I took a few digital photos of pictures in the family albums to have when I returned. I thought it would be nice to put a few of them up.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
surreal
is pretty much the only word I can use to describe my last few days, and I don't think it's going to get any less so.
I owe about 25 people phone calls, I went back to work yesterday, and there is a small neatly-stacked pile of my dad's clothes on my floor waiting to go to the cleaners. It's really bizarre. I have a hard time assimiliating the information that he's no longer on this planet. Or, at least, in any discernable form that I knew him to occupy.
My co-workers have been very kind, and today was an easy day. Tomorrow I get back into the swing of things. I have a three-hour presentation to prep for that's happening next Monday. I haven't really been breathing, but I remember ever so often.
I saw the first picture of my dad's dad while I was sorting through his things; I came across a small stack of his childhood pictures, his dad's obituary, and a burial record for Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois with a map to his dad's plot. In his handwriting, he wrote the dates of what I presume to be other relatives: 1880-1946, 1882-1965, 1913-1963. The last set is his dad's -- fifty years old. He survived his own father by 8 years, 7 of them on dialysis. At some point I'll visit the plot, too, now that I know where it is.
Before I left I packed up and went on a big road trip with Mazzy - out to every place of significance to my relationship with my dad. Setting out from San Francisco, we drove up 101 to Willits, out Redwood Road to the house that Jeopardy money built, down through the windiest road imaginable to Fort Bragg, site of many a weekend jaunt with my dad and I as we waited for my mom to complete her radio show on KOZT. We stopped many places, but wound up in mendocino, overlooking the driftwood beach where we shared many hours pouring over potential pilferable pieces. That beach is a shadow of its former self and I feel partly to blame. Mazzy and I headed back via 128 through Booneville to San Francisco, where we met Cathy for dinner and I was handed off to Cathy for the trip to Oakland Airport. Exhausting, but a wonderful and heart-rending trip. I took many pictures and will post some when my camera has enough battery to upload them.
I owe about 25 people phone calls, I went back to work yesterday, and there is a small neatly-stacked pile of my dad's clothes on my floor waiting to go to the cleaners. It's really bizarre. I have a hard time assimiliating the information that he's no longer on this planet. Or, at least, in any discernable form that I knew him to occupy.
My co-workers have been very kind, and today was an easy day. Tomorrow I get back into the swing of things. I have a three-hour presentation to prep for that's happening next Monday. I haven't really been breathing, but I remember ever so often.
I saw the first picture of my dad's dad while I was sorting through his things; I came across a small stack of his childhood pictures, his dad's obituary, and a burial record for Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois with a map to his dad's plot. In his handwriting, he wrote the dates of what I presume to be other relatives: 1880-1946, 1882-1965, 1913-1963. The last set is his dad's -- fifty years old. He survived his own father by 8 years, 7 of them on dialysis. At some point I'll visit the plot, too, now that I know where it is.
Before I left I packed up and went on a big road trip with Mazzy - out to every place of significance to my relationship with my dad. Setting out from San Francisco, we drove up 101 to Willits, out Redwood Road to the house that Jeopardy money built, down through the windiest road imaginable to Fort Bragg, site of many a weekend jaunt with my dad and I as we waited for my mom to complete her radio show on KOZT. We stopped many places, but wound up in mendocino, overlooking the driftwood beach where we shared many hours pouring over potential pilferable pieces. That beach is a shadow of its former self and I feel partly to blame. Mazzy and I headed back via 128 through Booneville to San Francisco, where we met Cathy for dinner and I was handed off to Cathy for the trip to Oakland Airport. Exhausting, but a wonderful and heart-rending trip. I took many pictures and will post some when my camera has enough battery to upload them.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Charles Harrington Anthony Seiter, Ph.D. 1948-2007
My dad was my first best friend. I loved him dearly, and can barely comprehend the huge gaping hole that is now created in the world by his absence. He died peacefully last Sunday evening at about 9pm, listening to his favorite music, shortly after my mom told him it was OK with her if he went.
