Where the Zen of Being is under investigation...

The passing of Frank....

Posted on 2009-Aug-10 at 06:57 in A day in the life..

On July 22, my best friend Frank died. I went to see him in the long term care unit he had been in since Feb of 2009 and then spoke at length with the social worker there. They were concerned about his sudden lack of memory and his need for increased oxygen. They had been keeping him on it for the previous week, which he had told me.

I couldnt' stay long- which bothered him I know- and I felt terrible about it each time. But I was so busy running around doing errands and trying to get this Social Security mess fixed. I thought Monday, the 20th was his birthday, but I was a day off. Moon landing day he had told me. It was the day before.

I brought him some fresh jalepeno peppers- his favorite 'snack'. He ate them like that fresh, like I would eat an apple. Ugh. Iron stomach. Being Hispanic I guess helps.

On Tuesday I had to go to Modesto- a 150 mile round trip for me- to file an appeal at the Modesto SSA office since I was not up to trusting the office here in Sonora. I had told Frank I was going. I had to turn off my phone in their office and was in there for two hours.
When I stepped outside I received a message from the social worker at the hospital telling me Frank was in the ER and not doing well.
I rushed from Modesto and went straight to the hospital and stayed with him until after 11pm. I would have stayed but my 11 yr old dog had been locked up since 8 am and I was exhausted.

The last thing Frank said to me was "Think positive, think positive, think positive." Meaning, that after having had 8 strokes and 8 heart attacks, he was going to beat this because he just had to. He slipped into a coma and died the next morning.

Frank and I had been looking for his daughter for the last 6 yrs. He had been back in Sonora since 1998 and had seen her a few times, even traveled to Fremont to see her (a three and a half hour drive from here) in his 1973 Chevy p/u that had been his dad's. It was barely running at the time.

Over the course of the next 11 yrs Frank had many strokes and heart attacks. He was born with a bad heart and had left Sonora in 1981 to have a valve replacement done down in San Jose, where he was originally from.
We lost contact for a short time in which I thought he had gone back to Fremont, but he was just leaving me alone since he knew I had a lot on my plate at the time and he was in need of a lot of help that I just couldn't offer.

I felt terrible about that for a long time but I made it up to him. We talked about it, he was forgiving and I was apologetic.

We have been friends for 33 yrs. I would come visit him once he got his own place back in 2005- he stayed with us for about 9 months until he could get into the low-income apartments. Frank was terribly disabled from not only his work-related injuries but also from diabetes and his heart condition.He was in constant pain, day and night. It was so sad to see him like that- and try as I might I couldn't help him with that pain. But it was his heart in the end, that gave out.

Over the last four years Frank and I became very close friends. I could tell him anything and he would listen. We spoke online or on the phone almost daily- I would worry about him if I didn't see him online or hear from him so I called him to see if he was okay.

While he still had his truck he traveled mostly by bus in his wheelchair- and while he was a fairly private person and very shy, he made friends with a lot of people. Always quick to give advice and be a listening ear, he wasn't opposed to taking strays off of the street until they could get it together.

He was a great musician also.
He loved music. He was a wonderful guitar and keyboard player and he wrote many songs that he dedicated to his daughter. He was re-united through Classmates.com with some old high school buddies that he had been in a band with and that really made him happy. They traveled a long way to come see him more than once after that.

I tried my best to be a good friend to Frank. He gave his daughter my first name as her middle name. Once upon a time when we worked together- he as a tow truck driver and me as a gas jockey/dispatcher- he had some pretty strong feelings for me. I never let on that I knew but I was already with someone that later became my husband. I guess those feelings lasted a lot longer than I knew- at least until we talked about it.

But we loved each other as friends no matter what. The last five months Frank had been in a long-term care unit where everyone loved him, no matter how grumpy he got. I went and got his mail for him twice a week and got things out of his apartment for him. I saw him as much as I could until the smell of that place drove me nuts. But I still came- I just wish I had stayed longer on that last Monday.

The worst part was we never could find his daughter- until after he died of course. Seems the law has no issues finding a 12 yr old girl to let her know her dad died, but to heck with trying to find her so he could tell her he loved her himself one more time. We tried everything we could- from the finder dude on tv to online paid searches to Social Security. Nothing worked. Had I known the law might have looked for me I would have taken Frank to the Sheriff's office myself- but he hated the law. I could have at least proved to them that he wasn't about to abduct his daughter or kill her mom-he just wanted a phone conversation with her. But his memory was so bad from the strokes that he never told me about a small piece of paper at the bottom of his wallet. A piece that had Destiny's mom's drivers license on it. That is what the sheriff used to find her. No problem.

So I had a bittersweet meeting with the 12 yr old daughter of my best friend, after he died. She carries my name and looks just like her dad. We hugged, we cried and I gave her things in his apartment that meant a lot to him.

I told her I made her dad two promises. One was to find her no matter what and tell her how much her dad loved her, missed her and thought about her all the time. The second one was to start a trust fund for her. I have fulfilled one promise and I only need her ssn to complete the second one.

I may not be able to take care of his things as I said I would, they took the key and haven't been back, but I did the best I could.

Rest in peace my good friend Frank. You are now no longer in pain. Your daughter knows how much you missed and loved her and she feels the pain of missing out on knowing you better, but she is happy that she now knows the truth.
You are missed daily.
Here are some photos of Frank: