Starting in 1995, after we moved to the States, we were making multiple trips a year out to Ontario, California, in the Los Angeles area to visit my father, John M. Wise Sr. My father opted for a pained life and absolute denial that saw him commit a slow suicide, which took him from his first heart attack in 1986 until his death on February 1, 2003. Over that time, he would have at least one more heart attack and develop diabetes, which led to multiple amputations that would leave him with crippling phantom pain until the day he died. Seen here, my father was 52 years old.

My father was a bitter and difficult man harboring so much anger that violence was often his means of expressing himself. As he grew older, he became mentally frail and forgetful. His belligerence kept him smoking for another decade after the first heart attack. His diet never changed as he seemed to challenge the universe to strike him down as he downed a plate of pancakes laden with syrup or popped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as if they lowered his blood glucose. The first time we visited him in 1995, my trauma with him nearly had me turning away from the exit we needed to use if we were going to his home. Caroline encouraged me to do it as she’d seen in our previous encounter back in 1994 when we were in Los Angeles on our way to Vegas to get married, that my father seriously enjoyed seeing me. So we went. Reluctantly, for the next nearly eight years, we made frequent visits. My father is 53 years old in this photo.

The saving grace of those 350-mile drives west was that Caroline could read to me across the long haul, and we were always able to get out into Los Angeles at some point to find time for ourselves. Sometimes, we’d just take a photo or make note of a place, such as here at the Queen Mary, that was supposed to remind us to come back for a proper visit. Sometimes, we’d stop in Disneyland for 6 or 7 hours, eat at various places that had foods we couldn’t have in Phoenix, or drive to 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica to visit a great book store or walk along the ocean. So it wasn’t all bad, but it also wasn’t all great.