A Death in the Family/My Life as a Vampire

My father died yesterday. At the risk of seeming profane, he was one tough SOB. He knew how to live. At dying he was not so good.
When I was a kid, my old man scared me. Later, as a teen, I reacted to the mere mention of him with instant tears and incredible rage. I never really knew him. I spent little time with him. In truth, I never really got a handle on our relationship. I never felt anger, just hurt.
One on one time with my father came at a premium. Family and friends found themselves welcome in his house always. But my father was no host. He might send you on the roof to slap some asphalt patch around the vents during a visit, or fall asleep in his chair, or go fishing all night. He never understood how to talk serious stuff. He could lecture, but talk back and forth, no. It wasn't his forte.
For a few years, we chatted on the phone. But it never amounted to much. I suspect slights, both real and imagined, came between us. But again, he was one tough guy.
I never knew a lot of what I found out this weekend. That my Grandfather and Grandmother Criscenti could be violent with my father never crossed my mind. But I did wonder why he carried such anger with him. The grandparents always treated me with love and care. The most violence my grandfather ever subjected me to was a switch of the flyswatter while sitting at the dinner table. But my father suffered a lot for his boyishness. He fought his way back and forth to school. He fought in high school no doubt. He fought as a man, and holding him back as an old man was a chore. I'm sure he never understood his anger. Maybe he never even realized it. This man worked as a tuna fisherman, a carpenter, and in a prison. Tough.
Yet, this weekend I found out he had taken a puppy from a litter all the way to UC Davis to repair a deformed paw. My cousin Dominic spent weeks with him while he died, taking care of him, and helping out Sandy, my father's wife. How could this be?
What kind of man was this that could engender so much fear, and so much love? Dominque, his youngest daughter, battled her own impending loss to comfort the old man. His children came to comfort him. His neices and nephews and grandchildren and great-grandchildren came. His brothers, and sisters-in-law came and watched him as he fought death. At first, I didn't understand the whole process.
I sat in his room, while he lay there, suffering and unable to speak, and I didn't know what to say. I avoided more than some comforting gestures. I didn't know how to send him off. I didn't know this man.
I spoke at night with Dominic and Dominque's husband about my lack of understanding. I tried to comfort other people, but felt no comfort myself. I was still hurt about my relationship with my father. I knew how wrong it seemed to feel this way, but nonetheless, I couldn't shake it. I'd been understanding my grief about what had happened to me as a child, but had never come to terms with it.
A bell went off in my head early on the morning of the day he died. How dare I feel sorry for myself while another human fought his death so valiantly. How dare I! This death wasn't about me. That we never came to an understanding about our estrangement seemed as much my fault as his. Even once was I ever honest with him? Did I ever tell him how it hurt me that I felt abandoned? Did I ever tell him how my children felt about not seeing him? I never did.
I felt so different from him. He hunted and fished. While I fished a little, I never hunted, and I wore my feelings on my sleeve. I wrote poetry. I ran away from my mother. I got in trouble sometimes, and became a hippy and never finished college. I broke more things than I ever had repaired. I couldn't fix a car, or properly pound a nail, or hunt down a buck for meat. I felt like a disappointment. Never could I ever be the boy he wanted. And it hurt me incredibly--this real or imagined disappointment.
For years I have been asleep. I fought depression, pain, and this angst that should have disappeared 40 years ago. I sucked the blood out of every relationship I ever had. I was a shit husband, a distraced father, and family ties scared me. I felt like a disappointment as husband, father, son, brother.
I know how much this seems like whining. That is who I was until yesterday.
I whispered my goodbyes to my father. I told him we were square. We were okay. How we both could have worked harder at it, but no worries, go in peace.
Leave it to the old man to hand out a lesson so late in the game. All these years wasted, and he finally taught me how to be a man.
I wish it could have been different.
God Bless you Dad.
Go in peace.
Happy Trails.

