A Carlin Home Companion (36 page)

Once again I was so in awe of his ability to humorously strip us of all our illusions. And then something else hit me—it felt like he was talking to me. Like this was an indirect communication from Dad to me about death. I felt alone with him in the theater. No one else was in on it. It sounds crazy, but maybe he was preparing himself, and me, and the audience for the inevitability of it. We Carlins had never spoken to each other directly about death in the past, so why start now? I laughed at the thought that the closest we'd ever come to addressing this delicate subject was through a comedy routine in front of thousands of people.

When I went backstage to see him, I couldn't help but notice he was officially looking elderly now. Although he'd been brilliant that night, he was no longer laser sharp on stage. And even though he was genuinely happy to see me and all our Northern California friends, he was now permanently puffy and stooped. It was hard to take in.

Two months later, Dad, Sally, Bob, and I went to lunch at Ford's Filling Station in Culver City for dad's seventy-first birthday celebration. Dad looked really good, and seemed sharper than ever. It was like having my old dad back. I relaxed a bit, letting my fear of his imminent demise fall away. As the lunch unfolded, I realized that the last few times I'd been with him, I could really relax in his presence and more easily plug into my own personal power. I'd consciously use his higher vibration to help jump-start mine—like how a tennis player becomes a better player when they play with someone of a higher caliber—but I knew I was no longer borrowing his buzz as I had so many decades ago at Carnegie Hall. I was buzzing at my own higher vibration now. As I walked back to my car after lunch, a voice came into my head. It nearly stopped me in my tracks. It said, Kelly, you can no longer depend on your father to take you to that higher vibration. You now must, and can, do this for yourself. I had no idea what this voice was talking about. Well, maybe I did, but who wants to hear that.

I put that voice aside because I had an exciting and crazy month ahead of me. It was a whirlwind of travel. In late May, Bob and I went to Toronto for our friend Alexandra's fortieth birthday party. Then we all were off to Scotland for ten days to stay with Alexandra and her husband at their estate in Perthshire, where we would stare all day at the most beautiful countryside and eat way too much clotted cream. After that Bob flew home alone while I went on to Oslo, Norway. This was for a three-day training in how to lead a workshop called “The Act of Leadership.” This was one of the workshops I hoped to be teaching throughout Europe in the year to come.

But I wasn't done there. In mid-June, after my return from Oslo, I officiated at the wedding of my dear friend Wendy Kamenoff, now Wendy Hammer (at Elayne Boosler's house). And finally, to top it all off, five days later, June nineteenth, I was off to Maui to officiate at another stand-up comedian's wedding—Craig Shoemaker.
Whew!

Before I left for Hawaii, Dad and I laughed on the phone about how I was officiating at so many comics' weddings.

“You know, Dad, I may not be a stand-up comic, but, strangely, I have followed in your footsteps,” I said. We were both ministers in the Church of Universal Life. In the 1970s my dad had cut out an ad in the back of
Rolling Stone
magazine and become ordained as a minister. He'd even officiated at a wedding.

I continued, “Of course, all I needed to do was go to their website and press a button that said, ‘Ordain Me Now!'” We both chuckled. “I've finally found a way to merge my inner Lucille Ball with my Marianne Williamson—I'm the official comedian officiant.”

The weirdest part was that I'd never really hung out with comics or spent much time at comedy clubs. I didn't know many comics except for my dad, and the few I did were clients from when I was a therapist. That's how I met Craig. I had helped him navigate his separation and divorce from his ex-wife. I guess he thought,
Who better to help me start my new life than the woman who helped me end my old one?

I felt great talking to my dad. I was building an international coaching business, getting to travel to amazing places, creating sacred and loving space for friends' weddings, and working on
Waking from the American Dream.
He was feeling better and starting a new book. Plus he'd just found out he was getting the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor. I was so thrilled for him. I always thought he'd deserved it years before. I mean, I like Billy Crystal, but really? Before my dad? It was going to be a great rest of the year.

