1976
My fathers celebration of life. This was held in his sister’s home in her large family room. Maybe 30 people including 5 of his brothers and sisters, many cousins and friends. He had lived in the South Bay of LA his entire life. He was 60 years old when he passed. I could not cry, in fact I could not stop smiling at this event. I felt the smile hurting the muscles in my face and did not understand why I could not stop smiling.
Many people had stories about him, I could barely listen. It all sounded like a chicken coop with everybody squawking.
I had only connected with him and his family two years ago. He left me, my sister and Mom when I was 3 years old. My sister was 7. From my sister’s stories he and she were close. I was pretty sure I was an accident and obviously not a welcome son. I would spend the rest of my life looking for a father figure and failing every time for various reasons. Usually the father figures I picked were alcoholics, drug addicts, philanderers or worse sometimes.
So 25 years after he left, I am 28, my sister is 32 and she gets diagnosed with cancer, needs surgery and matching blood. Except neither my mother nor I had the right match of blood. So I broke out the white pages of the phone book and began looking for McCamants, his name and my birth name before I got adopted by my first step father. A half a dozen phone calls later, I found him. I was living in Hollywood and he was in Torrance. He had just been diagnosed with lung cancer so his blood was of no help. We made arrangements to meet at a family gathering.
He met me at the door. We looked alike. We both had blond girlfriends. We both smoked Marlboro Reds, lung cancer notwithstanding, although my box had a rolled joint in it with the smokes. We both brought a bottle of Cutty Sark scotch. And we liked each other. He had been a wanna-be actor, bartender, handyman and boatbuilder in his life. He blamed the fiberglass from the boat building for his cancer. He was the life of the party, could recite great poetry and an avid golfer. We became inseparable for the next two years as his cancer progressed. I got to teach him how to smoke marijuana to ease his chemo symptoms. He taught me how to shoot pool, golf and bartend. We connected with my sister who was fighting her own cancer. She outlived him by 4 years. I was a Roady, a backstage technician for LA rock and roll groups so I treated him to some shows and rehearsals.
After two tours in Viet Nam with the Marine Corps and a smattering of electronics knowledge I got hired for these backstage rock and roll jobs. I do not ever remember saying out loud in the Marine Corps or in rock and roll that I was afraid or I was sad. The last time I remember crying was when I was 11 years old at Moorlight Beach in Encinitas. I got hit by a sting ray that broke an artery and my blood was spurting into the air. The lifeguard said, “Now, now, big boys don’t cry.”
So I stopped crying for a long long time. I had wet the bed until I was 11. I stopped when I started smoking cigarettes. I bit my fingernails to the quick for a long time. And I never ever said I was afraid of my step father. Which I always was. By the time I was 19 I had lived at over 19 addresses and never said I was sad, only angry. I had shut down my emotions at a very young age. At age 28 I knew anger and getting high to feel good. That was pretty much my repertoire of emotional expression.
I was with him a lot during his last two years of life. I took him out for his last car ride. We went to the closed down Marine-Land facility on the Palos Verdes peninsula.
I was also the last one to be with my dad before he died at LA County General Hospital.
Now, at this family’s celebration of life I could not stop smiling. I couldn’t wait to get out of there, get to my car, and smoke a joint.
Fifty years later Patti and I are at the TerraNea Resort on the Palos Verdes Peninsula where Marine-Land used to be. Dad’s ashes were scattered from a boat by the Neptune Society in the Catalina Channel in front of the Peninsula.
I looked over the ocean and said out loud,
“Dad, thank you so much for giving me the gift of looking for a Dad all these years. I have been blessed to be mentored and taught by many different great men. All of them were remarkable and had imperfections and blind spots, just like you.
And just like me.
Jim Dohn
doctordohn.com