He was so many things and so loved by all who knew him. He was incredibly complicated. I'll never really know everything about him, but what I do know I have treasured, even as we struggled over the years.
Born in 1948 in Chicago to an Irish Catholic family of five, he lost his father at the age of 15 to kidney failure that was likely the same condition that would ultimately end his own life. I don't know enough about this time in his life, but he was an altar boy, read every book in the Willamette library, took up calligraphy, learned Latin and Hebrew, became a loyal Cubs fan, chewed Wrigley's gum and ate Oscar Meyer head cheese the family received as holiday presents from those families, learned how to bribe people, steal holy wine, run a lawn-mowing business, and other traditional entreprenurial activities. After his father's death in 1963, his mother moved the family to San Diego where he met my mother (they attended the same Chinese class at Clairemont High School) and he was a member of the second freshman class of UCSD, 1969. He then earned a double PhD in Chemistry and Applied Mathematics from CalTech. He taught chemistry for five years at USC -- one of his favorite classes to teach was Chemistry for Nurses. He maintained that anybody could learn chemistry and math if they were taught better. He was a record-breaking winner of Jeopardy, one of the first telecommuters, and an amazing cook. He approached everything with brightness, humor, and the ability to innovate. For years he was a contributing editor at Macworld Magazine; I recall taking trips from Willits to Ukiah to rent a toaster-box Mac where he would write some of the first Mac software reviews. He designed biochemical equipment and worked on electrophoresis problems during my early years...he would describe incredibly complex surface-printing problems or engineering feats like the manufacture of tape in a way my ten-year old brain could understand. There's so much more to say here, but I have time and it will come.
For the last ten gruelling years he struggled with the effects of first one stroke, then another, and total kidney failure which ultimately damaged his body beyond recovery. He said during his last two days that he was going on a trip, I only hope his trip took him to a much better place than his body would allow him on this earth.
This is about all I can stand to write about him publicly at this point. Expect further installments at totally arbitrary times.
Many many people's love has helped to hold me together through this time. I can't thank my people enough. You know who you are, and I owe you one.
He was so many things and so loved by all who knew him. He was incredibly complicated. I'll never really know everything about him, but what I do know I have treasured, even as we struggled over the years.
Born in 1948 in Chicago to an Irish Catholic family of five, he lost his father at the age of 15 to kidney failure that was likely the same condition that would ultimately end his own life. I don't know enough about this time in his life, but he was an altar boy, read every book in the Willamette library, took up calligraphy, learned Latin and Hebrew, became a loyal Cubs fan, chewed Wrigley's gum and ate Oscar Meyer head cheese the family received as holiday presents from those families, learned how to bribe people, steal holy wine, run a lawn-mowing business, and other traditional entreprenurial activities. After his father's death in 1963, his mother moved the family to San Diego where he met my mother (they attended the same Chinese class at Clairemont High School) and he was a member of the second freshman class of UCSD, 1969. He then earned a double PhD in Chemistry and Applied Mathematics from CalTech. He taught chemistry for five years at USC -- one of his favorite classes to teach was Chemistry for Nurses. He maintained that anybody could learn chemistry and math if they were taught better. He was a record-breaking winner of Jeopardy, one of the first telecommuters, and an amazing cook. He approached everything with brightness, humor, and the ability to innovate. For years he was a contributing editor at Macworld Magazine; I recall taking trips from Willits to Ukiah to rent a toaster-box Mac where he would write some of the first Mac software reviews. He designed biochemical equipment and worked on electrophoresis problems during my early years...he would describe incredibly complex surface-printing problems or engineering feats like the manufacture of tape in a way my ten-year old brain could understand. There's so much more to say here, but I have time and it will come.
For the last ten gruelling years he struggled with the effects of first one stroke, then another, and total kidney failure which ultimately damaged his body beyond recovery. He said during his last two days that he was going on a trip, I only hope his trip took him to a much better place than his body would allow him on this earth.
This is about all I can stand to write about him publicly at this point. Expect further installments at totally arbitrary times.
Many many people's love has helped to hold me together through this time. I can't thank my people enough. You know who you are, and I owe you one.
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