The Gates of Hell--Low fares on Expedia

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

I don't think much about hell. Perhaps I should. If Dante's conception of sins and sinners are any guide, then I am surely doomed to dwell in hell forever after. Dante's list of offenses is long. He often put his enemies in one of his nine circles. It's been awhile since I read The Inferno, but from what I remember, Dante sent a lot of folks to eternal damnation for some fairly small missteps. Ah well.

Even Jesus went to Purgatory. How can I have any chance of robes and harps and a cute little cherubic bottom when Jesus had to go to this waiting room before He got entrance into heaven?

Nonetheless, maybe I got a chance. Virgil, who didn't go to hell (nor heaven), didn't have Jesus to believe in. Virgil is Dante's tour guide in Hell. At least he's not buried up to his neck in molten rock. ("On your left is the resting place of the soul of Barry Manilow.")

Now, according to some folks, heaven is not allowing Jews, Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, nor even those nice Buddhists people. I know for a fact that Hari Krishnas are absolutely banned from heaven due to their years of double-talk at airports.

Dumping important people in hell is an established practice in art and literature. Michelangelo dumped a certain cardinal who annoyed him in hell in his painting at the Sistine Chapel. Some of the characters he painted on the ceiling at the Sistine face away from God and Jesus because, although they were Muses and Prophets, they were born before the time of Jesus, and therefore, banned not only from His beneficence but from heaven as well. They did not believe even if it wasn't their fault.

Know why most of Michelangelo's women at the Sistine Chapel have the bodies of men? Because he used men as models instead of women. Michelangelo was gay. DaVinci too. That leaves them out of heaven according to a lot of people. And if an artist used unclad women as models, well they're lusting, so they're SOL as far as heaven goes too. So much for all those beautiful Madonna's giving a poor sinner a leg up.

Jeez, if you want to go to heaven you got to live like a priest--oh, never mind.

Muslims ban non-believers from heaven. Christians ban Muslims from heaven. You really can't hedge your bets. Pick a side.

Hell is a more recent concept in religion than heaven. Biblical scholars say so. Now Satan was a fallen angel, and Jesus faced demons, as did other people in the Bible. But hell is not exactly spelled out. Where did the demons and Satan come from or go to? If it is such an important place, maybe it should be a little clearer about how one ends up there. Don't tell me about bodies and souls being cast into the burning pits. Diseased bodies were regularly cast into the fires in those times. Thus the references to being cast into the pit.

Look, I worry about a lot of different things, like: what's wrong with me; why do I often disappoint the people I love; do I have enough money; am I too fat; what should I read  next; or what's up with that.

I suffer from insomnia. I lie awake for hours, worrying about not sleeping. I worry about my sloth. I worry about lack of ambition. I wonder about dying. But I don't really worry about hell.

Whether there is a hell or not, I know some folks who should definitely worry about damnation. Perhaps I'm the one being self-righteous, but I never took some old person's last dime to invest in some inappropriate investment. I never condemned a child from the pulpit, or the street corner. I never left my children alone so I could drink at the bar. I never condemned a fig tree for failing to bear fruit--Jesus condemned the fig tree.

I'm not a saint, but I've got other concerns than my salvation. I know, this is such an awful statement for some people, but this is the life we live now. I don't really think a last minute confession, a tithe, an indulgence or a mea culpa gets me off the hook. I'm struggling with this life. I can't worry about everything. If I'm saved, I'm saved. No magic words will get me to heaven. My contribution to Salvation Army or the Red Cross won't smooth the road. Nine hundred years ago, I would have been promised salvation if I fought in the Crusades. A lot of crusaders never made it to the Middle East--they were too busy slaughtering their Jewish neighbors and stealing their possessions to kill Muslims. Oh well, as long as they were killing someone.Think I'll avoid the neighborhood of paradise where those guys are.

"Do you believe in the Hereafter?"

"Sure."

"Then now you know what I'm here after."

Forty-eight Years of Teenaged Angst Is Enough

I admit it. I'm tired of protecting people who failed to protect me. Yes, I'm thinking I've played the "victim" card long enough. I've lost my swagger. I'm too old to keep going back to my childhood and adolescence.