I got to Maui a few days before the wedding. I had some time to kill, so I decided to visit the Napili Kai Resort, that place where thirty-five years earlier I had tried to contain the chaos of the Carlins by writing out that UN-style peace treaty. I was so curious to see if there were any lingering effects of those dark days left on my soul.

I first stopped in Lahaina to see if I could find the bar where my mom, dad, and I had spent the day trying to score coke. I found it. It was now a tourist-trap daiquiri bar. I had a virgin strawberry daiquiri and stared out at the ocean. I got back in the car, headed north following the signs to Napili Bay. I had no idea if the resort would even be there. And then I came around a corner, and there it was: the Napili Kai.

My stomach tightened. I took a deep breath, pulled in, and parked. I made my way through the resort toward the water, and there was Napili Bay—curved and calm. And then, there to my left was the infamous bar that had served my mom too much of the Mateus rosé, and to the right was the bungalow where I had written the treaty. It's so weird visiting places that have an iconic place in your psyche. It was like visiting a set of a famous movie I'd seen over and over. I couldn't believe I was actually there.

As I walked down the beach, I felt at peace. All the pain, the terror, and the confusion from those dark days were remarkably gone. They'd been dropped off, released, and transformed. A door shut, an era was over, a wounded self had been healed. I was astounded, relieved, and thrilled.

I don't normally believe in miracles, but I did in that moment.

The Carlins were whole again.

*   *   *

As I drove back down the coast to my condo, I was so excited about what had happened that I had to call my dad. There was no one else on the planet whom I could share this with. He rarely picked up his phone, and I was expecting to leave a voice mail when he said, “Hey, Kiddo, what's up?”

Excitedly I jumped right in, “Dad, guess where I just was?” I took a dramatic pause, “The Napili Kai.”

“Wow!”

“I know. I know! And I have to tell you that there was this space there inside of me with no pain, or confusion or anything.” Tears began to fill my eyes. “It's done. I'm done. We're done.”

There was a slight pause and quiet in his voice. “That's great. That's
really,
really great.”

And then out of nowhere these words tumbled out of my mouth: “And Dad, I want you to know that the parts of ourselves, of you, and me, and Mom, the parts of our souls that we left there thirty-five years ago—I just reclaimed them for us. It really
is
done.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Tears now streamed down my face.

I could tell Dad was crying, too. All he could manage was, “Yes.”

A deep and silent calm held between us for a few moments, nothing more needing to be said. I looked out at the bluest ocean I'd ever seen and knew that we'd just connected in a way that I'd always longed for—deeply, from our hearts, not hiding one single square inch of ourselves from the other. I felt like all of me was present with him. I was his equal, his daughter, his teacher, his soul companion.

I wanted this feeling to last forever.

That was the last conversation I ever had with my dad.

 

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

Sunday Will Definitely Never Be the Same

M
Y LAST DAY IN
H
AWAII,
Sunday, June 22, 2008, was absolutely perfect—the wedding was behind me, my phone was unplugged, I had lain on the beach and swum with the turtles in the morning, to finish the day with a fabulous lomilomi massage, and the all-important afternoon nap. Between the crazy month I'd just had and the heap of work waiting for me when I got home, I reveled in my day of complete peace and quiet.

I'd barely woken up from my long nap when Craig Shoemaker frantically knocked on my condo door. When I opened it, all I could see was the look of panic on his face.

“Is your phone off? Bob's been trying to reach you for hours,” he said nervously.

My heart sank so quickly and deeply I almost couldn't breathe.

“Um, yeah, I had a massage and then a nap,” I said as I went to turn on my phone.

Craig stood there for a moment and then said, “If you need anything, we're in 605,” and left.

When I saw that I had five missed calls from Bob and Theresa, I knew that whatever was going on was bad. Fuck.

As the phone rang in my ear, I was already crying. When Bob picked up, I said, “What's going on?”

Bob's voice was soft, like he knew the words would land hard, and he didn't want to add to their blow. “Kelly, your dad … died.”

