By Beauty Damned

Tragic Goodbye

The holiday turned out to be bittersweet. The sweet was as sweet as anyone could hope. The bitter was as bitter as bitter gets.

My best friend's father, Howard Culla, passed away just after midnight on December 26, 2005. I believe he was 72 years old. He was hit by a car on Christmas Day while crossing a street in Portland, Oregon. It is said that he suffered very little up to the time of his death.

The world should know what an amazing person Howard Culla was. I met him when I was 15 years old and I befriended Kathleen at Ashland High School. She and I had both recently moved from Los Angeles and found we had much in common. She lived in a tiny apartment in Ashland with Howard.

Howard had raised Kathleen and her brother Paul since his divorce from their mother when they were both very small children. He was much older than their mother and what seemed like ages older than Paul and Kathleen, but he was always in astoundingly good health and seemed to have boundless energy despite what had undoubtedly been a difficult life. He was a good father with old fashioned values and a keen memory of an America that my generation could never know as he knew it. Kathleen was an ice skater and Howard supported her as she traveled from one competition after another. He was a really proud, highly literate individual who always had something hilarious to say or an interesting tale to impart to his listener. He could also be a maddening critic and a stubborn disciplinarian. All the same, I always enjoyed going over to Kathleen's for dinner. Howard would often make spaghetti with sweet turkey sausages and white bread with softened butter. I loved that meal. I loved eating at his table and being entertained by his antics. I will make that same meal tomorrow night in his honor.

Howard was funny. Funny as can be. He used to make us laugh until our ribs hurt. I've always told Kathleen that one day we are going to have to put together a book of H-isms. He said so many memorable things over the years. Totally original. That was Howard. He loved books and art and theatre and movies. He loved Greta Garbo and Audrey Hepburn and the Brontes and ballroom dancing and everything classy and ironic and dramatic and poetic. He would grab your arm while walking down the street and recite the most riveting quote from Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde. He told wild anecdotes and made off-the-cuff comments that made you reel with laughter no matter where you happened to be at the moment that he hit you with it.

Even if Kathleen wasn't around I could have coffee or Chinese food with Howard and enjoy every minute with him. I will miss him so much.

As for Kathleen and Paul, he was their everything despite everything. I can only imagine the grief that the two of them are dealing with right now. It's a huge shock that he was taken so suddenly and I know the sadness and mourning has only just began. Howard always said he wanted his ashes scattered on the graves of poets. Kathleen and I always agreed to do it. I pray that we are able to keep our promise. We never expected to have to fulfill it so soon.

I have one very favorite story pertaining to Howard and I feel I should tell it.

Howard was raised in Hackensack, New Jersey in a ramshackle world of poverty and struggle. I can only muster a tiny image of what his upbringing was like. One story I'll never forget was that he'd had to have a great deal of dental surgery during a time when dental technology was not nearly as advanced as it is today. As if enduring these procedures without any modern anesthetic and being stuck with unpleasant dental maintenance throughout his life were not painful enough, he ended up with huge dental bills that he carried on his back for years. Being the proud man that Howard was, he was unwilling to file for bankruptcy, and so instead he chose to live a poor existence while paying his dental bills out of his monthly pension. At one point, after Kathleen and Paul had moved out and were taking care of themselves, Howard chose to live in his car in Santa Barbara (where the weather was nice) in order to garner the money to finally pay off all of his bills. Did I mention that he was stubborn? At this particular time he did not have an address or cell phone or any other way to be reached.

At the time we were teenagers and Kathleen and I took a trip to Southern California to visit friends, get tattoos, cause trouble in Ti Juana, etc. On the way back we decided it would be a good idea to stop in Santa Barbara and see if we could find Howard. The key word is: find. We looked at various places where it seemed likely Howard could be found; libraries, YMCAs, bookstores...we tired out very quickly, as we'd gotten next to no rest whatsoever since Ti Juana.

We went to a park by the beach and fell asleep in the grass. We woke and it was dark and we were still exhausted and now we were scared too because we were in a pitch black park by the beach in Cali without any weapons and we were just stupid little girls with fresh tattoos living on a whim. We hurried back to the car and drove back into downtown Santa Barbara and parked the car. We split up and wandered the streets up and down, looking in every establishment until our eyes were blurry and our legs felt like they couldn't carry us anymore. I went into a bookstore called "The Earthling" and sat down in between the shelves and started writing the sad tale in my diary. It was just then that I saw a pair of feet and heard the words "Hey Kid." When I looked up and it was Howard I felt a flood of relief and the tears sprung right out of my eyes with joy. I was so tired, I'd never been so glad to see him. Kathleen had found him by the piano, listening with his eyes closed, and now we were all together.

We went to get something to eat. Howard was so happy to see us. He insisted that he pay for us to stay in a hotel. We tried to refuse, but his pride would never let us. That first night we never found a hotel room and we ended up sleeping in Kathleen's car, which was fine because Howard slept in his car right behind us on the same street. The next night we got a hotel and Howard still slept in his car. He wanted us to have our space. He was always that way.

I remember when we left him there in Santa Barbara; instead of waving in the normal fashion, Howard put his two middle fingers way up in the air and shouted goodbye in the same cheerful manner that anyone would expect of a father seeing off his daughter and her best friend. That was his way of letting us know how much he really appreciated us coming to see him; with a huge dose of irony.

Words could never convey how much Howard will be missed and how heartbreaking is the loss of his humor and wisdom. These are only a minutia of the memories that I have of him and a tiny tribute to what is now his absence from our lives. He will always, always be remembered.

Posted by Maria at December 26, 2005 06:33 PM | TrackBack