I'm pleased my mother never learned to use the internet. Our last names are different, so I'm going to speak plainly, and if there are hurt feelings, well, too bad.

I swear, every story I tell here is true. Some will make your hair curl. Some are just sad. The only person I still know who ever saw my mom act up in her prime is Jackie Landis (I know it's Jacqueline but you're Jackie to me) and you have to trust me on this Jackie, my mother was on her best behavior that night when she came to retrieve me from the protection of your family.

When I was a kid, my mother dumped me with a lot of different people. This worked in the case of my grandmother and grandfather, but not when I didn't know who the people were at all. My grandmother was never what one could have called warm or loving, but at least she was family. I remember I lived with one family, and to this day I couldn't tell you who they were, any of their names, or how I came to be there. At least I think my mom was at that house a lot of the time.

Now, before anyone starts saying how they knew my mother was no good, I certainly never saw anyone ride to my rescue on a white horse when I was a little kid. At least my mother sort of knew where I was most of the time.

In fifth grade, my mother snookered my fourth grade teacher into watching me while she went to Texas. We lived in Las Vegas, Nevada. My teacher--John, as I was allowed to call him at the studio apartment we lived in, fancied himself a "Mr. Scoutmaster" type. During the summer, he took groups of boys--this would have set off alarms today--on trips to the Northwest in his truck with a camper lid. Yellowstone, Bryce, etc., etc. Anyway, he became my fifth grade teacher at a new school, and every day I went with him to our classroom.

The only really awful thing I remember about this guy was the way he would shake the daylights out of kids in class. He let loose on me a time or two, and it was frightening. So much for shaken-child syndrome. I remember little else of the six months or so I spent in his care. I swear, I blanked it out but I don't think anything sinister took place. Maybe it was that all that shaking.

Now, John liked to sing. He formed a group called the "Boy Rangers,"( I swear) and led us out once or twice a week to sing old standards.

Here were a bunch of kids doing 40's standards out in a parking lot. He told us once that we were supposed to get on the "Ed Sullivan Show" when it came to Vegas one Christmas. It never happened.

John had some problems it turned out. He claimed my mother didn't send the money from Texas each month like she promised. I don't know if that was true. I know he always seemed kind of broke but didn't have anything to show for it. We ate pretty regular anyway, and sometimes on payday, we'd walk down to this fast food joint that sold hamburgers and tacos ten-for-a-dollar. This was 1962 remember. I swear we bought a dollar of each. Now that was a good day. Back to John being broke, it ended up he was a gambler, and not a good one.

This all leads up to the first time I remember being really depressed. One night, John parked somewhere on a side street in downtown Las Vegas while he went gambling. It seemed like I sat there for hours in the dark, and maybe I did. I put my hands around my neck and decided I was going to strangle myself. (I didn't say I was smart.) Eventually John came back to the car, and lo and behold, he had won what seemed like an incredible amount, maybe $250. Next day it was tacos and hamburgers.

About the last month of the school year, my mother came back from Texas. If I told you how her job worked out, you would swear I was fibbing, so I won't. I moved in with my mother. John was on his own. I couldn't have been happier.

Well, John ended up stealing the little black-and-white portable television I had brought from my house while my mother was away. And later, he absconded with all the money he had collected from the parents of another flock of kids he said he was going to take on to Yellowstone.

Nonetheless, it's time I took credit for all the stupid decisions I made as a kid. I got in my share of trouble. I quit college after my first year despite being set up with a job that paid well and was tailored to my hours in class. My mother started to become more meddlesome than I could take. I quit, and was off to San Franciso, leaving college--my hometown--and any friends I still had. I was depressed before I left San Diego. That's a poor excuse though.

Still it all worked out. If I hadn't moved on I never would have met my wife and I wouldn't have my great girls and my fantastic granddaughters and sons-in-law. I've been extremely lucky. I'm not a victim. I struggle, but I am still kicking.

What's the moral? The hell if I know.

"Nobody's Fault But Mine"

Nobody's fault but mine
Trying to save my soul tonight
It's nobody's fault but mine