A Tribute to my Father

When I was five years old my mother divorced and married her soul mate – if there is something like that – my stepfather. Who knew that he was going to make such an impact on me? My natural father was an angry and bitter man who exhibited daily fits of rage. Not Les, Les was a kind soul that was genuinely happy, loved being around a lot of people, and always had something memorable to say or do. Here begins the tribute to this man. As I write this Les is in Hospice care with only days left to live.

The first week my mother and stepfather were married we moved into the projects (slum), not having that much money to live on. At this time, he sat me down and said since I already had a father, so how’s about us being best friends. Well, that didn’t happen at all. What happened was he became my father.

You learn a lot as a child, not by what your parents say, but what they do. My father took under his wing a friend of mine who was being abused, in an effort to show him fathers were also kind. This friend is having a difficult time with my father transitioning because to him, Les was also his father.

My stepfather grew up in an orphanage after his father died of pneumonia when he was five years old. Suddenly he was thrust into a place with hundreds of children. Perhaps that was why he was so comfortable in a crowd. I remember seeing him sitting across the street from our house when we moved to an exclusive part of Los Angeles and just gawking at it. He was poor as a child, poor when first married, but worked hard as an adult and when both of my parents began to do well, they bought a house in Cheviot Hills and we referred to ourselves as the Cheviot Hillbillies.

Pool parties, ping pong, my mother selling Tupperware. Mine was the house that everybody congregated to. There was always a barbeque, music, and laughter.

We were also trendsetters. My father’s best friend was Black and Gay and my mother was from Japan. People from every ethnicity were always at our home – a sort of Greenwich Village. My father always said that he judges people by their character and not their looks. I think this was what helped me deal with the homeless people I worked with for ten years. I met people exactly where they were and had no judgments. I have in the last week reflected upon just the handouts from my program and all the quotes from my father that are on them.

As close as our family was, it took only moments for that to be blown away with my substance use. What started out with his best friend getting me high and giving me a joint to take home. I tried to give this to my mother and her ranting and raving about how horrible substance use was just turned me cold. This was when I went on a quest to show her what a drug addict would look like. A few years later I went to visit.

Yes, a memorable visit to say the least, but after withstanding more of my mom’s abuse, I walked into my father’s home office and was met with hugs and kisses and praise about how wonderful of a person I was. This shocked me. I hadn’t expected that one bit. I knew I had become a piece of shit and needed to get myself sober and stable, but to him, I was the prodigal son returning back home.

I am hating the fact that this paper will soon come to an end. In writing this, I am keeping him alive in my mind and functional once again. But, for the past ten years, my father wasn’t so stable. His past started to creep up on him and he found himself in a deep depression and not wanting to leave. He had lost his purpose. He was no longer working and entertaining a lot of people coming into my parent’s shop. Suddenly stuck at home the issues he ignored from his past were coming up to the surface, sending him into a dark depression. What he failed to address in counseling was all the abuse he had suffered at the orphanage and possibly the horror he went through at the end of WWII in Japan. My father was always an advocate of positive thinking and often handed out the book: “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” to strangers. He tried to be positive, but when I talked to him about the importance of addressing his emotions, he fought it. In therapy, he only wanted to rant about politics instead. After numerous suicide attempts, claiming that he was ready to go, and I am sure he’s losing his hearing and vision played a huge part in it, he stopped caring for himself and fell into a dark psychosis.

With people living so long, for him he is pushing 92 in a few weeks, mental health issues are the most important. I feel spiritually that the energy we have when we go will thrust us forward in our soul’s evolution.

My father did one heroic duty a year ago when he told off a person in our family that had been floundering and blaming others for his state. He lectured them on finding their own solutions but matched the harshness of the message giver. Our family had said the same thing to them but not this way and it was eye-opening to this person who always saw grandpa as fun-loving as a stern lecturer – taking them aback.  

I focus on what is going on right now with him. Currently, he is in Hospice care in San Diego and being sedated. Only a shell with labored breathing remains. Here am I in Everett awaiting to be cleared from Covid protocols in order to see him and the rest of my family. As for me, it has been two weeks of dealing with his demise from afar while I try to take care of myself and I am starting to feel like my old self once again.

I called the other day and my sister held the phone to his ear. I didn’t know what to say. I also think that we had said it all anyway. I eventually told him that he was the greatest father anyone could ever have, that I loved him with all my heart, learned compassion, and how to truly care about others from him. What else was there to say? Except I would miss him.

I had one other person in my family pass that was as connected to me as my father and that was grandma. She was flamboyant, her own person, and did things just from the shock value of it. With Grandma, there was never a dull moment. How I pray they will soon be together in Heaven and having an absolute ball!

Compassionate Care is Always Available

There are many more tools and strategies you can use in your pursuit of happiness. Here is where we come in. Contact us at Basic Steps Mental Health and let us support and educate you on this journey back to your loving heart center. Imagine living a heart-centered life, regardless of what is happening externally. We’d love to be of help.

For 25 years, Dr. Scott Alpert, the clinical director of Basic Steps Mental Health, has treated over 7,000 people with mental health and addiction problems, using a Psychological approach that mixes and matches ten of the top approaches used in the industry.  We are here virtually and in person to help you get through this COVID-19 pandemic and many other difficulties you may be experiencing.

May you have good mental health.