Farewell, Dear Friend

In 2004, when I was a teacher and administrator at a fancy, expensive, progressive school in Los Angeles, there was a mother who was a kind of bête noir, for sure. Very anxious, demanding, always wanting the very best for her daughter, skeptical of the progressive and supportive tendencies of the school, wanting her daughter to be "prepared for college," but in that pushy, traditional way that parents sometimes have, when it comes to daydreaming, creative, social and not very academically motivated children. I had this woman's daughter for two years, and this was a very expensive school, where we had three parent teacher conferences a year, each of which was about a half hour long. I came to dread the ones with this woman. 

On Saturday, February 21st, 2004, she was scheduled to be my last conference. Yes, we held many of these conferences on Saturdays. I was antsy, desperate for a drink, also in nicotine withdrawals, and incredibly played out, after two full days of conferences. How she ended up being scheduled last, I have no idea. Suffice it to say, the conference was rough. Her position was what it often was: "My daughter is just coasting. She's not being challenged. She's not learning how to write. She never does the required readings. Her math class is a joke." Etc. You get the picture. I did my level best to remain calm, perform the required emotional labor, make as many promises as were reasonable and hold the line as gently as possible on the progressive ideas the school held, where it was her daughter's inner motivation we were most interested in, and that we tried to balance the challenges of college prep with the natural inclinations of our students as young adults, etc. 

By the time the conference was over, I was seething with rage inside. I just had had enough of rich people wanting me to work fucking miracles for their goddamned spoiled children, wanting me to play bad cop to their god cop home life, wanting somehow to take a sensitive, poetic, dreamy and depressed kid who had been diagnosed bipolar and turn her into a fucking academician headed for Yale. 

As we often did, the lot of us harder drinking teachers convened at the San Francisco Saloon along Pico in West LA. It was only about 4, but it was time to blow off some steam, shake off those parent conferences, bitch a little bit, get into the hilarity of the rest of the weekend. I was especially primed by the resentment toward this unbearably demanding and unrealistic woman! I raced home to my apartment a few miles away to let my dog out, and slammed a few beers and shots, and then headed back to the saloon. These drinking outings with my teaching colleagues started with a big crowd, and then some of us would migrate to a new place, and the number would go down, and then we'd migrate again, and dwindle, etc. This particular evening involved a caravan to the Baja Cantina, then to a sushi place in Venice, then to the dive bar The Townhouse, right on the Venice boardwalk. 

By the time we got to the Townhouse, I shudder to think how many drinks I had had. It was only about 11, but of course the few of us left had been drinking for seven hours. I dimly recall wandering out to the roiled surf of the Pacific and sitting on the sand in the pitch black and being about as sad and lonely as I had ever been in my life. Then wandering back to the bar, downing a beer, and corralling my buddy, so we could drive home. I often drove drunk during these later days of alcoholism. It was a habit of mine. 

This was the night I got arrested for DUI. Which led to being sentenced to 24 AA meetings over a 12 week period. Which led to attending the noon meetings at the Westside Alano Club, also on Pico, ironically pretty much right across the street from the San Francisco Saloon. 

One day, at the noon meeting, a woman started sharing. I thought she looked vaguely familiar. "I'm three days sober and I feel like shit," she said. I honestly did not recognize her at first. Of course, it was my bête noir, the mother of that student, sitting on the sofa right across the table from where I sat (chairing the meeting, having put together 30 days). She didn't recognize me either. It was that surreal thing, out of context, both of us in a completely different setting. When  I signed her court card, she finally knew who I was. 

That was a weird and wild moment. Every resentment between the two of us completely vanished. We hugged. We made a date to go to Norm's and talk. And, that's what we did. Probably 40 times over the next few months. She and I were crucial parts of our early sobriety in weird LA. After I cleared all of the legal stuff for the DUI, I moved back to Santa Fe, and she and I lost touch to some degree. We visited a few times, and kept up via Facebook. 

She messaged me a little over a year ago to say she had been diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. It wasn't looking good. She probably had about a year. We chatted a few times, but she was not well and had no energy for much conversation. 

She died September 2, in her sleep, in hospice care. 

I've been grieving in the background ever since. I keep thinking of reaching out to talk with her about AA, or to joke around about some bullshit, or to get some sense talked into me. I miss her. I'm glad the universe works the weird way it works. But I wish we had more time.