April 13, 2013

My father loved to give people nicknames.  There’s the Fisherman, Tortuga, Gomez, Squeak, the Chinaman’s wife, the cornbread lady, and on and on.  He would be so happy that you are all here.

My father grew up on a farm in Iowa.  He was actually born in the farmhouse where he lived.  Whenever he filled out a form that said “Place of birth” he liked to write “Back bedroom.” He attended one of those little red school houses.  He was always proud to tell us that he was number 11 out of 11 students.  He was just too busy helping his father on the farm. Work was important to him.  When we would go visit the farm as kids, we didn’t see our father until after sundown when he returned in overalls after helping his father in the fields all day.  My father was so devoted to his Dad; I remember when his father was sick and dying, my Dad flew out to see him and when his father said that he did not want to be in the hospital any longer, my Dad picked up my gandfather and carried him out of the hospital and back to the farmhouse where he could die peacefully.

My father served in the Navy for 5 years.  Upon returning he used his outstanding athletic skills to be accepted on to a minor league baseball team.  But he chose to go to college instead.  He went on to get a Bachelors degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Iowa State, and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from UCLA.

One of the greatest gifts my father gave to us was his deep deep love for our mother.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man love a woman more.  He loved her feistiness, and together they made a good team. He let her be herself, buy whatever she wanted, and do whatever she wanted.  And he made sure when she was sick, that he kept her at home until the end of her life.

He was the ultimate provider.  He worked many hours as an engineer, working on the Apollo programs that put the men on the moon.  We were one of those families that got up early to watch every launch on TV.  He was so proud.  I remember when I was 12, America started downsizing the space program, and 6 out of 7 people lost their jobs. We used to hear that engineers were becoming gas station attendants. I remember my father worked at least 60 hours a week during that time.  But, when people were being laid off,  he was promoted to an MTS7, the highest level of technical expertise at Rockwell.  I remember him telling me that you should always make yourself valuable to your boss.  Be the one that he or she can count on.  I have always given that same advice to my employees.

My father loved to learn.  He studied many languages.  After he retired from engineering and was taking care of his property, it was obvious that he missed using his very smart brain.  He loved challenges.  So if there was a stove or refrigerator that didn’t work, he would take it apart and study it and figure out how to fix it.  He seriously could fix ANYTHING.  But first, he always wanted to illustrate the problem, especially to me.  He would take out one of the many pens in his shirt pocket and would start drawing me diagrams of plumbing or of the wiring in circuit breakers.  If my attention faded, he would get mad and say “Don’t you want to learn??”  One time when I was an adult and I didn’t feel like looking at the diagrams, I said “Dad, did you know that when you crochet there are several types of stitches.  There’s single crochet, double crochet, and half-doubles.”  He just stared at me with a “who in the hell cares?” expression on his face and said  “what are you talking about??” I said, “Don’t you want to learn??”  He started laughing.

Now, any of you that have spent any time with my parents know that they had a very unique style of communicating.  They liked to holler at each other.  They seemed to both enjoy it.  When my best friend Michele moved away when I was 6 years old, I went to stay at her house for a week.  When her father came home from work, her mother said, “How was your day dear?” “Fine,” he would answer. “How was yours sweetheart?”  “Fine dear, what would you like for supper?”  I pulled Michele aside and I asked her, “is there something wrong with your parents?”  I don’t think I had ever heard my parents talk like that.  I do have to admit though, that after a couple days at her house I was bored and needed to get back to my own nutty household.  Even though my parent’s style of communication was baffling to us as kids, I think it provided me with one of the greatest treasures of my life: the closeness I share with my sisters Julie and Teresa and with my brother Fred.

My father loved La Strada.  He ate there everyday for years.  He would help me fix anything that was broken.  When his Parkinson’s progressed he was not as steady as he used to be. But he didn’t want to give up.  One time I came in early and found him trying to light the pilot light on the water heater.  But instead of using a match to light it, he was using a blow torch. After that, I secretly scheduled repairs when I thought he wouldn’t be there.  But sometimes, he would show up when I was not  expecting him.  He pretty much scared anyone away.  Those of you who knew him, can probably picture it.  He was just being protective of me.

About 10 years ago he had to get carotid artery surgery on his neck.  He hated hospitals.  After the surgery his blood pressure was dangerously low. I arrived with a Grilled Chicken Sandwich in a bright La Strada bag.  Within minutes his blood pressure was normal.  The nurse said, “How did you do that?   He didn’t even eat the sandwich yet.”  Easy.  I brought him a piece of home, that’s what La Strada was to him.

