I was over at my girlfriend’s house. It was in the afternoon. I had Christian with me. My mother helped me when Christian was born. He was very important to her. They had remodeled their house and taken the fence down around their house down.

This is Atwater, and there are irrigation canals for the farms there. I was helping her put away the groceries and Christian was outside playing on a metal tractor. I just turned around for a minute and Christian was gone.

I went out, calling and calling. I walked towards the barn. In the meantime my girlfriend came out. I told her I was going to check the barn, and she went to check the canal. I heard her say “Oh my god!” I went tearing over there, and there was Christian floating face-down in the canal, swirling around. He was just about to be sucked up into the pipe that fed water into the fields.

I picked him up and I looked at him and I actually thought to myself “This is an accident. This is my way out.”

Then I thought Oh my god, this is my child! I started giving him CPR. I started breathing into him. He was blue; he’d bitten his tongue. This garbage truck went by and the driver stopped to help us. My girlfriend called 911, the ambulance came and we went to the hospital.

Christian was breathing and throwing up water. They wanted to keep him in the hospital in case he got foreign-body pneumonia.

I do believe that somebody gave me that opportunity to make a choice. From that moment on, Christian was the most precious thing in the world to me. He went everywhere with me. If I went to a party, he went with me; he’d just go to sleep on the bed. From that day on I didn’t leave him with my mother every day.

That was the turning point in my entire life. I realize that Christian had been sent to me to change my life. I finally found my place in life…I was his mother! That put me on the right track. It gave me a purpose, it gave me a sense.

I don’t know if I ever sat down and told him this. I don’t know if I wanted to tell him that I was thinking dark thoughts. I was 17; I had never been given a choice. Everything was thrown on me. My mother was wonderful, but my dad was very distraught about me getting pregnant. There was a point when I told them I was pregnant and my father wanted to declare me legally dead. He wanted me to give him my child, and I was to never set foot in their house again.

I was like, “geez dad, can’t we work it out better than that?” For days he wouldn’t eat dinner with me. He just circled around the back yard. He really felt like I’d done this to him.

My Mother Dies Unexpectedly

While I was working at Innovations, my mother unexpectedly passed away.

One day I was talking to her on the phone, and the next day my father called me. It was very weird. Before the phone rang I was laying in bed. Jay was getting ready for work. All of a sudden I had this really unusual burst of energy. I never usually went to work until noon And Jay would go to work at eight. So I didn’t get up until later. I just wasn’t a morning person. But this morning for some reason I had this incredible burst of energy. I jumped out of bed and told Jay I was going to make him breakfast.

If I wasn’t a spiritual person I should be because not five minutes later, I got this phone call from my father. He was crying. He said “I can’t wake your mother up. She won’t wake up I don’t know what’s wrong.”

I asked him if he called 911.

He said “no, I called you first.”

I told him hang up the phone and call 911.

But it was too late. She had died.

They did and an autopsy, and found that she had died of arterial sclerosis. That’s hardening of the arteries. I think it was her English diet, and our family’s predisposition to high cholesterol. She was 67; very young.

She and I had a rocky relationship because I was so rebellious. We were just starting to have a nice relationship. She had invited me to England a couple years before. Usually she visited her family on her own and my Dad would stay and take care of us. But this time she said she didn’t want to go alone and she invited me. So we went not long after Jay and I had gotten married. That trip was a real bonding experience for us. That was the time when she became the child and I became the adult.

I was not used to being an independent person. I was used to being dependent on everyone else. I had never traveled. I came from England to Texas to California, with nothing in between. There was no world travels in my life. I was insecure in this marriage to Jay. Everything was new to me. I now had stepchildren, a husband, a good job, and I had to be a responsible person. I couldn’t be a hippie free spirit person like I used to be in the sixties and seventies. I was still fighting the responsibility. Going to England and seeing where I came from, and spending time with my aunt, and my cousin Sally. She was great. She was really the only one I had a relationship with.

I was 28 when Jay and I got married. I must have been about 32 or 33 when my mother died. I’m not very good with dates.

I went to Atwater to prepare for the funeral, and from that point on…..well, when someone dies it has a big effect on you. It affected me in a way that made me stronger person. I became very self sufficient with better self esteem. I just kind of took over.

After Mom’s Death, Dad Turns Helpless

My dad was worthless; he was so distraught that he couldn’t make any decisions for the funeral. He couldn’t do anything. He didn’t know how to use the washer and dryer. So I went and stayed with him for a while. I did all the arrangements, and I actually spoke at my mother’s funeral. That was very unusual for me. I took speech class in high school and I never got up once because I was petrified to talk in front of people. I could talk in front of people at a party. I could sell people clothes. I could talk to strangers. But when I had to get up in front of people and speak, I couldn’t do it. In school if I were late for class I sat outside of the classroom door. I couldn’t open up the door, walk into the classroom, and have everyone looked at me. I was self-conscious.

It goes back to that time I remember when I was in kindergarten when that blond girl who was so cute… and I felt so ugly. I wasn’t feminine; I was a tomboy. I had short brown hair even then. I’d didn’t have frilly, cute dresses. It was funny; I used to surround myself with beautiful blond girls. I remember guys asking me for the phone numbers of my friends. I was always the tall, skinny, dark haired girl. I wasn’t the California girl.

