephews, and cousins. They were made at the baptisms of our own children, Tony and Teresa, and at the ceremony for my granddaughter in 2010. As a cradle-Catholic, I take too much of my Church and the Catholic faith for granted. Over time all cyclical religious events, rites, and rituals become routine, trivial, and mundane. Promises made for us at baptisms are soon forgotten, and prayers said at mass become automatically recited sounds without substance or meaning. The Creed is an essential prayer. It’s like a Mission Statement that embodies the important principles of our Catholic Faith. How much belief and practice do I actually put in the statements of my faith in the Nicene Creed? I wondered. I’ve said the words of the prayer thousands of time, but on this Easter day those principles were stated as questions which required my thoughtful consideration and response:




Do you renounce Satan?
I do!
Do you renounce sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
I do!
Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
I do!
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered death and was buried, rose again from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
I do!
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
I do!

Two years ago I wrote an essay on aging and death called, When I’m 64. In it I struggled to link three disparate ideas; my age, which coincided with the Beatles’ song, my father’s death at 50 years of age, and my quickly growing granddaughter, Sarah Kathleen. I found the key to my immediate dilemma in a Pastoral Letter by my friend, the former Archbishop of San Francisco, Rev. George Niederauer. In the letter written after a 2011 bypass surgery and a difficult recuperation, he reflected on five lines of a poem by the 17^th-century Anglican clergyman, John Donne, called Hymn To God, my God, in my Sickness:

Since I am coming to that holy room
Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.


On re-reading George’s letter, I found two reassuring ideas of death and transition that were not obvious in my Easter experience:

“What a lovely image,” Archbishop Niederauer wrote of Donne’s metaphors, “to connect our life here on earth with eternal life! Donne is not gloomy or saccharine or vague. Our life here is a practice session, a rehearsal, if you will, and we prepare for eternal life by living the life of Christ together here and now. We ‘think here before’ about our loving God and our relationship with him, and we ‘tune the instrument’ of living this life here so that it is in harmony with what Christ teaches us in the Gospel in our life together as Church. As I prayed about these lines of Donne, I realized that the rest of my life, long or short, is for tuning and thinking, and, of course, daily practice and rehearsal.”


“We get heaven wrong,” he concluded, “because we spend much of our life here as consumers, so we assume that we will be consumers in eternity. If God brings us to heaven then it is up to him to entertain us and make us happy always. But look at what Donne says: We are not going to an eternal concert where we will listen to God’s music, just as we go to an all-Beethoven or Greatest Broadway Hits concert here. Instead, we become one with God’s music, the profound and eternal music of creation, redemption, and holiness. We will not be God’s houseguests. We will be one with him in love. Of course this is a deep mystery, and there are no floor plans or previews of coming attractions available. Still, Jesus did tell a crucified criminal, ‘This day you will be with me in paradise’, and St. Paul, citing Isaiah says, ‘What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him’ (1Corinthians 2:9). Finally, St. John tells us: ‘Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’ (1John 3:2). That’s more than enough to get me to ‘think here before’ and to ‘tune the instrument here at the door.”




Not only did George’s letter clearly restate the Easter promise of resurrection and eternal life with God, but it also provided the needed metaphors to help me understand my doubts and fears. Strange, isn’t it, how some metaphors get to the point better than concrete explanations or definitions? Metaphors are the language of poets and mystics when describing the abstract, or the unexplainable. How else can one express the divine, the eternal, love, and God? We can’t, so we describe something else; an object, an action, or an idea, that conveys a similar feeling or emotion. A metaphor, as a Buddhist would say, is “the finger pointing to the moon”. They are the words and expressions that approximate the mysteries of the eternal and divine.


Thinking back on my two dreams, I saw that one emotion dominated both -- loneliness and death. I felt isolated and alone as a young college student, embarking on the long and winding road of adulthood, even when surrounded by brothers, sisters, parents, and friends. I again felt solitary and alone as an aging 65-year old man, witnessing the rapid weakening and deterioration of my mother and father-in-law, even when surrounded by my wife, adult children, family, and friends. We come into this world alone. We face our interior challenges, doubts, and fears alone. And we will grow old and die alone.


Dr. Kubler-Ross quoted Michel de Montaigne as saying, “Death is just a moment when dying ends.” She emphasized the need for preparing ourselves for aging and dying. I believe this preparation means more that just discussing it aloud with family and friends, and planning our wills, funerals, and burials. I think she also meant preparing for what happens next, visualizing the next phase – planning for when we become spirits. As a Catholic I’m taught to believe that this consciousness is my soul, a spirit created in the likeness of God. I believe this, and have faith in it. However, I also realize that I have become very disconnected from this soul, this consciousness, this me that is my real self. I’ve treated it like a visiting aunt or uncle who drops by occasionally to help me write, jog, cycle, or meditate. I don’t think death is untimely for the people who die. It’s untimely for the living; the people left behind after someone else’s death. Survivors often feel abandoned by the deceased, who they miss and long for. My dreams hinted at the possibility that as our bodies age and begin to fail, the soul, or unconscious, becomes uneasy, and more aware of its fears of pending death.




I now believe I was actually on the right track with my first impulsive response above to my Unconscious. Death is a certainty, but what happens next is Mystery. Every religion, and all the saints, bodhisattvas, gurus, and mystics struggle at describing the unimaginable. Once, I studied their lives, writings, and sayings, and I practiced prayer and meditation. But I stopped. I stopped investigating Buddhism and Hinduism. I stopped reading the books, listening to the audio tapes, and viewing the videos of Anthony de Mello, Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, and the medieval saints and mystics, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and Miester Eckhart. I shelved the mystical book, The Cloud of Unknowing, and closed that chapter of my life. I stopped these practices because I had finally come to a point in my life when I felt loved, satisfied, and happy. I was smug in the belief that I had faced the challenges and struggles of adulthood, leadership, and success, and overcome my loneliness and fears of failure. So I replaced prayers with my journals and jogging, and writing substituted for meditation. Then I turned 65 and my dreams returned.




I welcome George’s images of our life here on earth as a practice session, a musical rehearsal for the next stage, when we will die and become one with God’s music. It’s a more elegant and poetic way of saying “I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the body, and life everlasting”. That concise statement acknowledges death and resurrection, but implies that we will be instantly changed from conscious mind to enlightened soul. My dreams aren’t quite sold on the idea that the transition from mind to spirit will happen that fast, and I don’t think it can be taken for granted. I love life; I treasure the people I love; and I would be loath to give them up. I anticipate that death would be a difficult transition for me, unless I am better prepared. I also believe that at the moment of death, the soul remains – somewhere, for a time. I can’t guess how long this period of transition lasts. The Buddhist Tibetan Book of the Dead claims that this period of adjustment lasts from two to five days, or until the spirit sorts itself out in one of six realms. Like Dr. Kubler-Ross’ “preparations for death”, and John Donne’s “tuning the instrument at the door”, and “thinking” before entering, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to be ready for what happens next. We need to welcome death as a friend, and visualize the next phase – anticipating the moment we become spirits. I think my mom is doing this, in her fashion, and I hope that the Doctor will begin soon. As for me, I need to reopen my spiritual library, and resume my unfinished studies. I need to get back to the practice of meditation, reading, reflection, and prayer. I think this will quiet my dreams and get me back to “tuning my instrument”, and “thinking”, in metaphorical terms, about the unfinished journey that leads “to that holy room” where I “shall be made Thy music”.