He loved the Latino/Hispanic culture.  My father’s name is Arden, but he nicknamed himself Lopez many years ago.  I know that is how many of you know him, just Senor Lopez.

Living extravagantly was not for my Dad.  He wore old jeans, 2 undershirts about 2 or 3 other shirts, a couple jackets and one of many hats.  Right now, he is resting in a red shirt that my mother embroidered with “Hi Lopez”,  and his hat that says “Lopez Rapido.”  He drove around in an old truck and downplayed his success.  He did many charitable things very quietly.  A significant way that he helped many people in our community, was by not raising people’s rents, sometimes even for years.  He also brought things to different tenants, like the one man who could not leave his home and could only drink Ensure.  My Dad brought him cases of it.

One thing my father did like to brag about was his family.  One time when we were watching old family videos, he said “I had the smartest and the best looking kids on the block!”  He was so proud that all of his kids had gone to college.  And then, there’s his 11 grandchildren who he loved so dearly.  He loved sending out his annual Christmas card with them all lined up in order of height.  Once they started at college, he started listing all of their schooling on the back.  He was just so very proud.

The wonderful thing about my father was that he lived his life the way that he wanted.  He had the love of a good woman for 58 years and 4 children that he loved and provided for.  He taught us all how to work hard and to strive to be the best that we could be.  He was the best grandfather any kid could have, not the traditional kind, but the best nonetheless.

His strong presence will be missed by all who knew and loved him.

I love you Daddy.  xo Lisa

Today, April 3rd, is my mother Rita‘s birthday.  She was such a unique person.  She was a total extrovert.  She loved people and reached out to everyone.  She hugged anyone and everyone.
For over 40 years, she walked both sides of 2nd St. in Belmont Shore everyday, at least 5 times a day, with no exception.  She was such a tiny little thing: 5′ 1″ and 112 pounds.  She loved 2nd St. so much – she called it, “The Avenue.”  She would always say, “I’m going on the Avenue,” and would head out on her walk.  She loved the Shore, and shopped at every store that she could… she was the *epitome* of “shop local.”

But then, in 2002, my mother developed Frontal Temporal Lobe Dementia, which is a fancy way of saying that she was slowly losing her mind and who she was.  We slowly started to see it, but it was a hard illness to diagnose.  There are no chemical/blood tests.  It is defined by the person acting very differently than their normal behavior patterns.  People with this illness “say and do” outrageous things, because the normal filter of their brain is compromised.  But, with our Mom, it was hard to tell.  Was her behavior part of her usual personality, or part of her illness?  She would step into a crosswalk on 2nd St. and hold up her hand to the traffic and would smile and say, “I’m coming through, here I am!!”  And the cars would screech to a halt.  Uh-oh……

I knew something was wrong when we were going to the Westminster Mall (she loved that mall).  She was driving.  We drove down 2nd Street and stopped at the red light at 2nd and Studebaker.  After a couple seconds, she just drove through the red light.  I said, “Mom, what are you doing??  You can’t drive through a red light!”

She said, “I can do whatever the hell I want!!”

That’s when I knew.

For my sisters and brother, they have the same defining moments.  We knew.

But, there was no way that she would admit that she was sick.  God bless her, she tried to hold on: we found several journals in her office where she carefully wrote out descriptions of all of the people that she was close to: “Julie is my number 1 daughter, Lisa is my number 2 daughter, she has 2 children, Ryan and Hannah.  He is her boy and she is her girl.”  She documented everything over and over.

One thing that I will always remember, above all, was one day when she came in to La Strada with her caregiver.  She hadn’t spoken in 4 years.  My server put a glass of lemonade in front of her.  I sat down with her and held her hand, and I told her I was so sorry and wished I could grant her wish of pulling her plug, but there was no plug to pull.  She just picked up the glass of lemonade, and nodded, and then she set it in front of me.  She wanted me to have it.  She didn’t know who she was, or where she was, but she knew, on some level, that I was someone that she loved.  And she wanted to take care of me.   I will never forget that special moment.  She passed away peacefully on December 9, 2010.

I love April 3rd!  It is such a beautiful day to me.  It is the day that my wonderful mother was born!  Thank you God, for my beautiful mother, Rita Mary.

See you soon at my 2nd home, La Strada…:)

xoxo Lisa

P.S.  In case you didn’t know, she is the beautiful woman in the black and white photo behind us.

No, I did not love high heels all my life.  They were OK, that’s all.  My love came about in a different way.

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I was sitting with my friend Marianne at the Catalina terminal one day.  We were waiting for our daughters to return from a camping excursion.  Marianne giggled, lowered her voice and said, “I took a pole dancing class!  I saw it on Oprah – I have the shoes and everything!”

