Daddy (Word Published)

Daddy, your two girls are okay. I'm now older than you were when life was too much. You have a great grandson, your only great grandchild.

Mr. Could Be Mafia (Word Published)

My Daddy's family had Chicago Mafia ties, my Mother had told me. I believed it, she was a connoisseur of all things mafia as well as our little family's fount of knowledge.

In 1972 when the blockbuster, 'The Godfather,' hit movie screens, suddenly and for the first

Marlon Brando starred as the aging patriarch

of the Corleone family.

and only time, my Mother and Father went to a drive-in movie. An avid reader, my Mother, had pored over the book, night after night in our living room. Quietly engrossed, ambivalent to the world around her. The novel she was holding tight to, "The Godfather," had first introduced the world and my Mother to the Corleones, the fictional, New York crime family.

My Mother relished Marlon Brando as aging patriarch Vito Corleone and Al Pacino as his youngest son, Michael Corleone.

For me, the movie was god-awful gory as well as hard to follow.

Not being familiar with aging mafia bosses, I was annoyed by Brando's exhausted-sounding, hard-to-understand voice (created on the set by putting cotton-in-his cheeks). For sure, though, he delivered to us a decrepit and powerful Godfather, which the entertainment industry rewarded him for, he was given the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Being a typical girl who loved horses; the movie's infamous, atrocious 'let's put a cut-up-horse-head in our enemy's bed,' scene, an actual horse head, left me stunned and horrified.

Less ghastly memories though include in the 1960's on Wednesday evenings driving with my Mother and Father to the La Mirada Public Library. When my stack of books needed replenishing in between those trips, I'd walk, or ride my bicycle, from our Courser Avenue home, to the library, at La Mirada Boulevard and Leffingwell Road, a trek of slightly less than one mile. Anything for books.

So it was a treat when I one day discovered books on the bookshelves of our own home. Oddly, I didn't see this treasure, within a finger's reach, for a long time.

Maybe these books lay dormant to me because I'd grown up to a world where books lived in stated confines, like, 'this building is committed to books, it's called a library'. Thus, perhaps a 'library' had tall rows of vertical bookshelves, placed back to back, row upon row. They were presented traditionally, books only, with easy signage for category and organization. Systems held books. 

Or perhaps it was the idiom, you can't see the trees because of the forest.

The books on the bookshelves in my family's home were possibly, in my young girl eyes, seen as secondary to the overall presentation of the room. In interior design 'speak,' the books and bookshelves were not the centerpiece or the focal point of the room.

Summer days were
rich with books.

Function and beauty had equal value as my Mother established our home. I kinna' noticed we had bookshelves, but I more saw a room that was decorated with books. They were mixed, interspersed with objects d' arte. A bookshelf might hold a small, framed oil painting propped on a small easel, then books, then a vase or two, then more books, and other lovelies.

In that room, my Mother had positioned my Daddy's chair exactly opposite the television set, for best viewing. The chair had a small, round, marble-top table next to it, which in the evenings often held a beer. Next to my Daddy's chair, along the back wall, sat a three-cushion, orange tweed sofa. A pool table with traditional green cloth filled the center of the large room. And books. Books were abundant. On the walls, books of all sorts were on the wall bookshelves.

These books, right next to each other, were of varied subjects, had no particular organization, were disparate styles of writing, old, new, hardback, paperback, comical, detailed writings of history and were stocked via the 'family route.' They seemed to

My Mother's copy of Louisa May Alcott's
"Little Women"

have come from my Mother's family, had been passed around by that extended family, and some, somehow found a home, in our home. And I'd not noticed them for a long time.

There were also some literary treasures.

Summers found me enjoying random, pleasant writings and also random classics. My brain hopscotched from Louisa May Alcott's classic novel about four women coming about of age, "Little Women," to the thoroughly uncontrollable, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," by Ken Kesey.

'Cuckoo's Nest' challenged society's treatment of mental patients via a romp in a mental  hospital with Randle Patrick McMurphy and his nemesis, Nurse Ratched. Many years later I would painfully appreciate the well done movie version (starring Jack Nicholson) with its affect on and reflection of society's treatment of the mentally ill.

My summer reading even included my Mother and Father's wedding book. Sitting in my 'Daddy's chair,' a drab olive green, Lazy-Boy recliner, I found myself mesmerized by names. Signatures of people who attended my parents wedding. Just names written in a book. To me these unknown (for the most part) names were not unimportant. These handwritten signatures were pretty recordings of a celebration of my Mommy and Daddy.

I studied them. Some of the more fun letters, B's, G's, X's, were written larger than the others. Some letters had exaggerated loops, curves, some letters were elongated a bit for emphasis. Bits of my family's history, right there, in cursive writing.

