Day 1
My father passed away last night, and my life will never be the same. To my pleasant surprise, the sun rose this morning, just as it has every day of my life. However, unlike every other day I’ve been alive, I did not have the opportunity to share it with my father. The sorrow, hurt, frustration, and sadness will be with me every day until my end comes.
In what sounds like a Hollywood script, I began brainstorming ideas or lessons my father had taught me throughout my life, just writing down some thoughts that were going through my head as I sat there, listening to my father take his last breaths.
I only got a couple of thoughts down when the breathing began to go quiet, and then, only about a minute later, my father, Richard Carpowich, gasped for air that did not come and passed away. He was in hospice at home, and I was his caregiver. He had been suffering from a relatively short but intense battle with cancer and other ailments, which I will disclose throughout this book.
As a writer and artist, I understand that creative geniuses (in mythology, a genius is a spirit of sorts that helps guide us along our creative path) don’t allow us to do what we want to do with our art at the time we want to do it. This is incredibly frustrating for artists, but it’s also probably a neurological thing as well, similar to what happens to people who are recovering from a stroke. They may know what they want to say and how to say it, but their brain makes what they want to say come out differently.
The point here is that for many years I have tried and tried to come up with the words for a book on manhood and what it means to be a man in our modern age. I don’t know if it’s the grief, sorrow, stress, or relief that is making me want to smash the keys on my keyboard right now, or if it’s just the right time for these words to flow. Either way, I will continue to write as long as I can, and hopefully, by the end of this book, the strangers that make up my readers will have enjoyed some stories, learned something new, or gained a new insight that might help them along their own individual path of life.
Just as the sun rises and shines light on us every day, it also sets and lets darkness come over us. We live, we die, we feel the push of light and good, and the pull toward darkness and bitterness.
Today was Day 1 for me, and in all honesty, it was not that bad of a day. I spent time with family, ate some good Mexican food at a family restaurant, remembered my dad, cried a good amount, but I also remembered to pick myself up and get to the store to stock my fridge for tomorrow. And I am also sitting down and writing some words to make me feel better.
My dad’s last words to me were that he wanted me to “live my life.”
The sun will rise again in the morning and give me a little more hope and a little more gratitude for the day that is to come. Each day will get a little better. My hope is that when all the days that make up one’s life are added up, we look back, as my dad did, and see them as a life well lived, and a spirit and way of life that continues on after we are gone in the ones we love and care most about.
I will conclude this introduction with a prayer I found in a little book of Catholic Prayers for the mournful. This prayer may also help even in good times, because the message of hope is like that of Rome—eternal.
Father,
God of all consolation,
In your unending love and mercy for us,
You turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life.
Show compassion to your people in sorrow,
Be our refuge and our strength to lift us from the darkness of grief to the peace and light of your presence.
Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
by dying for us conquered death, and by rising again, restored life.
May we go forward to eagerly meet Him,
And after our life on earth, be reunited with our brothers and sisters, where every tear will be wiped away.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
Amen.
Day 2
I woke up today with the thought of controlling what is in my control and accepting what is out of my control. More importantly, I asked myself what I could do to make today a little better. Over the last few months, I’ve learned a lot about what is and isn’t within our control. Obviously, a cancer diagnosis is beyond our control. We can do everything we can to live a happy and healthy life. My father prioritized his health for many years—he made sure to get his check-ups, cancer screenings, remained sober for the last seven years of his life, and exercised daily. But cancer can go from microscopic to a big problem in a relatively short amount of time. Just four months ago, my father was walking over a mile a day, had his blood sugar under control, and had lowered his cholesterol.
Even after his first heart attack and stroke, he was walking, talking, and relatively healthy, except for having what doctors described as severe stage 4 cancer throughout his body. He was given about three months to live. It didn’t make sense at the time, but medically and scientifically, this was a case in which the doctors were right.
Health situations like these are beyond our control—beyond our ability to will ourselves into a healthier, happier life. Sometimes, what we want is just not possible.