“What? Really?”  I’d never heard of such a thing.  She made me promise not to tell her daughter.

When I got home I looked it up.  I was intrigued.  They had a $40 one-hour introductory course.  I enrolled.

The studio was in Los Angeles at La Brea and Wilshire.  That first hour we spent some time doing yoga moves and listening to the teacher.  Then she did a routine to loud music. I was sold.  I signed up for the 8-week Level 1 course.

It was quite the investment of time, because each class was 2 hours and it was a one-hour drive each way.  As soon as the kids were at school, Mom drove off to pole dancing.  Tee-hee!

It was rigorous!  The first hour was all very slow yoga with at least 30 minutes of abdominal work.  You had to have killer abs to flip upside down on the pole and do many of the tricks.  But the real emphasis throughout the class was on getting in touch with your “erotic creature”, in essence, feeling beautiful within your own skin.  Every movement was done with grace.

By the 3^rd class we had to bring in our own 6-inch heels.  We were instructed to put them on and begin to walk slowly.  Everyone was wobbly.  Some of us felt weird or embarrassed and some of us fell down.  But after a while we all got it: there we were walking around the room taking turns walking slowly around the pole, then back to the wall, slowly and gracefully, with our heads held high.  Everyone taking the class was different: young, old, thin, overweight.  It didn’t matter, we all felt pretty and light and free to be ourselves as we walked and crawled (yes, crawled!) around in those platform shoes.

In each class we also learned new pole tricks.  Some of the dynamics were hard for me to grasp.  I would go over to my kid’s old elementary school on Saturday mornings and walk around the tether ball pole trying to work out some of the mechanics.  Eventually I ordered my own pole.  The cool thing about it was that after you put this little attachment in your ceiling, the pole became removable.  That was a must for me because my kids were teenagers.  No 17-year-old son wants to know that his mother is taking pole dancing classes, even if it is for exercise. Ew, gross, right?  I kept the pole hidden under my bed.

As the classes progressed, we were taught floor work and a routine.   In the higher level courses (I repeated the highest level over and over for 2 years), we were given an assignment each week.  It could be based on a musical selection (your favorite song from the 70’s or from your favorite movie) or on a piece of clothing (wear your favorite cocktail dress).  Then the last 20 minutes of class, each of us took a turn dancing to music we loved, based on the assignment.  It didn’t matter how technically accurate your pole moves were, it didn’t even matter if you left the pole out completely and just crawled around on the floor; the point was to get lost in the music and feel beautiful.  Believe me, my fellow dancers were fantastic at cheering each other on! You never heard a group of ladies whoop and holler so loudly when you really “got into it”.  It was fun, and my teacher was so nurturing.  I also got into great shape.  It is truly the only exercise I’ve ever loved.

And, after 2 years of walking in those 6 inchers, they felt like slippers to me.

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So, every time you see me walking around in my high heels at La Strada, or in a parade, or on 2^nd St. in Belmont Shore, you will know that I am secretly back in that studio walking around that pole, slowing it down, and being my true graceful feminine self.  That’s how high heels make me feel, and that’s why I love them so.

Thank you for reading!  See you soon in my 2nd home, La Strada.

xoxo Lisa

Christmas Parade 2011

Here is a simple story that explains why I love what I do at La Strada.

Last year at the Belmont Shore Christmas parade, my friend Robert helped me light up and decorate my car.  We used silver decorations.  He covered the front with some paper and then piled white fluffy “stuffing” on the front hood to make it look like snow.  Then he placed silver balls and other decorations all over it.  It was beautiful.

For this year’s parade the theme was “Go for the Gold” because of the 2012 Olympics.  My friend Robert had moved back to his native Australia.  During last year’s decorating, 2 of my busboys, Zammer and Sammy, had assisted him.  I asked them, “Do you two think if you worked together that you could sort of recreate what Robert did last year?”

“Yes!” they both enthusiastically answered.  I told them I would provide a picture from last year.  Sammy said, “That would be great if we had a picture.  But can we do it however we want?  Like this is our very own craft project??”

“Yes, any way you want.”

I bought a ton of cheap gold stuff at the Dollar Store.   At Home Depot I bought these beautiful Martha Stewart gold glittery decorations that were about 2 feet tall and had all these swirly things pointing upward.  I thought they would look beautiful sticking straight up from different parts of the car.  I bought a gold shiny wreath to mount on the back by the license plate.