Then some more fun. The wedding book also listed wedding gifts received, and to my surprise, there were MANY $500 cash gifts. Hell-o!

Joseph A. And Phyllis J. Cardella

For a wedding that occurred in 1952, the size of these cash money gifts seemed enormous, outrageous. But they were right there, listed in my Mother's handwriting, one after another. My surprised hand runs over the listings, my fingers touching the dollar signs and the numbers.

Could be true, Southern California family has Chicago mafia ties.

How else in 1959 did we drive from Chicago, Illinois to Southern California, open up two barber shops, build a beautiful swimming pool with a nice house, next to a mansion. I don't know. I don't think it was from my Mother's Worrell family side. They were not destitute, but they weren't well off either. 

Sitting on the floor, next to my Daddy, my favorite location, I reveled in life and stories and an often discussed issue regarded my Italian Grandfather, Carmen Cardella, lamenting that he'd invented the machinery for Malted Milk Balls but that he'd been ripped off by the company, that the company had stolen the rights from him. 

I'm just reporting what I heard. A Google search shows the following for invention of malted milk balls.

“In 1939, the Overland Candy Company introduced the predecessor

to Whoppers, a malted milk candy called Giants. Overland merged

with Chicago Biscuit Company, Leaf Gum, and Leaf Machinery,

in 1947. Two years later, Leaf Brands reintroduced malted milk balls

under the name of Whoppers.”

 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoppers

I don't know about all that. I do know that my Italian Grandfather Carmen Cardella took us on a grand tour of that 'Chicago candy factory,' from where he'd retired. He proudly presented us as his Californian grandchildren. I think to my Grandfather it seemed as though California was millions of miles away, across many oceans. He was so very pleased to present us, we were 'his' Joseph's children, his only son's family. 

Standing inside the candy factory, in its rooms of order and function my Italian Grandfather beamed with pride. I worried the buttons on his vest might burst. It was almost silly, and if you were a kid, it was a prestigious place to be. This was our Italian Grandfather's world and he allowed and encouraged his Joseph's children to eat, grab and fill every pocket with candy. It was a kid heaven. 

Later, when the Chicago Cardellas traveled to visit us on the West Coast, my Italian grandfather and my Daddy would sit under our walnut tree, eating fresh walnuts. Always underfoot, my Daddy would crack open one walnut for him, one for me, one for him, one for me.

As I write about this, typing on my laptop, I'm trying to envision my Grandfather, trying to put him sitting before me, next to me, so I can adequately share what my Italian grandfather looks like, how large was his ethnic presence, (indulge me here, readers, please), what he sounded like. Ummmmm... how to adequately do that here.

This voice was the voice my Daddy heard growing up.

This voice I'm sure made my Daddy quieter, more reserved.

If you're not Italian, or if you're not accustomed to being around robust Italians, having this voice as your Daddy would make one less likely to riot, in any form. I believe that.

My Daddy was a quiet man, but he was more so, I have no doubt, because of what I observed of what my Daddy heard. Of my Daddy's Daddy. I don't know, there's so much conjecture one could have and stereotypes land easily here.

Italians are uber full of passion, jam-packed sentences that fall like fireworks out of their mouths. Italians are like a people who have heavy decades of experience, full of sorrow, joy and noteworthiness. They cannot be abated, they're so sure, so present.

I saw my Daddy, a quiet strong man, with his much-stronger-in-presence Italian father. My Italian Grandfather's passion was loud, and, sometimes landed like spit. This was my Grandfather, whom I tried to call my Grampa. He was heavy in my heart and bigger than life in my life, in my little girl life.

I experienced him and am trying to write about him, and all these years later, it's still big and difficult.

My Italian Grandfather, Carmen Geoseppe Cardella was HUGE in front of me, a 6 year old, an 8 year old.

Italian people show their life experiences on their sleeves, in their gestures, thriving to get across what they want to share.

They use their hands and pound their chests to show their hearts. They offer up a morsel of their feelings in hand movements that reveal emotions in strumming fingers.

But the Italian force that was my Grandfather eventually occurred with my German Mother; the scenes in this following story, my story, are of a large man, very hardcore, "old world," Italian man. He was faced off with a strong German woman, his only son's wife and proprietor of her kitchen. Wink*.


Me a young girl, with my Daddy and my Italian Grampa - it was a sweet shady spot in lovely Southern California, made even more special by the resonating sound of the nut cracker at work and familiar male conversation. Predominantly my Grandfather's deep, hearty Italian voice. I liked this Italian man's voice. It was sumptuous to me. It was hearty. Sitting next to my Daddy, I enjoyed its strength.