However, just like Zeus left hope in Pandora’s box, and hope was the only thing that remained, there are always some things within our control. We can always try to bring a little light to an ocean of darkness. Remember that the sun will rise and fall, and darkness is only temporary. We live in the light of day more than in the darkness of night, and when we live in a way that is better for our health, we tend to shine a little brighter for others and feel a little happier about ourselves.
I honestly cannot imagine going through what I’m experiencing right now without being sober. Sobriety is perhaps the greatest gift we can give ourselves. When my father stopped drinking several years ago, he realized how precious life was and that he should want to live as long as possible. When people stop drinking, their entire perspective tends to change, and their lives begin to take on new meaning. A healthy and happy life is our God-given right to pursue, and one of the most effective ways to obtain a calmer mind and healthier body is through sobriety.
To ward off depression, I decided to get out of bed this morning. Even though all I wanted was to stay in bed and cry, I got up. I decided that there was one thing I could do today to improve my tomorrows. Even though it’s a small thing that doesn’t cost much money, the metaphorical value of this action gave me a little feeling of being in control of my life.
This is also a “Man of the House” problem-solving task. I recently noticed that the walkway on the side of my house can be quite dark at night when I’m taking out the trash or the once-a-week trip to the curb with the garbage cans. It’s a mild annoyance, but I saw that my local hardware store sells little solar-powered fence lights that you can easily screw onto your fence. So, I figured I’d spend my morning bringing a little light to the darkness. A few dollars and 10 minutes with my drill got my mind off my sadness, at least temporarily, and it solved a minor problem.
But the psychology is what I was after—a simple fix, a small action I took to improve my quality of life by bringing a little light to the dark.
I ended the day by making some potato leek soup, which is a comfort food and something that will always remind me of my dad. Potato leek soup was his last real meal, so I thought it fitting to start this new chapter of my life—without my father—with how his story ended.
Below is the recipe for potato leek soup. The soup originated in the south of France and is an extremely popular dish among the mothers and wives of France. Every family has its own secret ratio of potatoes to leeks. I keep it simple and tend to use fewer potatoes than other recipes—just the way I like it.
Day 3 and 4
The alarm went off at 7:30 a.m., but I had already been awake for over an hour, thinking about what I needed to do this morning. The name of the game today is business—finalizing the affairs and arrangements to lay my father to rest.
After a cup of coffee and watching the news in my dad’s spot on the couch, I got dressed and headed out the door. The cemetery is just down the street in my small town, near the Sutter Buttes, the smallest mountain range in the world. The lady at the cemetery was very nice, assisted me in getting a quote, and showed me the grounds. They have a lovely cremation wall near a beautiful oak tree—a quiet, peaceful spot for my dad to spend eternity.
The next order of business was heading to the funeral home to speak with the director about the next steps. The most important part of the meeting was ensuring the information on the death certificate was correct—his name, date of birth, place of birth, and the names of his father and mother.
His father was Edward Joseph Carpowich, an officer in the Air Force who completed 30 missions over Europe with the 8th Airborne Division and another 30 missions in the spring of 1951 during the start of the Korean War. Captain Edward Carpowich was tragically murdered in front of his family when my dad was just four months old. The argument was over rent at off-base housing in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in October of 1951. The landlord picked up a pipe and struck my grandfather over the head. He died a few days later and is buried in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. My grandmother and grandfather were high school sweethearts.
My grandmother was born in Osawatomie, Kansas. Her father was an accountant for the railroad in Kansas City and may have been a small-time member of an organized crime syndicate of bootleggers during the 1920s and 1930s. That’s just a family theory my cousin and I have, based solely on our elementary school homework assignment of asking our grandparents what it was like to live during the Great Depression.
My great-grandmother, Ida Bright, was born in Kansas in 1894. She passed away before I was born, but she was also quite a character. She never cursed, enjoyed beer like many people of German descent, was small in stature, but was also a fanatic for wrestling. In the 1950s and 1960s, when wrestling was in its early years, she would watch every match she could. She knew all the wrestlers and their storylines. All of my aunts and uncles got a kick out of visiting her as kids and watching wrestling matches with Grandma.
