George passed April 8, 2020, three months shy of his ninetieth birthday. While we'll miss him, his passing at this point feels like mercy. He'd spent exactly a year at the Veteran's Home after a severe UTI made it impossible for him to live independently. He never did quite adjust to the Veteran's Home, and right up to the end, tried to "break out" of the place. Prior to his admission to the Veteran's Home, George spent three comfortable years at Harvard Park living independently. We brought him to Spokane on his eighty-fifth birthday after the sale of his home in Madras went smoothly. He willingly gave up driving, sold his car to his grandson, and never looked back except when he tried to escape the Veteran's Home always asking where his car was as he tried to leave the building. Within days of moving to Harvard Park, he met Vina Mikkelsen, and for the next three years, they were a couple. If it had been monetarily feasible, the two would have married. Vina, a faithful Catholic, got George to go to church. She turned his head like a love torn puppy. He waited for her every morning and escorted her to breakfast like a gentleman. I think he was just showing off his "girl". They played cards, bingo, delivered Meals on Wheels, went on the Harvard Park bus trips, and spent many an afternoon smooching like teenagers. He was happy in his last years, and so was I. I had hoped we'd get five good years with George. We ended up getting three plus. It was all good. George, a man of meager ambition, happily lived a working man's life. He finished high school, served in the Navy, got a real estate license, and had some training in main frame computers. He and my mother divorced for the final time (They went through the whole process twice) when I was in fourth grade. I saw him once a year for a week from that time on, although as an adult I cut those visits to three days, mostly because George's wife, Margaret, made it hard to stay much longer. In essence, George counted mostly as a sperm donor in terms of my upbringing, but as I told my seventh grade students when their parents were divorcing, "One, it's not your fault; two, you either have a relationship with your parents or you want one." So, naturally, I wanted a relationship with my father, which is why I made motions to visit every year. But who among us can cast stones. George tried his best. He and my mother were just too young, just too passionate, and just too ignorant to use birth control. So at nineteen and fifteen, they tried for the dream. The irony is that both of them stayed in their second marriages for over fifty years, until death do you part, as they say. So, today, when we picked up George's ashes, I found myself a jumble of emotions. On the nature side, I can't reasonably deny the genetic influence George's blood has had over my existence. It's stunning how many of his mannerisms, behaviors, ticks, twitches, and habits inhabit my being. On the nurture side, which wasn't much, I still carry fond memories of Rosa, George's mom, my grandmother, and it's in her that I see the real George. Basically, I can't complain, and neither could George. Nearly ninety is a good run. George lived (as we all do) a nearly good life, and he kept as many of his promises as he could. That's not a bad epitaph. As for me, I'm the oldest of Geroge's seed. As such I carry on keeping as many promises as I can, and believing that life is good, especially today.
George and Chris (my mom), circa 1950.
George and his new squeeze, Vina.
George had a good relationship with Judy, too.
Leticia was drawn to George as well.
It was a good joke.
That would be me under that smock.
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Really, it's just George.