We were definitely Californians now. Nevertheless on cooler Southern California Sunday nights, my Daddy would make us roasted chestnuts. Forever glued to his side, in the kitchen, he explained to me 'before you put them in the oven, cut the shell open or they'll explode. Then you can roast them.'

Uuummm . . I could barely contain my excitement. 

But he was frustrated doing so in California. I surmise. I don't know. 

Perhaps the crop of chestnuts available on the West Coast wasn't as good. We wanted them, but it stopped happening. Similarly with hockey. Although ice hockey was big in Chicago, it wasn't in the 60's in Southern California. Neither his love of hockey or roasted chestnuts traveled well to his newly adopted, Pacific Ocean, beach-side state.

They were confusing times, I believe for my Father, looking back, all these many years later. 

My Italian grandparents visited us again in Southern California but unfortunately, they were much aging and it wasn't as pretty and fun, like way back visiting them in Chicago.

My forever independent, German heritage Mother found herself care-taking for two kinna' out of control family members.

A not so pleasant memory is my very independent and proud Grampa Cardella going for a  walk and going missing for hours and my Mother finally finding him in a large dirt field. He was all alone and not really too far from our house. My Grandpa was sitting atop a dirt mound, his handsome walking cane by his side. He was wearing only dirt covered, black leather, Italian shoes, black socks with elastic sock straps and a white pair of boxer shorts.

He'd gotten lost. My Mother had finally found him and quietly together they walked home.

Possibly, I don't know, an even worse-case scenario caused my Mother and Grandfather to come to battles. A turf war.

The Italian force that was my Grandfather eventually occurred with my German Mother; the scenes in this following story, my story, are of a large man, very hardcore, "old world," Italian man. He was faced off with a strong German woman, his only son's wife and proprietor of her kitchen. Wink*.

My Italian Grandfather had proudly collected hundreds of snails and they were now sliming away on the counters, appliances and walls of my Mother's usually sanitized kitchen. These creatures and my Grandfather's loud voice led to hostility between them. It found me, super alert, cowering in the hallway, listening to my proud, resplendent Italian Grandfather vehemently telling my Mother the methods with which these snails were being 'prepared' for escargot.

My German Mother didn't turn over ownership of her kitchen; not even Mr. 'could be mafia,' Carmen Cardella, was going to bring snails into her kitchen.

We never ate escargot.

Buon Giorno! (Word Pubished)

Even today I much enjoy saying my Father's name in my version of an Italian accent.

Geosepe Antonio Cardella, it was Joseph Anthony Cardella. (I even use my hands as I say it.)

Being Italian had style and flair, like a Connie Francis song.

A large patio table found a home in our covered patio area and was often covered with a red-and-white check tablecloth. Ambience was easy. Half burnt candles were stuck into wine bottles - Italian is attitude and lots of good food. 

Pasta dishes galore, red and white
check tablecloths, Italian food - we
couldn't get enough of it.

Southern California's lovely climate made dining outside a common activity. The porch's location on the other side of the kitchen screen door made it effortless. A swimming pool 50 feet away made it alluring.

Home-made pizza, pasta of all kinds, lasagne, and of course bread. OMG, bread! And Parmesan. And more Parmesan!

There was much good about it to me.

Buon giorno! (Good morning!)
Buon pomeriggio! (Good afternoon!)
Buona sera! (Good evening!)

But truth is, I don't know if my Father was Italian. Knowledge of his ancestry is hidden, tucked away in a records file, unavailable to me, somewhere in downtown Chicago. 

My only evidence of my Daddy's birth/heredity, starts and ends with an adoption announcement in a Chicago newspaper. It stated Carmen Geosepe Anthony Cardella and Luci Salvatore Cardella adopted Joseph Anthony, age two into their family. That evidence was barely 2" of an old, yellowed, scissored, newspaper clipping, pasted in an equally old, thin, photo album.

So, my Italian Father was adopted and as was customary in our home, there was little discussion of it. He lived a kinna' anonymous, low key life. An honorable one, he worked hard, was the best Dad he could be, not perfect, low profile. As his only daughter, naturally athletic like him, I got the best of him, was a 'Daddy's girl,' and I was fully aware of that. 

My Dad was not Italian or maybe he was, I don't know.

I wish I knew more.

It seems lovely when people celebrate traditions. My Father actually had just a few and he honored them in his quiet, limited way. He deserved more.

Adoption records were sealed in those days. Almost like nonexistent.  

My Father was adopted by very traditional, old-school as well as older in age, Italian parents. Their age, clothes, lifestyle was difficult and awkward, for my Father. These adoptive parents were also obese. 

My Daddy was naturally fit and athletic, so he drew his life that way and hit the streets with a basketball. It was as natural as breathing.


