I began writing this “sickabed-on-two-chairs…” Not really two chairs…our big bed…but I love that old-fashioned expression.
I’ve been ill—wretched deep hacking cough of bronchitis—because my son—my firstborn—is in the hospital. Gravely ill. (Hate that adjective.)
Whether or not he will come home from the hospital is what put me to bed.
A wonderful wonderful man, David’s an adoring generous involved father to two remarkable daughters who love him to pieces. (Their mother lives in the east.)
Born in Berkeley in 1957, David is sweet, funny, loving, gifted, handsome, with a strong social conscience. He can pass any exam, and has, from physics at UCLA (via Professor Raymond Orbach, my eighth-grade boyfriend, that coincidence was fun) to licenses for Certified Financial Planner, to work in real estate, teaching.
In his bones David is a writer, but after UCLA he earned his living as a stockbroker. At the height of his powers he was manager of a major financial firm’s office in Century City…in his gray flannel suit he rode the elevator with Ronald Reagan.
In time he left finance and became a high school teacher. David loved teaching science. At the end, he taught in charter high schools in the Los Angeles ghetto. He loved his kids–who were mostly of color. Every morning David would stand in his classroom’s doorway and greet each student by name. He’s told me that not a few have said to him, “Mr. Thompson, you’re the best teacher I’ve ever had.”
As for writing, David’s completed screenplays, novels, published a cookbook…for months he’s been working on a fresh version of The Great Gatsby—set in Malibu, all characters black.
I wrote the above many days ago. Then I was well enough and Bill and I went down to Santa Monica to be with David in the hospital.
It was tricky finding a place in his room to sit. There was a constant stream of visitors: David’s girls were there, boyfriends, his brother, two sisters, brothers-in-law, a close family connection, nieces, friends from stockbroker days, golfing and surfing buddies, many of his daughters’ friends from grammar school to college, close friends of mine…
The nurses said they’d never seen so many friends in a patient’s room.
Ah. Sunday morning’s conference with the doctors…an impressive team of over a half-dozen specialists had given weeks of extraordinary effort trying everything they could think of to return David to his life of writing…nurturing his extraordinary Kate and Maggie…rooting for the Dodgers, Lakers, Raiders…listening to Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan…reading—he’d nearly finished The Magic Mountain…chatting on the phone about books with Bill…playing with Bonnie his cat…
Sunday at 2:30 in the afternoon, our David peacefully took his leave.
Of course at this point I have survived many people I loved. I am comfortable with death. I’m a trained Hospice volunteer.
But David’s death has turned out to be singular for me.
I cannot deal with the thought/fact/concept that David is just plain not there…not at the end of a phone call. Will never again walk through our front door, give Uschi loving pats. There’ll never be another angry text about the day’s depressing politics…
In the vernacular, I cannot wrap my head around it.
He was so forceful a presence. So full of life. We were so connected. Deeply. Not always felicitously–my son could be an angry young man–all to the good, the last thing David was was a phony–but deeply.
I would guess the separation is hard for me to deal with because instinctively my whole being knows it is unnatural.
A child is not meant to die before its mother.
As I said to mourners before David’s pine box was lowered into the ground, “I figured out the way not to bury your firstborn: Do not live to be ninety.”
Too late.
P.S. The painting of the UC Berkeley campus you see was begun by my mother, Gloria Stuart, from the house we rented high on Panoramic Way while I was pregnant with David…she completed the painting when he was newborn. David has had the pleasure of it since Ma’s death in 2010.