So my mother’s death was a really, really, huge turning point in my life. That, and the birth of my son Christian, and marrying Jay were huge

After My Mother’s Death, My Father Lives the Wild Life
(And the Secret that Made Him Remorseful)

My father passed away two years ago on my birthday. My father really relied on me to be there for him as my mother had been.

But he also changed a lot when my mother died. He started to drink a lot. He sold everything, including his motor home. My mother had nurtured her backyard garden and he went out and sprayed it with Round Up. He killed everything. We called it the “lunar landscape.” This beautiful garden was now gone. He didn’t want to garden. He said “That was your mother’s thing.” He mowed the lawn that that was it. The plants were history, like my mother.

I had gone there, cleaned the house for him, done his laundry, but the next time I went the whole house was completely destroyed. He had covered the furniture with sheets. It’s like he didn’t want any memory of my mother whatsoever. He had me come back next week and go through all of her stuff and take all her clothes and any indication that she had ever existed in the house. He didn’t want any memory; he just wanted to move on.

He would say things to me like “There’s more to your mother’s death than you know.”

I’d say like what?

He’d say: “I can’t tell you.”

It must have been some big, deep, dark secret. But after talking to my father a few times, it came out that my mother did wake up.

The way their routine was, my dad would make coffee. Then from the coffee machine he used the bathroom outside. His bathroom was the bathroom off of the garage. My mother used the bathroom indoors next to the master bedroom.

What happened was that when she didn’t wake up, she said she didn’t feel so good. He then proceeded with his routine but when he came back to the bedroom he saw that she was dead. He said it looked like she had tried to get out of bed. She had had a massive heart attack. The lady across the street Peggy also saw her. Peggy was nosy neighbor. She came after my father called 911. She saw my mother lying there, and she said that it looked like she had tried to get up or call for help.

I think my father has some guilt about that.

Then my father started dating. He asked me to take him out and buy new clothes, get his hair cut, and spiff him up. Then he went out and bought a brand new car. He made my mother drive this funky old Pontiac forever because he was so tight with money. He would not spend money on anything. If my mother and I went shopping, she would go in, get his attention, and I would sneak in with the bags.

My father’s personality changed completely. To this day I would never have known my father if my mother had not died.

The way our family structure worked was that my mother was the one. When I called once a week to talk, my dad never answered the phone. My mother always answered. I would talk to her then say hi to Dad. I had contact with my father in my childhood but the older I got the more distant he got from me.

After I had Christian, he became very distant from me. It was really my mother and I who raised Christian. Perhaps Dad was a little jealous because when I used to come over with Christian my mother would dote on him. Christian stayed with her for two weeks every summer. That’s when I used to clean Christian’s room. He’d come back and his room would be clean.

My father would call all the time and I would have to go and help him.

My father got remarried about two or three years after my mother died. He was going out every night to bars; he was like a 21 year old. He would dance, and dance, and dance. He’d go to tea dances in the afternoon, and then go dancing every night.

When we’d go out to dinner or a restaurant many times the waitresses would say “Oooohhh, your father is such a good dancer.” And they’d say “He’s such a nice guy.”

But to me, he didn’t seem that nice a person. He was very chauvinistic. He was very stubborn; not a good combination. With both of us being Italian and both of us so strong-headed, we had a very volatile relationship. I saw a totally different father; there was no way I could have expected this. I tried to make the best of it.

My father met this woman; I can’t remember her name now. Anyway, they drank, drank, drank, and drank. She was an alcoholic and I think he was becoming one also. He drank himself into oblivion to forget, or to finally have fun.

Now I’ve got my father who tells me everything. Sometimes too much information. He told me about dating, and told me that “your mother never wanted to go anywhere.”

I remember when my mother was alive and she would complain about my father and I would say “get a divorce.”

She would say “obviously you don’t understand. I can’t get a divorce.”

I think they were out to make each other as miserable as they could.

I find my Mother’s Diaries

When I was looking through pictures I found one of my mother’s diaries. She had written about their trips in the overland motor home. After they both retired, that’s what they wanted to do. She wrote about what a great time they were having. She wrote about how much fun it was to be with their best friends, Mac and Vera. It sounded like they were really enjoying one another. But the diary isn’t very extensive. It’s just a bunch of little pieces of paper stapled together. That’s all I’ve found.

My Mother’s Hats

My mother used to make hats, beautiful hats.

She took it on as a hobby when we were in Texas. She took a class and I came across these incredible hats that she had made. She had made this pillbox hat that was all covered with different colored feathers. The inside was covered with gold lame.

I still have those hats. I wore one when we had to dress up for the murder mystery dinner. My mother was creative; she taught me how to sew. But I wasn’t close to my mother. But I was closer to her than I was to my father. My mother wasn’t a very affectionate person. I didn’t have that affection, that closeness, cuddling. She was in English. The English are a little bit reserved. She never talked to me about sex or gave me any advice. And I was a very frustrating child to have. I was rebellious; I didn’t want to listen to them.