Facts about his birth were almost an unknown, his adoptive family it is known was an uncomfortable influence in many ways. Ponderings over family genetics versus societal influences is debated by the best of the world's trained brains, but I find myself debating them in my own head.

To be written:

'Nature versus nurture,' refers

The phrase nature and nurture relates to the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature" in the sense of nativism or innatism) as compared to an individual's personal experiences ("nurture" in the sense of empiricism or behaviorism) in causing individual differences, especially in behavioral traits.

The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" was termed tabula rasa ("blank slate") by John Locke in 1690. A "blank slate view" in human developmental psychology assuming that human behavioral traits develop almost exclusively from environmental influences, was widely held during much of the 20th century (sometimes termed "blank-slatism"). The debate between "blank-slate" denial of the influence of heritability, and the view admitting both environmental and heritable traits, has often been cast in terms of nature versus nurture. These two conflicting approaches to human development were at the core of an ideological dispute over research agendas during the later half of the 20th century. As both "nature" and "nurture" factors were found to contribute substantially, often in an extricable manner, such views were seen as naive or outdated by most scholars of human development by the 2000s

In their 2014 survey of scientists, many respondents wrote that the dichotomy of nature versus nurture has outlived its usefulness, and should be retired. The reason is that in many fields of research, close feedback loops have been found in which "nature" and "nurture" influence one another constantly (as in self-domestication), while in other fields, the dividing line between an inherited and an acquired trait becomes unclear (as in the field of epigenetics^[7] or in fetal development

My Father was a handsome, responsible man, a veteran of the Korean war. My Mother was lovely and evidently landed on the earth forever-independent.

It was after my parents were married that my Mother taught my Father how to drive a car, which may explain why, later, as a family, when we went places, my Mother always drove. It worked out well for me. Bestest personal memories include long drives home from family get togethers, me in my Daddy's lap, falling asleep in his arms (seat belts didn't exist yet).

A European trait, could be Italian or not, may have evidenced itself in my Daddy. He often rode a bicycle. He rode a bicycle with a crate he'd affixed to it and would often pick up fresh bread and especially Sunday mornings, pastries for our family. It was a nice treat to wake up to.

When the Cardella grandparents died there was definitely Chicago Cardella money to go after and very purposely my Southern California parents chose to not pursue a dime. There was a crack in the family dynamics, that is, the heirs, my Father and his sister. Once and only once my Mother shared about this with me, that my Daddy's sister (also adopted) had raised concerns because we'd moved to California, I guess inferring that they'd seemingly abandoned my Grandparents. They had no desire to combat things in probate court.

There wasn't much talk about these issues in our suburban, cul-de-sac home. My Mother didn't talk alot; my Daddy rarely did. You lived in the house, you got along. And, okay, it worked for me. I was Joe's talented, athletic, platinum blonde haired daughter. It worked for me.

Being Joe's Daughter (Word Published)

My Dad continued to dribble a basketball down the street in Southern California, and like magic, boys in the neighborhood would yell at their parents, “I'm going with Joe down to the school.” They'd follow him like a pied piper to the local junior high.

I would have played with them and kicked some boy butt back then, but the basketball was too big for my 7-year old, slender girl hands, which annoyed me. Never one to pout, I rode off by myself on my hot pink Schwinn Sting Ray bicycle all over the school grounds. My Daddy was playing pick up basketball and I was daydreaming of my world and how its splendors laid out. Confidence abounded. And a cute smile. (Again, I inherited it!)

I thought my handsome Father looked like movie star.

I may have been irrelevant for real basketball, but my Father enjoyed having me on his team for pool basketball. He'd made a cool poolside basketball hoop by pouring concrete in a wood box as a base for the hoop. It was about 3' high, sitting between the shallow end and deep end. Our family's version of swimming pool basketball was gangsta.' I fit right in, I was always the smallest and usually the only girl.

Author Patricia Loya at age 52
sitting in a horse water trough

I was 8, scrappy and strong in the water. I took hits and came back hard and crushed everyone. I was my Father's kid in the pool. I'd quietly lurk swimming around and grab the ball from unsuspecting strong boys, young men and Dads alike, only to tuck it in my left arm and forcefully use my right arm and legs to swim down deep to the bottom. No one knowing where it was. I submerged where I could shoot the ball to my Dad, for the point. Yeah, he didn't mind. Smile, all these years later.

I swam uncountable miles, doing freestyle, backstroke (my favorite) and breast stroke laps in our pool. I hated the butterfly but did it. I swam deep, low, skimming the pool bottom, touching the drain, the lights. I broke a tooth in that pool doing somersaults in the shallow end, too close to the concrete steps, and and hit them. Bring it on, baby.

