Charlene Vizcarra

My dearest Lauren and Zeta~

Today, we Celebrate of the Life of your incredible Daddy.  You’ve heard your Uncle Ed, Colonel O’Meara, Drs. Evan, Kelly, Peter, and Mark tell you about their experiences with your father.  Starting today and for the rest of my life, I’m committed to introducing you to the extraordinary human being your father was.

Daddy and I first crossed paths on Loma Linda Academy’s playground.  He was in the third grade; I in the second.  Active, coordinated, and energetic, he was my total opposite. My first clear memories of Daddy start back in 1980 when I was a high school freshman.  Sitting at the picnic tables under the mulberry trees, I watched and heard, Dad and his friends loudly quizzing each other in preparation for Nikki Gonzalez’s Biology tests.  Daddy had lots of extra-curricular interests, too.  I remember watching your father in drama performances and sitting in awe when the gymnastics  team performed.  Swinging through his ring routine, I noticed even then, Daddy’s strength and well built upper body.

Having more friends in the Class of 1983, I was devastated when they graduated leaving me behind.  I was overjoyed to join them at Pacific Union College (PUC) that next fall.  For the next year and a half, your Father’s and my paths were firmly entwined.  Six, sometimes seven of us, piled into your grandmother’s 1970 Ford LTD station wagon, affectionately dubbed, “The Love Boat.”  We floated all over the Napa Valley, cruised into San Francisco, and sailed back and forth to Loma Linda.  We went to vespers on Friday nights, movies on Saturday nights, and ate almost every meal in the cafeteria together.  Always in big group.  Never did I dream that the father of my children was right there in front of me. 

I transferred to Pepperdine University, and we lost touch for two years.  Returning from a Sorority meeting on March 20, 1988, my roommate, Danielle, met me at the door with, “Don’t go anywhere.  A really nice guy called for you, and he’s going to call back.”  It was your daddy.  He was a freshman medical student and had just found out that he was going to spend the next summer working and doing research for Gary Frykman, an Orthopedic Surgeon , that was a friend of our family.  He wanted to know what Dr. Frykman was like.  We talked about that, but mostly, we caught up on each others lives.  We chatted for four hours.

What made it so easy and so fun to talk to him?  Was it our shared history of schools, friends, and religious sub-culture?  Was it his quick wit and irreverent sense of humor?  Was it his willingness to passionately argue his point of view?  Whatever it was, we clicked.  When he asked if I ever went home to Grandma and Grandpa’s house on the weekends, I told him I had plans to be there that upcoming weekend.  Truthfully, girls, I think I would have canceled plans to be there.

That next Sabbath , we effortlessly picked up our friendship just where we left off at PUC.  Before he left that night, your father asked if I was coming home again the next weekend.  Of course, I said “yes” trying to figure out in my mind how to keep whatever this thing was going, yet, not wanting to look too eager.

That next Saturday, I waited anxiously for him to contact me, finding out first hand that a watched phone does not ring.  Late in the afternoon, I finally called him.  Again, we chatted for hours.  When nothing was said about getting together, I finally asked him if he had plans that evening.  Imagine my horror when he informed me that he had a date and that he was an hour late to pick her up!  He then had the gall to ask if he could call me after he dropped her off.  Of course, I said, “no.”  But, he did anyway.  We talked until the sun rose.  From that night on, we were a couple. 

I graduated from college one week later.  Arriving back in Redlands after commencement services, I found a formally dressed stuffed toad in a gift bag on the doorstep.  Somehow, deep inside of me, I knew that I had found my Prince Charming.  Throughout that summer and his second year of medical school, he picked me up for lunch each day.  We had sandwiches, salads, crock pot soup, or whatever I had put together the night before.  It was a precious hour of sharing.  In the evening, he’d study at his desk while I read, wrote letters, or worked on some other project sprawled out on the bed behind him.  It didn’t matter that we each were busy with our own thing, we simply enjoyed being in the same room. 