Time stopped. The space swirled around me. I looked for something to make sense. I stumbled toward the door leading out to the lanai and shouted, “No, no, not today!” to no one in particular. As I spoke I realized that those were the exact words I had uttered at the moment of my mom's death, eleven years earlier. I found it strange that I was noticing this very moment as I was saying it.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We don't know exactly, but he couldn't breathe, and Sally took him to the hospital, and they tried to stabilize him, but it was too much. They couldn't save him.”

I said nothing for a few moments, just trying to wrap my head around what he had said.

“I'm coming home right now. I'll go to the airport and switch my ticket.”

I frantically found my way up to Craig and Mika's condo. They both embraced me. I cried a bit, but mostly I just stood there in shock. “I need someone to take me and my car to the airport,” I said to Craig.

Craig's youngest son, five-year-old Jared, asked me why I was crying. I didn't have the wherewithal to lie. “My daddy died,” I answered matter-of-factly. Craig told me later that for the rest of the trip, every time someone came to the door, Jared would ask the person, “Did your daddy die?” Jesus, not only did my former client have to see his former therapist fall apart, but I also somehow managed to scar his youngest child. Way to go, therapist Kelly.

On the way to the airport Craig and I said very little to each other. There isn't much one can say in that moment. There really are no words. Plus I was in shock. Language had left me, for the most part.

Once Craig dropped me at the airport and I was alone, I felt that wave of familiar strangeness that only death can bring—the thin veil between the “here and now” and the “beyond” falling away. It felt like everything around me was a movie.

I walked up to the United Airlines counter to try to get upgraded to first class. I was sure that they'd allow me this dignity because of the horror I was living through. I mean, it's suffering enough to have to fly home alone to a dead father, but quite another thing altogether to have to do it in economy.

I put on my most charming self for the man behind the counter, “Hi there, I was wondering—well, my dad just died—today. I need to change my flight, and—well, is there a way to upgrade me to first class? Is there a bereavement thing?”

“Do you have a first-class ticket?” the perfectly lovely Hawaiian man said to me.

“No. I have a regular ticket for tomorrow, but I just found out my dad died.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice, “You see my dad is George Carlin, and—well, I wondered if there was any way for you to upgrade me.” Throwing down my “I'm special” card.

“I'm sorry, who is your father?”

Oh, thank God, I thought. “George Carlin,” I said.

He looked at me like I'd just said my father was Joe Blow. “I don't know who that is,” he said with a hint of snideness in his voice.

“You know, the comedian. ‘Hippie-Dippie Weatherman'? ‘Seven Dirty Words'?” I added desperately.

Blank stare from him. “Sorry,” he said.

You've got to be kidding me. How do I manage to get the one human over the age of forty in the United States who has no idea who my dad is? Fucking Hawaiians.

“There are a few seats available both in economy and first class for the next flight. Would you like to upgrade your ticket?”

I fought back rage and tears. “Yes.” I handed him my American Express card.
Fuck it, I'll work it out later
. “How much?” I asked, wanting to know how much damage it would do.

“One thousand and twenty,” he said.

“Great,” I said. He printed my ticket, handed it to me, and I walked toward the gates feeling more alone and a bit poorer than I ever had.

I had more than an hour to kill before my flight. My body hurt all over as the shock began to wear off and the grief began to set in. I called Bob. He told me, “So, I guess your dad had an appointment with the doctor last Friday because he was having some symptoms. The doctor was worried and wanted to admit him right there and then. But your dad said he had a few things to take care of over the weekend, and wanted to know if he could go in Monday for the tests. The doctor didn't like it, but he agreed.”

Jesus. Dad. What the fuck?

I hung up. I thought of going to the bar to get a drink. I really needed a drink, or ten, but I feared that I'd look up at the TV and see CNN's news scroll saying, George Carlin dead, blah, blah, blah … and then I'd—well, I wasn't sure what I'd do, and I didn't want to find out, so I decided against the bar. I wandered around the terminal diligently avoiding the ubiquitous TVs. I finally just sat down. I felt like a wraith as I observed the humans pulling luggage and bustling to their gates. I wanted to yell at them, What's the point? In the end it all just goes away!