My Father Joseph Cardella gave me the gift of spending many, many nights sitting in a patio chair beside the pool teaching me how to dive on our springboard diving board. Big dives. Back dive, inward, reverse, twist, forward somersaults, tuck, back somersaults, tuck, pike.

He drank Pabst beer, Schlitz beer on quiet Southern California nights, beside the lovely ambiance of a beautifully lit pool, a daughter on a diving board with a lot of spring. I thought I was a diving diva. At least I knew my Dad thought so.

I had swimmers' legs. My thighs and calves had nice sweet muscles. I was voted prettiest legs at my junior high, which I attribute to swimming specifically and in general athletics, all stuff from my Dad.

My only athletic-related memory I have of my Mother, my independent, artistic, bohemian Mother, is from a story my dear Aunt Jinny shared with me, some fifteen years after my Mother had died. My Uncle Ev, my Mother's only brother, and my Aunt Jinny, my Mother's Sister-in-Law from Illinois were visiting my husband and I in Silverado, California. They were kindly sharing stories about my Mother - who I still missed much. My Aunt Jinny said that once when my Mother came and watched me swim in a competition, my Mother told her, “That may have been Joe's daughter down there in that pool, but the girl wearing the big hoop earrings while she swam, was my daughter.” I love that story.

Smile. Yeah. Feel good stuff.

Being A Daughter - And My Aunt Nancy (Word Published)

Issues existed with my Daddy and his sister. 

Two children were adopted into the Carmen Cardella family, two unrelated, not biological siblings.

My two year old Daddy got a new Mother, Father and a Sister, and her name was Nancy. 

My Mother explained to me this brother and sister living in the same Chicago home, never developed a relationship growing up.

Recollections and memories can and do often fragment. I'm not sure how I did but somehow I learned that my Aunt Nancy cherished nice things, like mink coats and fine jewelry. This aunt seemed to get what she wanted and was accustomed to it.

I think of meeting her when I was very young, on a visit to Chicago, and I recall seeing bling on my Aunt Nancy. A lovely broach pinned on her coat, a double strand of pearls.

Sometime later my Aunt Nancy and her family visited our family in Southern California. 

The author kicking up her heels at 50.

On that trip, my Father's sister 'swooped' in and took me, only, for an epic, elaborate, expensive clothes shopping trip. Think of the shopping scene in the movie, “Pretty Woman." You get it. 

Sales women were sent hustling, listening to my Chicago Aunt advising them what to do, what to bring, and how to bring it. Money flowed, cha ching, cha ching, swirling and hurling the sales clerks. 

For a young teenager in the 70's, it was like winning the lottery. I started my freshmen year in high school in Whittier, California enjoying thoroughly being me. 

My Mother wasn't thrilled however with this shopping trip with my Aunt Nancy and it was an issue in our home.

I don't think the issue was jealousy, my Mother was a self assured and self reliant person, she didn't have a bone of jealousy in her body. I don't recall my Mother wasting even one moment of her life involving herself in other's business. She was benevolent, I remember efforts of charity. But not intrusive, ever.

Perhaps it was simple annoyance. Like, my 'tiger' mother felt that some familial tiger member was messing with one of her baby cubs. 

Further bolstering my thought process about the Nancy issue, my Mother wasn't a 'helicopter hovering' type. We were given an abundance of space, to play, to idle away hours of time in lands of adventure. This was certainly conducive and also reflective of that era. It was a safer time back in the early 60's. Our bicycles and our young selves traveled everywhere, gladly navigating our lands.

Sadly, I wouldn't know it til I was a young mother myself, but I relished 'being one of my Mother's cubs,' my bonding with my Daddy kinna' stood in our way.

My Mother was a naturally artistic woman who enjoyed life. She designed and created the interiors of our Southern California home and the front and rear landscaping; the various patio areas, without assistance of professionals. She forever was playing, staging various aspects of our home and making small and large art and artworks. She painted with oils, sculpted with clay, worked with tile and completed murals. Christmas at our home was without measure. 

My Mother created and I was blessed to observe, teaching me incidentally. I saw beauty being unveiled before my eyes, every day. Coming home, from school, to my Mother's home, our home, was frequently and often a delightful experience.

My eyes were trained to look for new lovelies, for beauty to reveal itself to me.

It was not my Mother's style to methodically teach; rather I was immersed. She quietly and naturally taught me.

Years later my Mother confided that I'd always had an inherent, instinctive confidence and ability - that she marveled at my apparent, seeming 'ease at life capability.'

I did know that life wasn't difficult for me, even big life, gargantuan situations. What I didn't know, what confounded me later, was that she thought it was beyond her own. 

I was sad because I saw a different woman; and these are perhaps secrets shared between mothers and daughters.

