Since owning a restaurant many years ago, Don and I have never been big on going out to restaurants on Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day. Just too many people. But fifteen years ago, Don and I decided to do something crazy, we planned to go out to dinner on Valentine’s Day. We were living in Lake Havasu City(LHC) at the time, and planned to drive to Laughlin, and eat at one of the restaurants there.
It was a Sunday, and that morning we received a call from Don’s mom, Doris. Our home was above the high school. Don’s parents also lived in LHC, not far from us, off Palo Verde below the high school.
Doris told Don her husband, Don’s stepfather, Walter, had fallen while they were getting ready to go to church. Walter was 89 years old. He had lost a leg several years prior and wore an artificial prothesis.
Walter was from Hawaii. His mother was Portuguese, and his father was Puerto Rican. He was born in Hilo, Hawaii, raised on a sugar cane plantation, where his father worked. To say he came from a big family would be an understatement. According to Walter, his mother had over twenty children.
He was twenty years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Hawaii wasn’t a state yet. I remember Walter telling me how after Pearl Harbor he had to bus Japanese Americans to internment camps, something that he didn’t want to do. Many of those Japanese Americans were his friends.
Walter remained single for many years, helping to raise and support his siblings, even buying his parents their last home in Hilo, which his parents ended up leaving to one of his brothers.
He moved to California, where he met his wife, Don’s mother. They worked together in Sunrise Market, in Covina, California. Doris was a young widow with two small children. Her husband had died of lung cancer at the young age of thirty-two. Walter was 39 when he married Doris, and for Don, he was the only father Don ever knew.
Walter could be cranky and contrary, but I always got along with him. He would frequently tell me I was his favorite daughter-in-law, and I would remind him, I was his only daughter-in-law.
He and my own father were very different from each other, yet they had a few things in common, aside from sharing the same first name. They were both hard workers and extremely honest. They both enjoyed fishing, yet Dad preferred lake fishing, while Walter liked any fishing—as long as he was catching fish. They both enjoyed gambling. Although Dad preferred blackjack, while Walter liked the slots.
When Walter lost his leg in his eighties, my respect for him grew. He bravely accepted his new challenge, and I never heard him complain. I found it inspirational how he handled himself, and how he helped a young woman in his church, who had lost her leg in a motorcycle accident.
On that Valentine Sunday, by the time Don arrived at his parent’s house, his mother, with the help of a neighbor had already managed to get Walter to his feet. Don immediately started asking his father typical questions one might ask an elderly person who had fallen, while Walter kept insisting, he was fine.
Despite Walter’s wishes, Don called 911, and after the paramedics showed up, they started asking him many of the same questions Don had just asked, to which Walter grumbled, “My son already asked me that.”
The paramedic asked Don if he thought Walter’s color looked off, to which Don told him, yes. It was after this they slipped the oxygen mask on Walter.
The next moment, Walter died. Just like that. Without fuss or drama, he was gone.
The paramedics went into resuscitation mode, and rushed Walter off to the hospital, but Don knew. His mother, didn’t. And as they drove to the hospital, Doris wondered aloud how long they would keep Walter in the hospital.
Of course, Walter never came home. Like Don suspected, when the paramedics took him away, he was already gone. It was difficult for Doris, losing Walter so suddenly. She would often express her shock at his sudden exit, asking why he had to go. Yet, Don always says when it is his time, he wants to go like Walter did. Of course, Don also witnessed the excruciatingly drawn out deaths of my parents. But the truth is, when you lose someone, you love, death is never easy for the person left behind, regardless of a swift or slow exit.
Don and I didn’t go out to dinner that night, and for a few years after that, Doris always wanted us to go out to dinner with her on Valentine’s Day, to one of Walter’s favorite restaurants.
A few years after Walter’s death, Doris sold her house, and we built a guest house on our property for her, where she lived for a couple of years, before she passed away. We had both Doris and Mom living with us during this time. Don and I used to say we had them both living with us because we wanted to go to Heaven.
Mom deeply missed Doris when she passed on. The two had been close, with much in common. They were the same age, shared grandchildren, and then great-grandchildren. Doris passed away on October 26, 2014, and Mom passed away almost exactly ten years later on October 24, 2024.
They have all moved on. I think of them daily, and I understand how lucky I was to have such supportive parents and in-laws, who always made me feel loved and accepted. I wish everyone had that.
I wonder, did any of them get together this Valentine’s Day?