When my father and i first met in 1988 one of the places he took me to was Point Dume, in Malibu. He used to live right by the point, down the road from Bob Dylan and Martin Sheen. He would go for long swims right by the outcropping behind me in the picture. He also told me how he saw a friend get eaten by a shark when they were in the Navy Sea Bees in the Korean War. He loved the ocean.
After he died I took his ashes to Point Dume with Rev Tony Hernandez, close friend to my father and Presbyterian priest, he was the last person to see him alive. Tony spoke glowingly of that time, when he helped my father to bed and how they said the Lord's prayer together for the first time. My father had always denied the existence of God, though he admitted to me once that "if there is a God he's paying me back for all the things I've done". Those words were heavy with pain, I wasn't strong enough to ask what he meant by them. Over the years I've come to imagine he was referring, at least in part, to his non-existent role in my life. And how my coming to him as he was dying was not so much a salve but more like salt for his wounds. I could be wrong though. The first few years of my daughter's life, when I was so distant, felt empty, I reckon he must have felt something like that about me, but for 19 years...I could be wrong though.
We said prayers, each in our way, and then I took the ashes out beyond the surf. As i tore the bag that contained his physical remains, i was suddenly swimming in his ashes.
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Cuando conoci a mi padre en 1988 uno de los lugares al que me llevo fue Point Dume, en Malibu. Me conto que solia nadar legua tras legua en el oceano. Tambien me conto que una vez vio a un amigo que se lo comio un tiburon cuando estaban en la Marina en la guerra EEUU-Corea. El amaba el mar.
Mi padre murio y luego lleve sus cenizas a Point Dume con el Rev Tony Hernandez, uno de sus mejores amigos, padre Presbyteriano. Rezamos, cada uno a su modo, y luego entre al mar, mas alla de las olas. Rompi la bolsa de sus restos y momentaneamente nade rodeado de sus cenizas.