My Mother also told me she knew I was always a Daddy's girl. This concept fell awkward on my heart. It pained me to know it was so obvious.

These secrets were precious. Gifts.

My Aunt Nancy had gifted me way back then, a previously unknown level of excess in personal presentation, in clothing. She had no daughters and obviously ached for one. 

But I wasn't hers. That was an experience, a kinna' gift, but a fleeting one. 


My Aunt Nancy wished she'd had a daughter, and for a short period of time, I was it. And, unfortunately, my Mother resented it.  

Perhaps one too many women treating me like a daughter. Ummm. Can't answer to that.

We only had a bit of time to bond really as adult women friends. I was 29, a young woman and a mother myself when my Mommy died. 

The Aunt Nancy spending money on me thing, was a long ago issue, insignificant compared to what my Mother and I owned and shared.

Having time to be best friends with your mother is unequaled, unparalleled, invaluable. My Mother is the 'Queen Of My Own Personal Universe.'

To this day, thirty years later, it's my Mother's voice I seek.

You can't make another Mother. She's my go to person forever. For the best things in life and the worst things in life, I wanna' call my Mother. I want her.

I am who I am because of her.

Don't let your own mother daughter journey go. Grasp it with all the strength you've got. Hold on to it, tight. There's no other journey like it.

Drinking And Diving And Best Friends (Word Published)

I couldn't have paid for boys' attention when I was 13 but that changed the year I strutted out in my florescent-pink bikini. It was the summer after junior high and leading to high school. I was 14 and jaws dropped.

That was also around the same time I met Roger Atwell*, 'the dream.' Roger had just graduated from high school where I would be starting in a few months as a freshman.

It also brought on my first experience with girlfriend drama. A girlfriend who happened to be older shared about me meeting Roger with her older, popular girlfriend, and I suddenly was under girl 'attack.' I was being hovered over by girls, girlfriends of girlfriends. How I dressed, who I knew, how I wore my hair and suddenly the shape of my eyebrows even was subject to girlfriend critique. It was less subtle of course, but it was an odd twist.

Roger was unquestionably the real thing. But I was accustomed to cool things occurring in life, it wasn't that big a deal.

He'd been hugely popular in high school, sang like a rock star and was president of his car club. Ummmmm . . . sexy and handsome, yeah. He was 18, much bigger than I in physique and maturity.

Our first date was to a drive-in movie and when I asked my Mother for permission to go, my Mother told me, “Yes, but be aware, older guys are going to expect more from you.”

I vividly remember thinking. What the heck? What does that mean and not mean? Aye gawd but I was naive.

When Chris the dream was on top of me kissing me at the drive in movie, I remember thinking, I need to find out how you get pregnant, cuz' maybe I've already done it. Fer' stupid!

Later still, but still in high school, with a newest wonderboy, this time boyfriend Danny Pelligrino*, we'd sit at the mansion, next door, which was now a church, on the building's rear steps and drink. Danny was the most popular, charmingly-handsome, slightly bad boy at school, we'd met at a football game, and he big time noticed me. 

Warm Southern California, Saturday afternoons, drinking whiskey out of plastic cups, on the steps of the Church.

They were sweet but confusing times for me and I'm sure frustrating times for Danny who wanted sex and all. We played around alot, but I wasn't ready.

I was kinna' annoyed that having a boyfriend and his desire for my time conflicted with swim team practice.

And friends. I lost my best friend Julie Ramey over boys. Julie had been my exciting and finally an equals friend. No girl drama, we were never into that. Frankly our brains weren't wired for girl drama.

Feminism was being explored and touted by large scale personalities such as Gloria Friedman and Bella Abzug on the television and in popular magazines. I was aware of it, had read about it.

But for a young girl in Whittier, California, in the late 60's, early 70's, having a girlfriend who matched me with brains and athletic zest was feminism at its best - so significantly previously not commonplace.

Frankly every girl should have one. There weren't a lot of other intelligent, fabulous girls out there doing stuff, being naturally strong, driving down that road. 

My Dad had taught me to dive with strong legs and
my pointed toes became part of every workout.

For Julie and I, when one of us had a new trick, like how to do an aerial flip, a cartwheel, the splits, cartwheels into doing the splits, etc., we were zealous to show it to the other. There was no competition, we were learning exponentially, creating ever better things. It was so empowering. 

For me and Julie it was intelligence and athletics in general. It was fireworks, special, for real. I know now it doesn't matter where and how the fireworks start, it's some common ground that is paramount. It's what makes the friendships wonderful.

Julie was my swimming pool friend first, before boys entered into our lives. It was Julie who came home from junior high with me at lunchtime and swam. We felt so ultra cool returning to school with wet hair.

