normally expect in a patient who has moved on into the final terminal phase of congestive heart failure. The clinical fact is that I have simply lived a few years too long.
Let me assure you that this thought does not frighten me in the least. For example, I am going into the hospital tomorrow, Monday, for a procedure, which is called cardiac retroversion. This consists of applying two strong electric shocks to the heart, in an attempt to change its present arrhythmia (disturbance of heart rhythm), which in my case is known as 'heart flutter' into a more normal rhythm.
But if this and other corrective procedures fail, I shall not be saddened. I have been fortunate enough to lead a very full and interesting life and to know some truly wonderful women and to have some very fine children of whom I am truly proud. The most recent few years have been among the happiest in a long life, thanks to the remarkable help given by June, who is indeed an angel.
In the meantime, June and I send you our love.
George and June
In light of that fax, and intuiting that the end could possibly be near, even for this man considered by all of his children to be an immortal, I felt an urgency to speak from my heart, and mailed a letter to him the following morning.
May 9, 1999
Dear Father:
Thank you for giving me an honest and accurate picture of your current health condition. I very much appreciate it, and know how difficult and naturally reluctant you are to do that, for many valid reasons. Your communication, of course, will always remain confidential. Personally, I appreciate knowing things as they are as opposed to how others or I may wish them to be.
I want you to know that for me, likewise, the past six or seven years have been the happiest. While I have gone through many difficult personal life-changes, emotional adjustments regarding Marsha and the boys, yet I have been extremely happy and content.
The reason for that happiness was the development of our relationship as father and son. Our relationship, yours and mine, has grown and developed and become
to me. It was not always so. For many reasons beyond both of our control, we did not have the opportunity to share our thoughts. This was neither your fault nor mine. It simply was
But in these past years, thanks to your openness, acceptance, and encouragement it became something real. It was like a reverse of the normal course of a father-and-son relationship. Ours was in my youth, distant, and now has become close. I thank you for that.
And I thank you, Father, for your support and patience in me and of me. I thank you for your wise guidance and advice over the past years. Your positive promptings for me to improve my health in many ways. (I think your encouragement in getting me to quit smoking has probably added ten or fifteen years to my natural life and health.)
Mostly, I thank you for your time. Some wise man said that 'Time is our most priceless possession.' And of that you have given me much in these recent years. I look on my computer over the past six years and see hundreds and hundreds of faxes and communications from you. Each one requiring your time and your thought.
The memories I have of visits here and there are warm reminders of these years, and will be with me while I breathe and think. Thank you for those, dear Father. I don't want this to sound like a goodbye. But if fate should make it so, then mostly I want you to know how much I love you and how grateful I am to you for the gift of life and for the time we have shared together.
You are truly a great man, and I am very proud that you are my father.
ALL MY LOVE
Steven Kent
My father read this on the final day of his life. And now, just twenty-four hours later, the flight attendant was motioning to me to raise my table to the upright position in the minutes before we made our final approach to San Francisco airport.
The uniformed driver met my arrival at gate 33 with a sincere, 'I'm so sorry about your father. He was a special man. Very few like him in the world.' I nodded in the polite acknowledgment of his condolences. We drove in silence to downtown San Francisco to their condo, some forty floors above the financial district in the heart of the city.
June was in tears when she met me at the door, and we embraced in our sorrow. I held her as she spoke softly in my ear, 'I'm all alone now. I'm so afraid. He didn't have to die, Steven. I thought we would be together for another ten or more years. He died in my arms. I tried to save him but I couldn't.' She was shaking and looked near death herself, pale and thin as if his death had drained her of life. I could feel her tremendous grief mixed with the fear of having to go it on her own from now on, after having been under George Hodel's protection and absolute control for thirty years. The apartment seemed woefully empty. No radiant voice, no great intellect, nothing. And that nothingness shouted out the absence of the man. Her man.
The two of them had been inseparable for the thirty years they had been together. During all of that time they had never been apart for more than a day or two, and that mostly for business purposes. Together they had shared 11,000 sunrises, and now, with him gone, the sun would never rise again for her in the same way.
June Hodel, my stepmother, was younger than I by about four years. She had been graduated
Getting the job wasn't easy, because Dad personally administered the battery of tests to her, as he had all the other applicants. The tests measured her personality, intelligence, and familiarity with English. At the conclusion of the tests she was told she 'would be contacted sometime in the future.' A week later the phone call came. And again, as she had been in college, she was
She took the job and moved from her southern province of Japan to the Tokyo office, away from her home and
