Tag Archives: personal

The big wooden Frankenstein family fish

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wooden fish plauque from the 1920s

Sam Frankenstein's fish plaque

I’ve been thinking about the wooden fish today.  This is an item residing in my kitchen.  The fish, constructed of boards of wood affixed and carved in the shape of a fish, inscribed and lacquered, was made for Steven’s grandfather, Sam Frankenstein, sometime between 1920 and 1945.  Apparently fishing was a big hobby for the so-called “fishing Frankensteins,” who were written up in the newspaper back in the days when such goings-on were of general interest to other residents of the Bronx.  I’ve always loved the fish and it will continue to move with us.

50 Main Street, Binghamton, New York

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ceiling leak with trap in apartment at 50 main street in binghamton NY

This has nothing to do with food.

I’ve been thinking that it’s about time I posted a bit about my father.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at the funeral photographs and personal effects I shipped from Binghamton to CA right after he died, but I think I’m ready now.  Today I would like to provide a little information about my father’s apartment.  He lived at 50 Main Street in Binghamton, New York.  He was at 50 Main for a number of years, making it a habit to pay his rent well before it was due.  He was a good tenant.  What I provide here for your viewing pleasure is a photograph of a contraption he had up on his living room ceiling to deal with a leak he had for a number of years.  Repair was apparently attempted, but never worked.  When it rained, he had to cover his computer table in order to collect and direct water (via this device he built and affixed to the ceiling) to a large container on the floor.  When it rained hard, he would get up every couple of hours all night long in order to manually drain the water so the weight of it would not pull his funneling device down.  It was bad enough that he was not able to use a good chunk of his living room when it rained — and that it looked so bad — but the kicker is that a senior citizen lived like that for a number of years, being chased up at all hours of the night in order to protect his things and prevent a flood.  In February of 2006, at age 68,  he was diagnosed with lung cancer.  He became increasingly debilitated, and it was a nightmare for him to deal with the leak in his ceiling.  During months of chemotherapy he became weaker and weaker but still had to stay up nights when it rained.  By the end of Summer my 6′ 5″ dad was down to 138 pounds.  There’s more.  My father told me that for years he did not get sufficient heat and had to run his gas burners in order to sit in the living room.  He said this had to do with a thermostat (or some such thing) move affecting his apartment, and that he talked with Bronson America, Realtors, about this numerous times, but the problem was never alleviated.  My dad was, among other things, a trained HVAC guy so he knew about this kind of thing.  When I was finally able to get him out of that apartment he only had 6 weeks to live.  I cannot tell you why he did not report Bronson America, Realtors, to the city agency in charge of such things at some point — even well before he became ill.  When I offered to do so he asked me not to, so I did not.  I believe he did not want to add any negativity to what little time he had left on this earth.  But I didn’t say anything about keeping it off my website.  If you read this and you have parents who are getting older, don’t let them blow you off when you ask about the state of their four walls.  Even if you live 2700 miles away you have to get on a plane and check things out.  Take it from me that you do not want to deal with substandard housing issues when someone you love is diagnosed with a debilitating illness.

The funeral

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My father's coffin

If we are told as kids that we have to go through a morning like this in the distant future we wouldn’t believe it and, even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to grasp it.  Thank God, since this is the kind of thing you really don’t want to know is coming.  It was a nice graveside service at Spring Forest Cemetery.  Would you believe that the funeral director’s last name was Fisher?  (When Matthew and I first noticed this at the funeral home we almost collapsed, having been faithful fans of Six Feet Under).  The vets did a military service and there were quite a few people, many of whom I have not seen in 30 years or never met.  No rain but it was frosty on the ground and cold  — cold in a way that never makes it to the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ll tell you.  My Dad sure packed in an eclectic group of mourners.  There was the New York Telephone cum (eventually) Lucent group, with whom my father worked for years.  Then his fellow musicians, which made up the creative group.  Then a kind of bizarre group I can’t possible describe (they kept asking me to pose next to his coffin for photos), his ex-girlfriend and, of course, his closest friends.  Overall it was the personification of diversity, though leaning toward the younger end of things.  After the service there was a coffee and cookie event at The Lost Dog Cafe.  Marie M. and Nicole H., who own/run The Lost Dog, made a gift of this event to me in honor of my father.  The Lost Dog is an inviting space, and these two women are wonderful, so I felt very good at that point and enjoyed those hours chatting with people who were telling me interesting things I didn’t know about my father.  One of the Lucent bunch told me about how my Dad pissed off “the suits” by refusing to build things (things = substations and the like) if he decided that the design was faulty and might result in injury.  He would demand that the “schematics” be changed and that they be given the materials and time to “do the job right.”  The music people gave me insight into Frank’s creative side.  While I knew of his musical bent — he was almost always in a band, sang and played rock, classical and flamenco guitar — it was great to hear things from the perspective of people he had a different kind of relationship with.  The folks at Lucent also commented on my Dad’s sandals and long hair, as he was a bit hippy-ish in the mid-1970’s when he started working in Binghamton.  Showing up at work “like that” was “simply not done,” according to the old-timers, but he was good at his job no one did anything about it.  The event wound down and eventually I was back at Marie and Nicole’s place for the night.  It was so nice to be able to go home with friends who really give a damn.  If I had to go through all this without local support I would have been pretty pathetic at this point in time.