After the funeral home meeting and getting a quote, I went to Costco for a hot dog and to browse around. I remember the day my dad was diagnosed with cancer and given about three months to live. He was calm, alert, practical, and business-like. It wasn’t unemotional, but it was a little dispassionate. We still needed stuff for home, so on our way back from Roseville, CA, we stopped by Costco. So many life moments can be traced back to trips to Costco.
I have a pasta bowl set I’ve used for almost two decades that my dad gave as gifts to extended family. My father always gave practical, everyday items as Christmas gifts.
Keeping up with that tradition, I came back from Costco about $200 poorer, but with a shiny new garbage can and an awesome cutting board. These two items will be in my home for years, and I’ll remember the day I got them. Even though his body is no longer here, his heart will always lie in this home and with me.
The next morning, I woke up early again when my alarm went off and got out of bed. To ward off depression, I’m going to continue getting up early. I know my father knew I’ve struggled with depression, and he did his best to make my life better, much more than most fathers do for their sons. Some things regarding my career and a string of bad luck were outside of my control, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. He could tell that the constant rejections I faced took a toll on my mental health, which is why he sent me to Italy for a vacation and got me Lasik eye surgery earlier this year.
Seeing the world with new eyes and gaining a greater perspective on life is a far greater lifelong gift than the few thousand dollars it cost to go to Italy and get new eyes. It was way cheaper than a four-year college degree.
After pruning my peach tree and mowing the lawn, I made quesadillas with turkey, peppers, and onions. I’m planning on going for a drive tomorrow to clear my head, take some photos, distract myself a little, and remember my father. I need to get out into the world a bit after being a caregiver to my father for the past several months.
Days 5, 6, and 7
Today I took one final car ride with my Father to the cemetery where he will eternally rest in peace. When I think of the thousands of everyday life rides we took together that at the time did not mean much, this one meant a lot. Moments in life come and go and we don’t really pay that much attention to going to the grocery store or out to a restaurant, or even a road trip to see family. So much about life is about tomorrow and believing we have all the tomorrows that the world will bring. We conveniently forget that the world is 4 billion years old and our 80 or so years on this planet doesn’t mean much to the vastness that is Mother Earth. We spend so much of this time we have with our loved ones blissfully unaware that one day there will be no more tomorrow to spend with that person. Death is an inevitable fact of life for everyone one of us, but for today and for this past week for me, the point of living in a tomorrow that will not be the same has become my reality.
The absolute final arrangement that needs to be made is purchasing a memorial bronze plaque for the niche. My father was very practical, he did not want an expensive funeral or a big deal made. He thought in today’s day of age the idea of having a body in a casket and buried was just not good for the environment. He told me to just cremate him and drive to the ocean like in Santa Cruz and spread his ashes. Cremation is also significantly a more economical and affordable way of laying someone to rest. The idea of never being able to visit my Father again and share with him the life I will live just didn’t sit right with me. I do not know if there is an afterlife or if heaven or hell exist, none of us know for sure. My father believed in heaven, and claimed to have visited it once in a dream when he was a child where he talked with his father Edward Carpowich even before he knew the story of his father. I would like to think he is there visiting with his father, mother, and grandparents looking down on me. This is a comforting thought to have.
I chose to have his entire remains interred at the cemetery, the idea of spreading ashes in multiple places or all in one place gives a finality to death that I don’t particularly believe in. I tend to believe that the loved ones we have lost in death do not fully leave us, their memories do not simply wash away or blow in the wind. Their life continues through the people they loved and knew. I know this is also the case for many people who wanted their ashes spread at a certain place or done a certain way. But the idea of saying a final goodbye just does not sit right with me. Which is why interring someone at a cemetery is a better option in my opinion, this way I can always go there and visit and say hello again, that is until I die.
