family for the first time. From that point on, from age twenty-three, she and my sixty-three-year-old father would remain inseparable, working and traveling throughout the world together. They would reside in Manila, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. They would travel to dozens of foreign countries throughout Asia and Europe, and ultimately move to San Francisco, where they remained inseparable. Then, finally, a few minutes before midnight in mid-May, he would gasp for air, collapse in her arms, and die.
Now June would be alone for the first time in her fifty-four years. It was a terrible feeling for her. And in those hours after my father's death when I was holding her there in a sorrowful embrace, I could feel the totality of her loneliness. And I feared for her.
We spent that afternoon and late into the evening talking about 'the Great Man' and what a remarkable life he had lived. And despite my previous eight years of conversations with him to reestablish our relationship, I realized I actually knew very little about him — as did the rest of his children. Like the Wizard of Oz, he had been the all- powerful figurehead behind the curtain. But in reality, who was he?
My father's father, George Sr., was born in Odessa, Ukraine, and fled to Paris near the turn of the century. There he met Esther Leov, a dentist, and they married. Like most immigrants, they came through Ellis Island. Then they traveled west to California.
Dad was born in Los Angeles in 1907. I knew that he was a musical prodigy, that he had played his own piano compositions at age seven or eight in the Shrine auditorium, had a genius IQ — one point above Einstein's, I was told — and later went to medical school in San Francisco. He returned to Los Angeles, opened a successful medical practice, married my mother, had children, and moved us all to the historic Lloyd Wright Sowden House, on Franklin Avenue in the heart of Hollywood.
After a family scandal, my father divorced my mother and moved to Hawaii, where he became a psychiatrist. Then he moved to the Far East and married a wealthy Filipina woman with whom he had four children. Ultimately he became a famous market researcher and respected social scientist with offices throughout Asia.
This was virtually all I knew — just fragments. When my father and I got to know each other during the last years of his life, much of his past, particularly as it related to me and my brothers, still remained a mystery. His children from other marriages probably knew less than I, but that was his way — secret and private — and I respected it. I figured his business was his business and if he chose not to share it with others, even his family, that was his choice.
Even when he had begun to open up with me during his final years, what he said about his life was still very general, but it had taken a new direction. I took it to be more of an attitudinal change than specific information. Our time together was slower, softer, and gentler, in stark contrast to the brisk lunch meetings of earlier years, where my two brothers and I would receive a last-minute summons to meet him for lunch near L.A. airport, 'between flights,' where he would give each of us five minutes to 'update him on our lives.'
During those last years, when I tried to share my thoughts, feelings, and reflections on life with both my father and June, they seemed to appreciate my openness, but it was never fully reciprocated. Weren't Renaissance men like that — guardians of their secrets? At least that's what I thought. Now I guessed that probably no one ever knew the real George Hodel, not even his widow.
After consoling June, I returned to my San Francisco hotel room late that evening filled with an increased sense of loss. For most of the afternoon I'd been a homicide detective, dealing with someone else's grief. Now my own feelings moved to the forefront as I finally realized my father was gone. Whatever wars would have to be fought between father and son, whatever unresolved issues still lingered in the air, would remain. From this point forward I'd have to deal only with his memory and the unanswered questions in his life that would remain the province of ghosts. At that moment, I too felt the great sense of aloneness that I knew June was feeling. And as I stretched out on the bed in my hotel room, I was overcome with a melancholy sense of the passage of time, of lost opportunities, and above all the loss of my father.
All of us have our own special days in life, days that relate directly to the core of our being and have the same sign hanging on them, saying, 'Private, Keep Out.' We usually see such days only in retrospect; only later do we recognize them as turning points in life. May 18, 1999, would be just such a day for me.
On that day I returned to Dad and June's penthouse suite early in the morning, remarking to myself how beautiful the morning sun could be in San Francisco with its promise of a complete renewal. Standing there in the living room, looking eastward, I could see both the Oakland Bay and Golden Gate Bridges, appearing as if by magic through the early-morning fog hanging low over the bay as it was dissipated by the sun. It was a sight that for a moment dissipated our own sadness. But June's sobs as she went through my father's personal effects broke into my reverie.
She was still in a state of shock and emotional trauma. She still blamed herself, believing she could have done something to save him, torturing herself by asking, 'What if I had checked on him sooner? What if I had taken him in for a checkup? What if he hadn't gone to have the arrhythmic procedure done? What if the paramedics had arrived sooner?' I had no words to console her. 'It was his time, June,' I repeated. 'He lived a long and wonderful life. Ninety-one years filled with adventure and travel is much more than most men have. The thirty years you shared with him were much more than you could have expected. And they were only possible through your love and care.'
But I saw my words gave her no comfort. She wasn't functioning, and I realized I would have to make all the arrangements. My first priority was to notify the rest of his children, my sibling and half-siblings. Father had had ten children from four marriages. Seven of his children were still living. His eldest son, Duncan, now seventy and semi- retired, lived a short distance away in a San Francisco suburb. His second-born was a daughter, Tamar, who was now living in Hawaii. Then there were the four children from my mother. Michael, my older full brother, had died in 1986.I was a twin, and my brother John had died a few weeks after he was born, his death ascribed to 'failure to thrive.' Kelvin, eleven months my junior, was living in Los Angeles. Then there were Dad's children from his marriage in the Philippines: Teresa, Diane, Ramon, and Mark. Ramon had died of AIDS at age forty, just four years earlier.
Each child was duly notified; still to be decided were the precise funeral arrangements. I asked June if my father had left any instructions; I found it hard to believe he had not. She looked at me blankly, then without saying a word handed me a paper she had pulled from her files. I read from the formally typed page on his attorney's letterhead:
FUNERAL AND BURIAL INSTRUCTIONS
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I do not wish to have funeral services of any-kind. There is to be no meeting or speeches or music and no gravestone or tablet.
I direct that my physical remains be cremated and that my ashes be scattered over the ocean. There are several crematories in San Francisco which provide these services.