The only thing I really regret in life is not enjoying Christian when he was a really young child; a toddler. I wanted him to grow up so fast. I just didn’t want him to be a baby and a little kid. He spent so much time with me it was easier as he got older. I used to take him everywhere. That’s my only regret, those first few years. It was time lost.

On My Birthday, My Father Dies

Back to my father in the brig.

He’s got an alcoholic relationship with his wife. In the next few months they separated and got a divorce eight years after they were married. She remarried someone else and died of alcoholism. He straightened up his act; I think my tough love making him stay in jail overnight worked! After that, he changed his lifestyle. He stopped drinking so much; he’d still have brandy at night. Then he got diagnosed with diabetes and he needed to control it. Life goes on.

My father still called me all the time; he relies on me. It’s a really interesting relationship as adults. He gets to the point where he can’t take care of himself; he needs someone to come in and clean, make food, and stuff like that. So he hired this woman Iling. She came to live with him. She’s a Filipino and very nice.

Now Christian gets married for the first time to Karina, a girl he meant on a blind date down in L.A. They’re living together in San Francisco. They decide to get married, and they stay married for a few years, perhaps five. I’m really bad with timeframes. Then Brett gets married To Danielle, and they have two kids who are our grandkids. Kenley just got married in August of ’06. In the meantime Christian has gotten a divorce and has gotten remarried to Jenny. They’re going to try to have kids; so we’ll have another grandchild.

I am working at Tom Teifer’s every once-in-awhile. That was after I worked at Innovations. And that’s what I’m still doing now. Jay  and I are still married 26 years later. My father has passed away.

Back to Iling, she takes care of him, but there’s no relationship; they’re not sleeping together. There’s supposedly no romantic relationship and they both say that. It’s platonic. But they care about one another. She took really good care of him. She was about ten years younger; my father was in his eighties, so she was in her seventies. Filipino women age well.

In the meantime I was taking over my father’s finances because he got to the point where he couldn’t pay his bills correctly, or manage his affairs. Iling didn’t want to do that. My father got ill; they thought he had pneumonia. Then they released him but in the meantime I was in the middle of moving to the house in Santa Cruz while our new house in Aptos was being built. I couldn’t go pick him up the week he was ill. They were quick to release him; I wasn’t convinced that he was well.

I had him transferred to a rehabilitation center just to get him through the weekend so I could go there on Monday. I planned to go pick him up take care of him. In the meantime I get a call from the convalescent home saying that my father had fallen down. He was being very belligerent. He said he had to go to the bathroom but when he gets there he doesn’t go! I could hear him screaming in the background. When I spoke with him he would say “I don’t know why I’m in here; I just want to go home.”

I would say “Dad we talked about this; you’re just there for the weekend and I will be their first thing on Monday To pick you up and take you home.”

Then I get another call from the convalescent home and they tell me that he can’t stay there anymore because they can’t control him. He’s yelling and screaming. The Valium that they’re giving him wasn’t working. We needed to get him out of there.

I didn’t speak with my Dad that day because there was so much emotion. I tried to speak with Iling to make sure it was OK for my Dad to go home.

They picked him up and took him home and I went there the first thing Monday morning, and my father couldn’t talk. I don’t know what happened to him over that one day, but I didn’t talk to him. So I felt that he needed to go back to the hospital. I went down and talked to his doctor in Atwater, but I just don’t think they have great medical care. I don’t think he got the proper medical care. In the meantime the ambulance came and got him, and took him to the hospital.

When the doctor went to see him, he called me and said that my father’s bladder was the size of a football. He probably had urinary blockage. The doctor said “if you can, imagine how it feels when your bladder gets to be the size of a lemon, it’s painful. When it becomes the size of an orange it gets really uncomfortable. It gets bigger and bigger. The doctor said my father was an extreme pain. All the time that my father wasn’t peeing it wasn’t behavioral, it was physical. The doctor claimed that when your body is an extreme agony, your brain turns off. He was 86.

He died on my birthday two years ago. That was very, very stressful for me. I was driving to Atwater in 100° weather. People were calling me on my cell phone, wishing me happy birthday, and here I was driving to Atwater to make funeral arrangements for my father. But since then I have decided to look at this as the circle of life. He died the day he gave me life, so I think it’s a cool thing rather than a traumatic thing. I think I’ll never forget the day, even though I forget all the other dates, I know I’ll never forget that one.

Living in a Combined Family

If you think about it, Christian and I grew up together. I was only seventeen years older than him, so he and I grew up together. I grew up while he grew up. My most important relationship was with Christian. It was he and I against the world. But then when I married Jay it was different. I really loved Jay and I wanted to have that kind of relationship with him; to have a family.

When Jay and I first got married he had his family; two kids. So a third child was not even an option. Well, we had a third child and it was Christian. A fourth child was out of the question.

To this day, I think if we had had another child it would have brought the family closer together. We would have had something in common. That child would’ve had Jay and me as biological parents. I really loved Jay’s parents. I really felt close to them and they really took me in and made me feel comfortable. But, they also had their lines as well.