On Friday night both boys came to my house around 4:30 and began decorating.  I was inside getting ready for an event that evening.  I could hear constant laughter coming from my garage.  It sounded like Sammy was telling stories and imitating cartoon characters and Zameer was constantly cracking up.  I heard a lot of enthusiastic whoops and hollers.

After awhile I went out to check on their progress.  How proud they were!

Zameer and Sammy in my garage:

They excitedly showed me how they had covered my license plate with gold garland.  The gold wreath they had attached to the steering wheel to make it look like a fancy driving machine.

I wondered where the gold Martha-Stewart things were …. then they showed me the back of the car.  Yes, they had mounted them near the bottom at the rear of the car, horizontally rather than vertically, the gold swirly parts sticking out to resemble flames and fire.  They had turned my car into a bat mobile!!  I had to try not to laugh.  I was delighted.

I was so very proud of them.  It was perfect.

“Can we do this again next year? Please!” Sammy asked.  Of course.

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How can you NOT be happy working with young people like this?  I am.

I am truly blessed.

See you soon at La Strada!

xoxo Lisa

It was a day in early December in 2010.   My Mom’s hospice nurse had come to visit.  My mother had been ill with dementia for nearly 10 years.  It is a terrible illness in which you lose all your memories and slowly go back to being like a baby.  We now knew we were near the end.

My sister Julie asked, “Are we talking weeks or days?”  It was blunt of her, but I was wondering the same thing.  The nurse said “not weeks.”  That was upsetting which was surprising because I had known she was going for a long time. “She has 4-7 days once she stops eating and drinking”.  I don’t know how they arrive at those estimates exactly, but once they stop nourishment, that’s all the time they have.

Just the day before she had done this weird thing: she had opened her eyes and stared directly at me, and kept opening her mouth as if to speak.  She hadn’t spoken in years and had not even tried.  It looked like she was begging me, begging me to get her out of this life in her condition of dementia.  The hospice nurse said, “She is trying to tell you something.”

I held her hand and looked into her eyes.  I tried to reassure her.  I told her that I understood and that it would be soon.  I thanked her for the Snoopy bracelet she had bought for me when I was 9.  I thanked her for being so good to my children and helping me to raise them.  I thanked her for all the special meals she made me when I was such a picky eater as a child.  And then I mentioned every one who was special in her life, each of her children and grandchildren, using one of the many nicknames she had given them: “Jules is happy and is doing great.  Miss Claire has moved back to California.  The Big Little boy is still living in the back house.  Your little munchkin Hannah Joyful is still dancing.”  I went through each and everyone.  Then she quietly closed her eyes and rested.

The Belmont Shore Christmas parade was now just 2 days away.  All the preparations had been made.  “Should I just go through with it and act like everything is fine?” I asked Julie.  We decided that that was exactly what she would have wanted.   My mother was one of the pioneers of the very first parade and she adored it.  This would be the first one she missed in 27 years.

That Saturday night I walked in the parade and quietly carried her spirit with me.  My Dad came and sat in his usual spot without her.

The following Monday she stopped taking in any nourishment. We had been given special medicines to help her relax and ease any pain she was having.  My Dad kept holding her hand and saying “Come on Munchkin, wake up.”  It was sad to see.  Julie and I knew she would not be waking up.

We knew we had to move in to their house immediately to be there around the clock.  There was no way that my father would be able to administer her medicines by himself.  I went home to pack.  I put on the Snoopy bracelet and brought one of daughter’s pink dollies from long ago.

My other sister Teresa and my brother Fred could not be there as much because they had 9- 5 jobs.  They knew they would need to save their days off for the time coming up.  We stayed in constant contact via texts and calls.

By Tuesday, we needed to give her the medicine every 4 hours.  We took turns, one of us slept in the other bedroom for four hours while the other stayed in my parent’s room.  We had moved a reclining chair in their room next to her bed to sleep on, but I just couldn’t get comfortable in it.  So I crawled into the lower half of my Mom’s bed next to her and curled into a little ball.  Julie came in at 4 AM and started laughing when she saw me in bed with her like that.  It just felt right.

The hospice nurse came everyday.  Oxygen was delivered to make her more comfortable. The nurse explained that normal breathing was 14-16 breaths per minute, and if that started increasing we would know she was getting worse and would need to increase her medicine.  I’m very analytical, so I liked knowing that.

For some reason, I was afraid to measure out the medicine.  I don’t know why, I’ve been a mother and aunt for more than 20 years and have given countless doses of medicine to children.  So Julie measured it out, and I took the task of trying to get Mom’s mouth open so we could put it under her tongue.  As time went on, it became impossible and Julie would just shoot it alongside her cheek.

