Month: June 2019

Toward the close of the celebration of life for my friend, Bob, Kahu noted that, when someone you love dies, the time you most notice the loss is when you are in the space that you once shared. That idea—of a shared space now empty except for you—stuck with me.

My father died 21 years ago this past week, one week before Judy and I moved to Hawaii.  Before the last month of his life, I would see him four or five times a year at most. I lived in Sacramento. He lived near San Diego. My job as a head of school often demanded my time on weekends, so the opportunities to see him were limited.

When I did get to San Diego, we would try to play a round of golf or at least go hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. Those were the times I learned what I could about his life and thinking. That was harder than I imagined; he was a very private guy who had endured a lot of hurt in his career.

Our moving to Hawaii would have limited our times together even more, given distance and cost, My chances to find out more about Dad would, correspondingly also lessen.  And he was not much of a conversationalist on the phone.

When he died, those chances became zero. At his memorial service, I quoted someone: “He is no longer where he once was but he is everywhere you are.” That is a beautiful thought that glosses over the idea of the loss of that shared space where I could learn more about the man whose son I am.

My mother died three years ago this summer. Living in Hawaii, in the best of years, I would see her about the same number of times I had been seeing Dad. However, unlike Dad, Mom would talk on the phone as long as I placed the call.  We chatted nearly every week.

Her life after Dad’s death was full: a stint as a Stephen Minister for her church comforting widows like herself; her bear ministry making teddy bears for the pastor to take to members he visited; her nine-year marriage to a man she had not seen for seventy years, nine years filled with joy and laughter; and her involvement in the prayer group at church. Our conversations lasted an hour or longer as she told me details of her life.  Sometimes our chats would edge into philosophizing together.

Those phone calls were not a physical space we shared. I couldn’t really hug her. I could metaphorically, and I looked forward to her reporting on the events of her week. We shared a space on the phone.

When she got e-mail, she sent a daily message, and I answered. We then also shared a space online.

There are no phone lines to heaven, no internet access.  It took some getting used to not to send a morning message to her or hear her sparkling laughter on the phone. My auditory memory, vivid though it might be, is a poor substitute. Our space emptied.

People of a Certain Age, the older we get, the more we are having to come to grips with empty spaces. That’s not a complaint so much as a description of one condition of long life that takes some getting use to.

Growing old takes getting used to, too.  When we entered the church for Bob’s service, I recognized many people from our days on Maui when we attended church there. To be more precise, I saw in the aging faces and hobbled gaits suggestions of how those folks had looked in their younger days, when I had seen them last.

That was no first time experience. On the occasions when I see contemporaries whom I have not seen in a number of years, I take in how they look now as compared to how they looked before. Likely, they do the same thing looking at me.  Seeing our friends from younger days in old age takes some getting used to.

Too many of my friends are fighting serious illness. Many conversations with People of a Certain Age begin with a recap of our current health. Too often I have found myself wishing that I had enjoyed one more visit, heard one more story, shared one more meal with someone now gone.

Consequences of caring; they take some getting used to.

Yet…

Kahu included in Bob’s service these words we read in unison:

“A human life is sacred.

It is sacred in its being born.

It is sacred in its living.

And it is sacred in its dying.

It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.

A fearful thing to love, hope, dream, to be…

To be, and oh! to lose.

For your life has lived in me,

Your laugh has lifted me, Your word was gift to me.

To remember this brings a painful joy!

‘Tis a human thing, love, a holy thing

to love what death has touched.”

The spaces will continue to empty. One day we will all leave a space empty. Already we have borne painful joy.

I’m not sure I ever want to get completely used to it.

Daniel E. White

June 23, 2019

Another friend who has made 80 years often responds to my musings with comments or stories of his own. I regard these responses as gifts, the kind of interaction that binds people together. Others of you have been regular respondents as well, giving me more gifts of little bits of your lives.

My friend suggested that the bi-monthly network About Aging has created could, on occasion, become a shared record of the “unusual or remarkable events in, or aspects of, family histories.” His idea is au courant with the popularity among PBS viewers of “Finding Your Roots” where famous people learn things about their families that surprise and amaze. And, the idea serves as a reminder to People of a Certain Age or any age that, if you delay in finding out family stories, you soon might never be able to find out.

For example, my sister and I heard Dad say on many occasions that, when he was chosen to play Jesus in a local version of a passion play, his life was changed forever. Obviously, we know he played the part. We never asked how it changed his life and why, and we will never know.  The lesson is obvious but learned too late.

Sandee has been friends with a famous actress. Judy attended to Senator Strom Thurmond’s newest wife on the occasion of their visit to the UCR campus as the wife cooed from time to time, “isn’t he just grand?” A famous television actor sat in my office at Webb and asked me to tell him how to raise his son. Such are the kind of tidbits that add a little glitter to our otherwise normal lives.

My friend told me that his mom had tea (not by herself) with Benito Mussolini. His dad chatted regularly with President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference that produced the League of Nations.

His great-grandfather was an attorney who often did legal work for the Hawaiian monarchy, and to him fell the assignment of drafting the Abdication Statement for Queen Lilioukalani. Both Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Bull Halsey attended a cocktail party at Paul’s family home during World War Two. Another partygoer in those days became the Commanding Officer of the Blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Yet another friend in her 80s told me that her dad was instrumental in there being all those coconut palm trees at Ko Olina. Another time, she regaled Judy and me with stories about her relationship to the Ala Moana shopping center in general and a jewelry store-owner therein in particular. Fortunately for her kids and grandkids, she has written about some of the tidbits in her life, like the time she had lunch with Deng Xio Peng.

One of the many wild ideas I have yet to pursue came to me when I was visiting retirement communities to talk about, and then give away copies of, So Help Me God, my book about Presidents. During a Q and A session, the daughter of one of the residents at Plaza Pearl City noted, in an offhand way, that there were sitting in the room volumes of stories that would be great for the families of residents to know.

What a worthwhile project it would be for someone to sit with the elderly and record their stories and then offer the collection of stories to their families!

The woman’s comment reminded me of a time when Judy sent two Webb School seniors to Pilgrim Place, a community for retired ministers, missionaries and other who had spent their lives in full-time Christian service, to record stories for the students’ Senior Projects. The boys recorded stories that focused on the time the missionaries serving on mainland China had to flee the oncoming armies of Mao Tse Tung. The boys went with little enthusiasm. They came back to campus enthralled.

I don’t remember if we thought to share the stories the boys collected with the families of the missionaries. If we didn’t, we missed an opportunity.

Why does it matter that those stories are told? Maybe it doesn’t matter. My life was not greatly affected by a famous actor lamenting in my office. My friend’s brush with World War Two royalty gave him stories to tell but probably not much else. I am sure my friend has no proprietary feelings toward dozens of palm trees.

Yet sometimes it might matter that we take the time to inquire about what is in our own histories. At a minimum, it is possible that something we find out and share might elicit a heretofore-unknown connection to other people. More importantly, for those who want to understand their parents better, asking follow-up questions like why and how can be avenues to discovering what’s in our own history.

Many of us are avid readers of history. Not enough of us are record-keepers of history.

Anyone else care to share “unusual or remarkable events in, or aspects of, your family histories?”

Daniel E. White

June 10, 2019