I have written in my other book, that history is more or less a series of unrelated coincidences that become a story. The final days and hours of my Father’s life reinforced this belief I have that history and life are interconnected, at least it is for me and my father. I mean what are the chances that the assistant and caregiver the Hospice agency assigned to my Dad just happened to have moved to this area the same time we did 3 years ago. And not only that what are the chances that she used to live in the very same town we used to, Suisun California, or that she used to go to my friend’s comic book shop in Old Town Suisun? Some may call that kind of coincidence the world of God, or fate, or fortune, or some kind of cosmic alignment of the universe by some higher power. To me I just think of it as history, because the more I study history the more I think of it as unrelated disconnected coincidences that eventually become a connected story. For example; this real life coincidence connected to Suisun CA, is the same kind of coincidence of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln being born on the very same day. Or our neighbors across the street having the same surname as my aunts and uncles because Tinsley was the surname of my Grandfather, or my grandmother’s second husband.
As I write the final lines on my Father’s memorial plaque and take care of the final piece of “business” in laying him to rest. I am also attempting to turn a new page and write my own story and start new chapters in my life. Some basic finality has come after the oxygen tanks and hospital bed were removed by the medical supply company. Now I have the work ahead of me of rearranging the furniture in the owner’s suite to my own liking and doing my best to bring new energy to the home which will help me and my family heal.
Invitations are being printed for a celebration of my Father’s Life. New arrangements in everyday life things are already doing the trick, the garbage can and lights on the side of my house do actually help me reframe everyday life to some degree. I do still cry uncontrollably at times, I feel all the emotions flood all at once, which is okay and healthy. But the work continues.
As far as going out into the world on the road trip, I did enjoy retracing some old steps my father and I took when I was a kid. I have an old photograph somewhere here of me as a 4th grader in front of the miner in Auburn CA. I remember going on a road trip with my Dad down the 49 when I was a kid and we stayed in Auburn for the night. I had so much fun with my Dad riding in the car learning about CA gold rush history, seeing the twists and turns of the road through the foothills. It was a healing road trip my Dad and I took after a very tough and long divorce, it was good for both of us and we remembered it for a long time afterward. It just was not the same to drive without him in the car, but he would have wanted me to get back to my own life and enjoy doing the things I enjoy doing. Which is learning history, taking photographs, and writing.
On this trip I decided to do some things I have never done before, just to remind myself that life will not be the same for me anymore, so I should do something that I have never done before because there will be a lot of that sort of thing going forward for me. It is easy to become creatures of habits and routines, but it also good to not become prisoners of those habits and routines. It’s okay to go to a different restaurant or order something else from the menu of the restaurant you go to all the time. (Ignore what you just read, I will never order something different from Jersey Mikes, because my Dad and I enjoyed too many Roast Beef’s with Swiss)
On my solo mini road trip I visited the gravesite of James Marshall in Coloma California. Like I do when I visit historical places I read the plaques, and something important struck me about the story of James Marshall. If you are reading this and are unaware of the importance of James Marshall, he is the individual who discovered Gold in California while building and working on a mill for John Sutter. John Sutter who is the namesake of the county I live in was from Switzerland and originally a farmer near Yuba City California. His success in farming the California Valley convinced the Mexican authorities to issue him a larger land-grant a little bit south, the land-grant became the town of Sacramento CA, the Capital city of the Golden State. He had many successful and failed business ventures, and this saw mill in Coloma with James Marshall in 1848 was just one of them.
James Marshall discovered gold first, but his story is not one of riches and success. You would think that because he had discovered gold first and had some time before anyone else found out that he would have bene able to mine as much as he could and become California’s first millionaire. Unfortunately, the story of James Marshall did not turn out to be one of immense wealth and success. He had some success in business as a ferry operator and in planting vineyards, but he died alone in a cabin without a dollar to his name. In life. I think he deserved a little better of a fate. For a man who contributed so much to California, moving it from one of the most remote and unknown places on earth to a place where everybody wanted to come to and achieve their dreams, for him to have died alone in a cabin without any money basically homeless, is a little bit of a shame on the pioneers and out of towers who came to California in the 1850’s and 1860’s.
Luckily the Native Son’s of the Golden West decided that in death James Marshall was to be recognized for his contribution to the history of California and erected a magnificent monument in his honor. Below is the text of the plaque at the monument.