By Thursday her breaths became more and more rapid.  I became obsessed with counting them every 30 minutes.  I wanted to do something.

We knew it would be that day.  Julie, God bless her, thought of everything.  My mother had been wearing a pink nightgown with monkeys on it that I had bought for her at Target.  Julie did not think she would want to die wearing that.  She thought she would want to look pretty in a dress.  We picked one out that reminded us of Hawaii, one of my Mom’s favorite places.  It was soft and pretty.  We put it on her and brushed her hair.  Julie brought over a CD player and found some of my Mom’s CDs.  We put on Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis.  I called Fingerprints and asked if they had Phantom of the Opera.  My Mom loved that music.  They had it.  I called the busboy at my restaurant and told him to go buy it for me and bring it over.  It was hard to hear “think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye….”

We called St. Bartholomew and asked for last rites. Father Birney arrived about noon. The ceremony was short, but beautiful.  The Father administered it with such love, putting oil on her forehead and I think on her arms.  I’m not sure.  Julie and I were really crying now.

It started looking really bad around 2 PM.  We told Teresa and Fred to hurry.  Teresa finished teaching her 4^th graders and got there by 2:30.  Fred left work early and started his hour long drive to Long Beach.

Julie was sitting by my Mom’s head, stroking her hair.  I was sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed where I had been sleeping.  My Dad was sitting on his hospital bed next to her.  Teresa arrived and came in and sat at a chair near her feet and started crying. Then my brother Fred came.  He sat in the reclining chair by her side, put his head down on the bed and wept uncontrollably, telling her over and over what a beautiful mother she had been.  Julie was kind and calm and offered her spot by our Mom’s head if anyone wanted it.  None of us moved.  She turned to our father and said, “We would all like to thank you for taking such beautiful care of our mother and keeping her here at home like she would have wanted.”  My Dad doesn’t like to publicly cry, but he just broke down.

My son texted at 4:15 “Mom, I’m leaving work now.  Tell Grandma to wait for me.”

Her breathing was so fast now.  The nurse told us that when she started gasping we would know it was near the end.  It was helpful to me to have all of this information.  Julie was now giving her the meds every 15 minutes until at one point Teresa asked if we could just stop with those now, and Fred, very distraught, said “can we just turn off this oxygen thing now?” It was very loud.  So we did.  The quiet was peaceful.

Julie suggested we say the Lord’s Prayer.  We all did.  Then she started the Hail Mary.  I joined in.

Then Julie said, “Why don’t we sing the Lord’s Prayer, the way she loved it?”  It was a great suggestion, because in my Mom’s hand-written will she requested that all of her grandchildren sing it at her funeral.  She had taught it to them more than 15 years ago, and had them sing it for her at every family event.  We all knew it by heart.

We started to sing.  Fred just sobbed.  All the words were all choked up with all of us crying.  She would stop breathing for a few seconds then would start again.  She did that through the whole song.

At the end, it goes like this:

“For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for-ev-errrrr……more…”

Right after we finished, she stopped and let go.  It was beautiful for her.  I think she heard us.  I think she would be proud of us.

We all sat there for several minutes, crying.  One by one we each left the room to call waiting loved ones.

Soon after, my son arrived.  He could already tell.  He walked straight in and sat in the chair next to her.  He was very quiet.  I don’t think he liked seeing her like that and only stayed in the room a couple minutes.  He then went to join his grandfather in his office and help him write an email to waiting family members.

People started showing up.  Julie had remembered to call hospice and a wonderful man named Martin came. He waited 30 minutes before calling the mortuary to give us a little more time with her.

The two mortuary men showed up in their dark suits.  What a weird job to have to be on call to go pick up dead people.  They were very nice and respectful.

I had been in the kitchen for a bit and then returned to my Mom’s room.  They had covered her head with a sheet.  I got terribly upset.  I had missed the explanation from Martin that that was going to happen, and apparently he noted that it upset some people.  I almost said, “She won’t be able to breathe under there” but stopped myself.  Then they put her in that horrible body bag and took her out on a gurney.  I hated that.  I didn’t like seeing her in that.  My father asked “Who will look after her tonight?”  It was a sad question.  We walked her out and watched them take her away.

I don’t remember much of the night after that.

If my mother had had it her way, she would have left this life long ago to be free of her horrible condition of dementia.  Now, she had finally gotten her wish.

But, as much as I wanted her freed from that, I think I just did not know what it would feel like to lose my Mommy.

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We are all so grateful that she was our mother, and we are all very thankful knowing that she is now at peace.  xoxo Lisa

One year later at the cemetery:  Teresa, Fred, Julie, Lisa