Old Haunts

In May of 2023, Beth and I were staying at the UCLA Guest House to attend our son Jacob’s graduation from law school. Westwood, and all of its glitz and wealth, is roughly 30 miles from where I stayed with my mother and sister on Lakewood Boulevard more than forty years ago, but it might as well be a million miles away. The day before his graduation Jacob insisted that we drive to “the old neighborhood” which is the phrase the rest of my family and I use when describing the area where I was living with my mother and sister. And while there were multiple occasions during my adult life that I traveled to Southern California, I never once desired to visit “the old neighborhood.” But on this day, Jacob was insistent that I did, so we set off on the 32-mile journey that would take us almost two hours, given the congested traffic at the time we were driving. Our first stop was the parking lot of the RV dealership my mother managed on Lakewood Blvd.

“ My mother, sister, and now I were living on the lot of the Airstream dealership that she had moved south to manage. All three of us were to live in one of the small travel trailers, connected to a power supply by a long extension cord, on the property where my mother worked. It was located in a gritty industrial area of the Los Angeles basin, next to a bank… Wedged between the cities of Compton to the west and Bellflower to the east, our new home seemed to me to be a substantial step down from anywhere we had previously lived. My mother, however, did not feel the same.” 

Just Enough Light, p. 158

When we arrived at the location and parking lot on Lakewood Boulevard where I had lived in the small Airstream trailer all those years ago, I discovered that it was now a kidney dialysis clinic. Nevertheless, I was able to approximate where our little trailer had been parked as well as the office where my mother sat alone for most of the workday surrounded by new trailers and very few customers. Stepping out of the car, I could feel a familiar heaviness of the air. Far from the cooler coastal breezes of Westwood, the inland warmth and pollution makes a 70-degree day feel like 80. Immediately I was sent back in time, feeling the sadness and despair that I felt when I walked up to the lot after leaving Cardinal Newman and moving down south after leaving my brother’s apartment during the middle of my junior year of high school. The familiar pain that plagued me for much of my adolescence seemed to engulf me, and just as quickly it was replaced by an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for all that I have been given. Jacob and my wife, Beth, both wrapped their arms around me as I began to cry. The gift of their grace at that moment and the affirmation of the love and life we share, yesterday, today, and forever was made possible by that boy who flushed his vices and misery down a toilet at the San Francisco International Airport in June of 1979.

“I separate myself from the me of that time. I take no credit for the choices he made then, which ultimately made available a path forward for me to be the beneficiary of the sacrifices he so painfully and courageously made in his life. He didn’t feel very brave or courageous then, but I know now that he was.”

Just Enough Light, p. 148

“I realize how odd it must seem to refer to myself as ‘he’ (that boy.) I insist on representing it this way, as I believe that today I do not have the strength and fortitude that he had then, to have willed himself out of a life filled with misery. And while I know that it was me, I also know that I have become what he hoped might be possible, even if he was often unable to see or feel it for himself then.”

Just Enough Light, p.148 - Footnote 40