The Funeral

  

Last week, Susan and I attended a funeral in Los Angeles. It was for Collette, the wife of my high school friend Gary Gole. I had known Collette since she and Gary first met about forty-five years ago. While I have experienced the loss of several neighbors and friends in recent years, this one affected me more deeply because of the long-standing connection I had with both of them.

I have been friends with Gary since high school, and although we have drifted apart over the years, we occasionally communicate on Facebook. During my high school days, I spent a significant amount of time at Gary's house. His mother, Molly, a proud Jewish woman of Polish descent, cherished her heritage. Gary's older brother, Joel, who was considerably older than him, no longer lived at home. Joel was already a Cantor, or at least in Cantorial School, when I first met Gary.  Being a cantor, Joel seemed to receive preferential treatment from Molly, possibly due to his status. She often referred to him as "My son the Cantor."

In contrast, Gary's father, Herman, was a quieter presence in the household. He worked as a government military contractor and usually remained in the background. I always remember a humorous anecdote about Herman and his brothers, who all anglicized and shortened their names before World War II. While Gary's family name was Gole, his uncle became Gold, and another uncle became Gale.

During my high school and college years, I attended Passover seders at Gary's house for several consecutive years. As far as I can recall, those seders were exceptionally lengthy. One year, we didn't start eating until around ten o'clock in the evening. It was during that particular year that Molly invited a stranger, the Los Angeles City trash collector for their street, to join us for the seder. She always extended such invitations to people in similar positions.   As a sidelight, Joel is the Cantor Emeritus of Sinai Temple in West Los Angeles. 

While I attended Cal State Northridge, Gary enrolled at San Diego State. Many weekends, I drove down to San Diego to visit him. Both of us shared a love for sports, frequently attending Lakers and Dodgers games together. We even made several trips to Tijuana during that time. I distinctly remember a moment when another close friend, Mark Satnick, and I were visiting Gary in San Diego. We were driving home and listening to a Dodger Doubleheader on the radio. When we finally reached Dodger Stadium, long in the second game, we decided to go in and watch the rest of the game. We simply drove up to the entrance gate and walked in, as only a handful of spectators remained in the stands. It turned out to be the longest doubleheader in baseball history.

Gary met Collette while they were both attending law school, although not at the same institution. I don't precisely recall the circumstances of their meeting, but I do remember meeting Collette shortly after they became a couple. Gary lived in an apartment in West LA, and whenever I visited from Sacramento, Collette was always by his side. In 1984, I rode my bicycle from Sacramento to Los Angeles, arriving the night before the start of the Summer Olympics. Gary and I attended many Olympic events together.

Gary and Collette's relationship experienced its ups and downs, mainly due to Molly's insistence that Gary marry a Jewish girl. Ultimately, love triumphed, and they got married at the Beverly Hills Hotel sometime after 1980. However, by the mid-1980s, my time in Los Angeles and with Gary and Collette changed. I transferred to a different position, and my work trips to Los Angeles became infrequent. Neither Gary nor I have attended our high school reunion since the ten-year gathering in 1978.

 When my mother passed away in 1977, Gary handled the estate matters, and we worked with him again when my father died in 1998. The following year, Susan and I were invited to their son Evan's Bar Mitzvah. Evan, who is now thirty-seven, was the last family event where I saw Gary and Collette until Collette's funeral last Sunday.

Collette's funeral took place at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. She succumbed to ALS, a devastating disease that currently has no cure. I had read that Gary's mother had passed away just a few weeks prior, having lived to over a hundred years old. I had sent a condolence card, which likely arrived around the time of Collette's passing. Gary called and left a message informing me of Collette's death. After not speaking for so many years, receiving that phone call meant a great deal to me. It reminded me that our connection from childhood remained strong, almost like family.

As fate would have it, as we approached the chapel at the funeral, Gary's car stopped, and he emerged. We were the first people he spotted at the service. He appeared with a cast, likely due to a broken arm or shoulder, and walked with a cane. His voice sounded old and raspy. With a hint of humor, he remarked, "Look at you old people, you came."