Thankfully, with his enormous appetite, he also prioritized exercise.  Almost to the end, he thought if he could just go out and run a few miles, surely, he’d feel better.  That’s what he did the day after Christmas.  Lauren, do you remember last year’s Portland Bridge Pedal with Uncle Mike and Dr. Mark?  Back and forth over the bridges that connect the east side with downtown, Daddy towed you in your chariot with his bicycle.  He enjoyed Sunday morning runs along the waterfront again pushing you in the chariot; sometimes on his own, a few times with Uncle Steve and Asia.   I could never understand that steely self-discipline that got him up most weekdays at 4:45 to exercise before he headed out to work.  Watching active, fearless Zeta, Daddy excitedly hoped that one day, she too, would be his jogging, skiing, and SCUBA diving partner. 

Daddy’s creativity and love for the precise order of things truly came into call when it came to you, his daughters.   When furnishing the nursery, we couldn’t find the right footstool or side table.  So, he built them.  When you graduated from your bathtub, Lauren, Daddy built a special extension to the second showerhead in our bathroom to bring it down to your level but made it adjustable to accommodate your growth.  Your car seats, strollers, and even diaper bag were carefully researched before purchased.  Above each of your beds, there’s a perfectly positioned camera and infrared illuminator.  These project sound and images to monitors on my night stand  that are programed to turn on based on a certain noise level.

Never doubt his love for you, girls.  Ask anyone who worked with him.  Your pictures were proudly displayed and updated on his Anesthesia cart.  Co-workers in the OR were a captive audience to hear about whatever recent thing you had said or done.  When we were struggling with some issue, like your sleep habits, for example, the entire OR heard about it, and their numerous suggestions relayed back to me when he got home.  He was tickled whenever I paged him to share some cute anecdote.  And, he often told me what a bright spot in his day your visits to the hospital were. 

Few things convinced Daddy to sit still.  One was movies.  Your dad was an avid movie buff.  I never did get into the shoot ‘em up, blow ‘em up stuff he liked or those foreign flicks.   After all, who wants to go out for relaxation and have to “read” the movie?  Luckily for all of us, he was willing to see just about anything.  With good grace and a lot of humor, he escorted me to many a chick flick on our date nights.  With you, Lauren, he’d sit through Dora the Explorer, Nemo, or the Lion King, ad nauseam.  I think he knew the words to the Pirate Piggy songs as well as you did.  Every time I sent him to Costco, it seems, he indulged you with a new Dora DVD.  And, Zeta, he kept putting you in front of those Baby Einstein DVDs.  If someone’s research showed that Mozart was good for brain development, then, by George, you were going to get it.

Movies were your Daddy’s escape.  The number of movie dialogues and song lyrics locked in his brain amazed me.  He’d have a quote to fit any situation that came up.  His brain quickly scanned its repertoire of music,  breaking into just the right song for whatever was going on.  And if there wasn’t an appropriate song, he’d write his own lyrics to familiar tunes.  When our dog, Hunter, piddled on the floor, to the tune of “Jingle Bells”, he sang out, “Wee-Wee Boy, Wee-Wee Boy, Wee Wee on the Floor.”  I can still hear the two you singing and laughing, Lauren.

Gifted with the ability of  breaking concepts down into easily ingested, bite sized pieces, Daddy was a born teacher.  He saw to it that you developed hand-eye coordination, Lauren.  Coming home with balloons and a small helium tank, he precisely filled each balloon with the perfect amount of helium that would allow it to drift slowly down so you could learn to connect with it.  He taught me, too.  Ever the active guy, he was determined that I would learn to ride a bike.  He purchased the biggest, squishy-ist seat he could find and spent an afternoon tirelessly helping me get the hang of it.  I do okay, but we’re going to borrow someone else’s daddy to teach the two of you to ride.  Zeta, at 11 months of age, I see that you’ve definitely inherited his need to “get up and go.”  I just hope you didn’t get my lack of co-ordination in getting there.