Julie also had been annoyed about the conflict of me having boyfriends, for some time, evidently, and I'd had no clue.

I read somewhere, 'true friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.'

She ended our friendship because she said she was tired of following me. Like I said, I was clueless to her pain.

Shame, shame on us girls, we need to learn how to value ourselves, make choices that do so and cling to real friendships. Shame on women for not reinforcing this. Statistics show that women's friendships will likely outlive our husbands. These are feminist issues.

Back to Danny Pelligrino and drinking and diving. Eventually we left those rear church steps and took our drunk bodies 150 yards into my family's swimming pool.

Aye gawd! Swimming drunk. My body was weightless.  The water enveloping me felt like broad ethereal ribbons swirling around my fluid form.

But I was still in my family's back yard, in our ever familiar swimming pool.

Pushing my limits, add then, the grandeur of diving, drunk.

I owned every inch of our diving board, this diving board.  I'd practiced diving basics here hundreds and hundreds of times. Start at the far end, make three long, distinct steps, swing your arms to your approach, bring your leg up and into a big jump to the end of the board, move your arms in a large, sweeping counter circle and PUSH the heck out of the board for great rebound. The better the rebound, the bigger and better the jump, and the dive.

Well, no big, big, big dives, when you've been drinking. You don't wanna crack your head open. But smaller versions of my diving, while drunk, were shocking to the body senses and, exotic. Yeah. Just sayin . .  (Kids, please don't do this at home.)

I was athletic, school was relatively easy. Yeah, I played around with the bad side a bit. But I'd spent too many summers swimming religiously and diving with earnest to walk too far away from what I knew brought me home safely every night.

So I had started at the high school and quickly made varsity tennis, volleyball, track and swimming and diving teams.  I got along with all of the varying weird groups at school for some reason and was basically a good kid; it had served me well so far. I was bold and energetic and that helped. Being athletic made school days effortless. Except for losing Julie my best friend. That was tough. Celebrate and love your besties, that's why they're the best.

Losing Your Daddy (Word Published)

"Losing Your Daddy," is a heartfelt daddy-daughter epic that ends in suicide, but doesn't end.

Wait til she finishes high school and then divorce. That was the plan. An easier, simpler plan.

It didn't work very well.

My Father planned/decided that since he was divorced from my Mother that he was divorced from his family, from his children. From me. The forever Daddy's Girl.

In a subdued but obviously planned phone conversation, my Daddy cut me off. He told me he couldn't see me any more, because of the divorce.

I heard the words, with no comprehension. It absolutely couldn't be happening, this doesn't happen. My Daddy wouldn't do this.

He could have said he was dead, like, "This is a recording, I'm really dead, now."

The words fall horribly on my heart and frighten me. The telephone itself is now heavy in my daughter hands, but I hear my Daddy waiting. Since I can no longer breathe I know I can't talk. A single moment has forever changed me.

That phone call still gets caught in my throat and forever, in my brain and plays itself in a slow loop over and over. When I need a Daddy, when I need a protector. The loop plays.

I felt a stabbing, a deep cut to the chest, into my heart. While the world couldn't see the cut and the pain, the unseen wound was very real to me.

Some ten years later, when I am 29 and my only-then 'parent,' my Mom, was dying of lung cancer, and I contacted my Dad in tears, he responded with, 'Well, that's her choice, she wanted the divorce.'

Even though my Dad had cut me off, I still didn't see that coming. Again, harsh.

In 1979 I had a daughter, Sarahjoy Laura. Joe's only daughter had his only grandchild, also a daughter. I knew he loved me, a girl, I thought this would be the exception to his harshness. I absolutely thought my Daddy would walk into the hospital room, toward me, carrying a stuffed animal and a smile, like he'd done when I was a child. But he never came. I was an adult and now a mother and I still wanted my Daddy. But he never came.

In 2001 my Daddy shot and killed himself. I kinna' lost my Daddy two times. The latter was more permanent, that one many years later, the one in 2001.

What kind of Father does that? Not surprising, I was angry at him for a long time. 

Not because he shot himself, but mostly I just wished …... he'd opened up his depression world to know his only Grandchild. A girl, who so like you, Daddy, is also into sports.

She's very driven, focused and has become an accomplished hunter jumper trainer and competitor ...

Author, Patricia Loya, Camiros, And The Author's Daughter, Sarahjoy Crain

She's this and she's that, Daddy and I'm this and I'm that . . . and I need you. We need you.

It's all really blah blah. I was ignorant. I was blind.

Because actually a very loving Daddy did that. A very loving Daddy that had been emotionally hurting for so long that the affect on his family wasn't on his mind. Having lived and experienced more, now I know that you can simply be in too much pain.

It was the beginning of my learning about a very sobering illness.

