The Way It Was

This next of Dad's writings is especially short, though the entry will not be!

The event which triggered his reverie was my fiftieth birthday, now well over a decade ago. I had decided I wanted to orchestrate a party, at the beach, with people from various parts of my life, then largely the State Bar of California, where I was then working, my college days, and my younger days. I selected a restaurant right by the water, Moonshadows, and booked about five rooms, for myself and those friends who would come into town from the East and from San Francisco, literally right on the beach at the Malibu Beach Inn. 

Among the people I invited, but one who could not attend, was the first woman my father seriously dated, nearly five years after my mother's death in the late 1970s. At the time he was just 60 years old and she was (I guessed, for she has never told me her actual age) about 16 years younger, in her early forties. She was beautiful, a full blooded Greek woman who had managed both career and family, but was then separated from her husband. (She remained separated always, for divorce was not a serious option for her Greek Orthodoxy; she would end up being her "technically" still husband's caregiver at the end of his life for among her qualities was, and is, compassion). She had even attended the same Greek school as had my father, though many years later. She was openly affectionate, and had a boisterous laugh that belied her otherwise quiet charm. And, as my father loved, she was a great dancer. They tore up dance floors in New York, places like the once well established Roseland. If it had been up to me, they would have remained a couple. But it wasn't to be He told he broke up with her because he felt it unfair for someone so young to be placed in danger of having to care for an old man, with a heart condition--dad had his first heart attack at 51, and another, a year or so after they went their separate ways. She would tell me many years later, for I felt a strong need to stay in touch with her, that it had been a mutual decision--the time hadn't been right. I suspect it was also because of her religiously inspired faithfulness even to a separated husband. 

Over the years, any reference Dad made to her was always with fondness, more than fondness. I had invited her, when he turned 80, to come to California and share that milestone with us. She had not been able to come. And again, when I was 50 and Dad was 86, I had invited her but she could not come. Dad pretended that this was as it should be, and that it did not affect him. But of course, it did.

Dad enjoying my party with some of my friends

It just happened that one of my long time friends is also full blooded Greek American and while she did not look exactly like my Dad's former inamorata, I recognized that there was something that was similar about their facial structure. My friend Carol, then approximately the same age as Dad's once love had been some twenty five years before must have looked as Dad remembered her. 

And out of that context, as I now reconstruct it, Dad wrote the following:

What does one do at a party for sixty-three?  Mingle. I mingled. I am well known to most of the invitees.  I enjoyed the hubbub, the handshakes, the hugs--some ceremonial; others more affectionate--the kisses on the cheek.  The clink of glasses and the laughter of my daughter could be heard above the unintelligible hum of many voices speaking at once. It was gay and festive.

A woman came toward me he hands extended and taking mine.  She said her name, but I did not hear it. I was stunned.  She had come after all,I thought. I was silent and unresponsive.  She was still beautiful and surprisingly affectionate considering I had broken off our relationship some twenty-three years ago.  There had been little change after all this time, though I thought she might be a little heavier than I recalled.  She noted my consternation and laughed.

"I'm Carol," she repeated.  She seemed amused. The name penetrated my consciousness and finally, I recovered.  It was not her name, the her of my memory.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but the resemblance was remarkable.

I felt relief, but also regret. It might have been pleasant had she really come, though I probably would have been as awkward as I appeared to Carol.  I realized I would not have been able to maintain the slightest appearance of urbanity.  I needed to explain to Carol. I realized, suddenly, that I was still holding the hands she had extended when we first greeted.  I remembered that she too had been a touching person.

Later, as I mingled once again, I encountered my peripatetic daughter.

"Dad," she asked, "are you ok?"

"Why do you ask?" I responded innocently.

"Well, Carol told me you paled suddenly when you met her.  Are you sure you're ok?"

While Sophia, the object of Dad's wishful mistake, did not come to this party, she did come for a quiet celebration of his 90th birthday, some four years later. By then Dad was ill, and I knew (despite his protestations) that there would be no more chances for a reunion. There was dinner at Madeo, and brunch at the now defunct Mirabelle. It warmed my heart to see Sophia holding Dad's hand as they together walked up the stairs to my church for Mass. He mustered his old charm and as best he could, speaking Italian to the owner of one restaurant, critiquing, sub rosa, the serving of a Bloody Mary in the wrong kind of glass at another. He died three weeks later.

I conclude this entry with a number of photographs from that party which Dad shared with me--he never gave up on trying to get me to tell him how much it all cost; he couldn't fathom I would have a birthday gathering and pay for it.  I realize, and it makes me a little sad, that I have seen very little of many of those who attended over the last years, all people I still have great affection for.  Maybe the time will come for a little reunion. That would be nice. And those I do see regularly, for that I am very grateful. Life is short. It is hard to believe that Dad has been gone over eight years.

Bob P. and Len K.

Diane, Peter, Dane, Adriana and Yvonne

Two Carols, the second is my cousin

Nancy and Maridee

SOME CARDS AND GIFTS, DONATIONS!

Noreen had a star named after me.

Karen, Cyd, Geri Janet and me

Joey, Jim, Mike and Jessie

Mike

Carol, Mike and Me

Ellen, Bob and Len

Geri and Kathy

 Big Donation!

Marc

Another Geri, from Australia and Chris

Me and my pix

Carol, Mike and Me

Bob and Len

Me and Cyd

Cyd and David

Veronica

Jeff and me

Luis and Murray

Dede, Margaret, Jim and Joey

I am a very fortunate person to have or to have had so many wonderful people in my life! Some are gone, and I miss them, but that only makes their importance soar!