200th Anniversary of James W. Marshall's Birth
On the occasion of James W. Marshall's 200th birthday, the Native Sons of the Golden West rededicate this monument erected in his honor. Born in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey to Phillip and Sarah Wilson Marshall on October 8, 1810, he was the oldest of four children and the only male. He arrived in California via Oregon in 1845 where he worked for John Sutter before acquiring a small cattle ranch. In 1846 he served with John C. Fremont during the Bear Flag Revolt. Marshall partnered with Sutter to construct a sawmill where he made the discovery that would cause the cry of "GOLD" to reverberate around the world. After his discovery of gold in 1848 Marshall found some success operating a ferry, Hotel and a vineyard but by the 1860s fell on hard times and relocated to Kelsey. At the time of his death August 10th, 1885 Marshall was penniless, living in a small cabin. His body was brought to Coloma for burial. Immediately thereafter, Placerville Parlor #9 of the Native Sons of the Golden West in 1887 successfully advocated for the construction of the monument you see here today, the first such monument erected in California.
Re-dedicated October 8, 2010
By Grand Parlor
Native Sons of the Golden West
James L. Shadle, Grand President
2010-03
My road trip continued out of Coloma through the mountains on highway 50 to South Lake Tahoe. As a native Californian I have seen Lake Tahoe many times in my life, and some regards it has become nothing more than a big blue lake in the middle of the mountains with constant traffic. The amazing spectacular sight that is Lake Tahoe has diminished a little as I have aged. But I decided to go to Carson City Nevada the state Capital city of Nevada, simply because I have never actually been to Carson City Nevada.
What struck me about Carson City is that there is almost nothing special about the place except for it being somewhat near Lake Tahoe and about a half hour from Reno. It has all the same stuff you see in every other suburban town in America. The Capitol Building of Nevada is also nothing to write home about, it is nice, it is fancy enough, but it is pretty small and easily could be confused with a City Hall of a large city like New York or Los Angeles. San Francisco City Hall is much more of an impressive architecture and building than the state Capitol building of Nevada. But there is one interesting thing about Nevada, it is a modern place that is basically stuck in the 1800’s unless you are in Las Vegas, the rest of Nevada outside of Las Vegas is a time warp that doesn’t make much sense. The landscape of most of Nevada is that of a lifeless desert where nothing can grow and the only thing that is important in Nevada is that it is on the way to California or Utah. It is a Wild West type of state, which is also one of the few things that makes it unique among the 50 states in the USA.
For example, Carson City is keeping up with the Wild West tradition of having casinos, bars, and prostitution near Capitol buildings of states. Sacramento in the 1800’s was like that, so was Arizona, Washington and Oregon. In the early 20th century this tradition went away, but it still exists in the 21st century in one state, Nevada. There are multiple casinos within a couple of miles of the state Capitol, one is just a few blocks away within walking distance. There are legal brothels just on the outskirts of the town of Carson City, and there is even an adult entertainment venue a couple blocks away from the state Capitol. The point being is that one can make an argument that Carson City is a place of “Toxic Masculinity” and exploitative of women.
This combined with the fact that the people in charge of the state, the elected officials in the state house, also known as “The Patriarchy” are mostly comprised of women. The State legislature of Nevada in 2023 is 62% female, and they make up the majority of both houses.
This tradition of mixing sex and politics has gone out of fashion long ago, Washington D.C in the 1970’s and 1980’s around the area of Chinatown was full of burlesque show venues, seedy bars and adult venues where politics and sex and booze were all mixed together. But now, that area has cleaned up and is a hipster paradise.
But that memo of cleaning up the neighborhood never got to Carson City Nevada, those traditions are more or less alive and well, which makes it unique among the 50 states.
I concluded my day trip by going to Reno for a few minutes, and then returning to the land of normalcy in California. I had lunch in Truckee and then took highway 20 through the hills back home to the Buttes. Highway 20 remains to be one of the more interesting drives you can take in California, it goes from Highway 80 about 30 miles from the Nevada border, all the way to the coast about 5 miles south of Fort Bragg. I have really only done the beginning and end of the road, but what I find special about the road is that it begins and ends much the same, with a drive through a forest. The Mendocino forrest from Fort Bragg to Willits is a wonderful drive, just as the drive from Highway 80 to Grass Valley or Nevada City.