Depressed people like my own Father also have unseen, unfathomable wounds. Their hurts are so endless that they absolutely prevent/inhibit their ability to have moments to 'come visit' their only daughter holding his only, ever, just-born Grandchild. Depressed people face profound pain every day of their lives. Now I know this ache unfortunately often ends in suicide.

My Father was suffering from depression and its oft-partner, alcoholism. I, like millions of people, didn't know or understand mental illness. In fact, both knowledge and treatment of mental illnesses advanced staggeringly in the 70's and 80's, and especially since the 90's.

Five times. Or less than five times. After being cut off by my Father in 1974 until his death some 27 years later, I saw my Father less than five times. This was despite not living far from him - and - not because I did not try. Countless phone calls were made, asking to see him, to visit him, to have a Daddy, for my daughter to have a Grampa.

We tried every which way. When we just showed up at his door, which we tried as an alternative eventually, he would turn me and my small family away. There we'd be, knocking on my Father's door, holiday presents in hand for him. A little family looking for family. My Daddy would open the front door, talk to us most briefly through the screen door, and turn us away. And it shattered me, ripped my heart to shreds.

Albeit, we did have a strange and difficult ritual. Every year without fail my Father sent me mail at Christmas and for my birthday.

He'd write a brief greeting and sign these odd, handwritten notes, "Love, Joe."

If he sent money, which he often did, I longed instead for a hug. Finding a handwritten envelope from my Father in a cold grey mail box brought me to my knees and tears. I guess the envelope and note in my frozen hands was his best version of a hug.

Among the approximate five times I was allowed to visit my Father was an occasion when we met at a restaurant in Whittier, California, for my birthday. He'd called me out of the blue - or - maybe I'd initiated the phone call, I don't remember. I was experiencing a divorce from Mr. Christian Man. I was raw emotionally. I'd probably called him.

So, at a nice restaurant, on a lovely Southern California, January evening, my Daddy met his Granddaughter and he gave three-and-a-half year old Sarahjoy a television. It was unexpected and nice and I was so happy, I wanted to pop.

On one of our other few visits, to his house, my Father (having evidently enjoyed the time with my daughter very, very much) had put out the suggestion that she stay overnight with him and wife, he'd re-married by then. But a very young and shy Sarahjoy, perhaps five or six then, did not know this man, her Grandfather, and it was not to be. It was a poignant, sad experience between these two loved ones of mine.

And, these are my bestest memories of having him. They bring me both joy and sorrow.

Over the years I would mail photographs and snippets of information about achievements and successes for both Sarahjoy and I, to my Father. He only once wrote back, a note to the effect, 'that he'd never expected anything less than greatness . . .'  Yes, my Daddy was MIA from my life, but this written statement of how he felt, rang true to my heart. It was no surprise. I always knew that my Daddy thought I was accomplished, expected me to be accomplished. And he carried that expectation forward with my daughter. Smile.

The door to my Daddy became permanently closed and locked, as I said, in 2001, when my Father officially sealed it shut.

I received a phone call from a neighbor telling me my Daddy had shot and killed himself.

I was shocked but not terribly surprised, it didn't seem unexpected. If I could have done anything to prevent it, I of course would have. If I could have had my Daddy in my life for all those years, I also of course would have.

It is a forever loss.

From discussions with people who were in my Father's life, including his second wife, Faith, via infrequent telephone calls with her, over the span of those passing almost 30 some years, my Daddy was experiencing what we now know are symptoms of depression.

I was ignorant and immature in my expectations, as a Daughter, as an adult. Mental illness is just as real an illness as my Mother's lung cancer, having a broken leg, or measles.

You don't just get over it by going for a walk, or volunteering at church. You don't get over it 'by trying harder'.

All these many years later, I know now that he did the best he could with what he had been given.

Sadly in losing my Daddy to suicide I experienced another ugly fact about mental illness.

When my Mother died, friends and family gathered round, there was great support. When my Daddy died via his own hand, nothing. Nothing. No talk, no support.

Society has made great strides in understanding mental illness, but we're not where we should be.

Our understanding and treatment of suicide, moreover and a nod to those who are showing suicidal tendencies, is archaic and primitive. We would do well to immediately see that suicide and mental illness and addiction often are parts of a whole. It's still the big secret in our society, in our families, in our lives, in us.

Today still the mere speaking of suicide is considered taboo.

But that's not fair and that's not right.

My Daddy was an Army Veteran, he had honor and he had dignity and he had accomplishment. His death should not be swept under the rug, like a trivial amount of dibris.

Neither should his survivors go quietly in shame. For us, despite the choice of suicide, it is still a significant loss of a beloved Father, Grandfather, Veteran and a man.