They need to tell you about this kind of day in advance

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My father is in a coma and I spent the day glued to his bedside in a reclining chair with a string of Christmas lights on over his bed.  He loves Christmas lights.  The nursing supervisor, who is very nice, brought in a platter of sandwiches, chips and sodas in the wee hours of the morning for “the family,” figuring that there would be a group vigil.  Well, there was just me, eating a ham salad sandwich and a bag of potato chips every few hours around the clock and then picking at the regular meals that were brought in for him.  When you are a captive audience needing to remain awake in relative darkness you have few options other than eating and drinking coffee at regular intervals.

Why, oh why, was this not turkey breast day?  Or salami day?  Why did I have to hit ham salad day?  I didn’t know anyone still ate ham salad.

I’m telling you you have not fully experienced all that life has to offer until you spend 36 hours in a tiny room with your dying father under Christmas lights listening to Michael Jackson belt out “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” while eating questionable, and then later semi-rancid, sandwiches and drinking coffee out of a spill-proof cup.

Then there was the heat.

That room was a good 85 degrees F. and I was in a sweat suit.  The same sweat suit I had on when I jumped out of bed at midnight the night before, I might add.  I had the forethought to pack extra underwear and socks, so I went into my Dad’s little bathroom — where I could still keep half an eye on him — for a sponge bath and to hand wash unmentionables in the sink in case I needed them down the road.  I hung them up on the 35 handrails in there and all was bone dry in four hours, which gives you an idea of the heat situation.

Every two hours a nurse came in to give my dad his pain meds.  Every four hours a team of nurses came in to change his position and to make sure I was doing alright.  After about 35 hours I was getting to the point of seriously needing sleep, but I had to remain awake to keep a lookout for signs of pain or discomfort, and I wanted to be alert when he died.

I remember glancing at the clock and noticing the time was 12:25 a.m. (now 11/18/06) and then putting my head back in the recliner to rest my eyes for a moment.  Bad idea.  The next thing I knew I was jolted awake as if a gong went off in my head, and I shot a glance at the clock – 12:45 a.m.  In the fraction of a second it took me to turn my head I realized the raspy sound of my father’s labored breathing was gone, and knew that what must have woken me up was that sound stopping all of a sudden.  I did not want to look at his face because I knew he was gone.  I just sat there.  I didn’t know how to feel, and remember wondering if he was floating around the room.

He and I had spoken many times about what might happen after death, whether communication with the living was even possible, but no matter how often we spoke about all of that it didn’t prepare me for that split second when I knew he was dead.

I had been talking with him off and on about all kinds of nonsense.  Even though he was in a coma, he was still in his body and I knew where to direct my energy.  When I moved closer to him to say a final good-bye, I was not at ease because I didn’t know where he was contained — if he was contained at all.  His body was so still and somewhat scary to me, though I don’t know why it should have been.  I suppose I felt that my thoughts were no longer my own and that everything in my mind would be accessible.

I sat there for some time, then said I was sorry I fell asleep and eventually made my way to the nursing station.

My father, Frank Valencia, and I about 1964/1965

My father, Frank Valencia, and I about 1964/1965

Frank Valencia on 10/5/06

Frank Valencia on 10/28/06

Frank and Renate Valencia on 11/6/06