From Here to Eternity--Aloha, Dad

“What do you want your Dad buried in?”

My mother’s question had me shuddering, thinking about the casket, worrying that the funeral home might try to gouge us.

“Something simple,” I said.

Mom agreed, and so did Dusty--or, as it says on his birth certificate, Dawson Harris Jr. Linda wasn’t so sure. She remembered Dad saying that he wanted to be buried in his dress whites. She mimicked his Marine growl: “I’m going to be buried in what I was married in.”

Now I understood the question. Only a few hours had passed since I learned that Dad’s tricky heart had given out, 13 days past his 81st birthday. It had been nearly two years since the diagnosis of congestive heart failure, so it wasn’t unexpected. He’d been in and out of the VA hospital several times. Yet these last few weeks Dad seemed in such good health and good spirits that the notion that his enlarged heart had stopped seemed as surreal then as it does now.

I’d never given much thought to what my father should wear for eternity. If someone had asked, I’d have scoffed and said, “As if it matters.” Now it seemed to matter very much, and “something simple” still seemed the right answer. He was a man of simple tastes and simple pleasures. His dress whites? No, that should be an heirloom, like the glistening sword that completes the ceremonial uniform.

Mom and Linda ventured to the bedroom and soon emerged with a selection of aloha shirts. Their favorite was the blue one decorated with flowers and shapely Hawaiian maidens. Mom left the room and Linda pointed out the craftsmanship--how the pocket perfectly matched the pattern, creating a whole wahine instead of two halves.

“That’s a nice shirt,” Dusty said, sounding covetous.

I was thinking the way he sounded.

Mom returned and asked if we had decided. “The blue one,” Linda said. “But Dad may have to arm wrestle Dusty for it.”

Dad would have laughed too.

*

The truth is, I’d have probably gotten the aloha shirt, because I now have all the others. Age had shrunken my father a bit, but in his prime, he and I would have been about the same size. He never threw anything out, so I delivered a dozen bags of clothing to Goodwill. And I kept plenty, including a sport coat that I now think of as my “L.A. Confidential” jacket. For an old man who sometimes mixed stripes and plaids, he had some pretty snappy duds.

Those few days blur together. He died on a Friday night, I learned about it Saturday morning and on Sunday--Father’s Day--we were at the mortuary, attending to details my parents hadn’t addressed in advance. There were decisions to make, family and friends to notify. And there was a eulogy to write and deliver.

Dad’s wallet helped. This beaten hunk of leather, 2 inches thick, was among the “personal effects” that had been returned. Going through it was something like an archeological expedition. There was plenty of junk--old lottery tickets and receipts--but there were some treasures too.

Nothing is more curious than the battered, laminated card that bore the legend “Imperial Domain of the Golden Dragon” and these words:

This is to certify that HARRIS, Dawson Private was duly inducted into the Silent Mysteries of the Far East having crossed the 180th Meridian at 12:50 p.m. Saturday. 30 January, 1937, in Latitude 20 58” 0’ North on board the U.S.S. Henderson.

1937?

There were three fraying photos. One was a portrait of Mom as a young woman, before they were married. Another showed her posed radiantly with two toddlers, before I was born. The third was a formal portrait of the three kids, when I was about 3.

A business card caught my eye--J.S. “Hi” Hightower, my father’s friend and fellow Pearl Harbor survivor. Last Dec. 7, my column described my father’s memories--how he and Hightower, after a night of beer drinking, would be shooting at Zeroes with rifles.

Only three weeks ago, I learned the column had found its way to Hightower. His daughter had e-mailed me, and we had planned a reunion of the two old friends. Now I would have to invite the Hightowers to a funeral.

Another familiar name was on a slip of paper with a Montana address. I called and was reminded how Dad, this old farm boy from Louisiana, always shared his backyard bounty--tomatoes, plums, lemons, roses. He sent these friends trimmings from his plum tree; one tree thrives, bearing fruit. Dad is gone but friends are still eating his plums.

There was cash in his wallet too and so I headed for his favorite watering hole.

Dad liked his beer. Time was that he hung out at the O Club--the Officers Club to you civilians. After his retirement, he hung out at the Moose Lodge, then the Swinging Door, finally the Ranch House. Half the patrons, it seemed, were old Marines and Dad reveled in the camaraderie. For his 81st birthday, his friends there surprised him with a cake.

These last couple of years, I drove to Santa Ana more often and sometimes dropped by the Ranch House to hoist a cold one or two. So I dropped by one last time to share the sad news and place a $20 bill from Dad’s wallet on the bar. One last round on Dawson.

I spoke with a couple of his buddies, Stoney and Plumber Paul. It was just a few days ago, Stoney said, that Dawson had dropped in with a bouquet of roses for Stoney to take home to his wife. They’d joked that the roses might help him get lucky, even if Stoney is 77.

*

The memorial was on a Wednesday and it was heartening to see so many friends at the funeral home.

The flag-draped casket was open, Dad laying there wrapped in flowers and wahines, a lei around his neck. Some 14 years after Pearl Harbor, duty had sent him back to Hawaii with his young family; I was conceived and born there. The aloha shirt seemed perfect, aloha meaning both hello and goodbye.

I blinked back tears, choked back emotion. That was a reflexive response, maybe something I think Dad would expect. When it came time for me to speak, I wanted to strike the right tone. I told people how, when I wrote an obituary of Gene Kelly, I pictured him singing and dancing in the rain. The image I carry of my father was a man smiling and laughing at a joke.

My father, I suggested, would have appreciated what Mom said when I asked her what I should say in the eulogy.

“Just say that he loved his country and he loved his fellow man. . . . And he loved the women more.”

Everybody laughed.

I rambled on, ignoring the script, thinking four thoughts for each one I expressed. One thing I wanted people to know about was his last 24 hours. We should all be so lucky.

Dad had been doing so well. Then, as had happened many times before, he suddenly took a turn for the worse. He had a rough night and the next day, Dusty drove both Dad and Mom to the Long Beach VA Hospital, expecting him to be admitted once again. Nobody thought the end was imminent.

They were in the emergency room lobby, waiting for results of a blood test. Dad fell asleep and issued his world-class snore. The woman he had wed more than 47 years before massaged his neck and shoulders to relax him. I had seen her do this often in recent months, lovingly providing relief from the side effects of his medication.

Dad stopped snoring and remained in a deep sleep, so deep that nobody can say exactly when he suffered the fatal heart attack. When doctors called his name, he didn’t wake up. Efforts to revive him failed.

What man wouldn’t choose to die in his sleep after a long full life? What man wouldn’t want to feel the touch of his enduring love? And how poetic that at his side would be a son who shares his name and so many of his virtues.

Later came a second ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery. A Marine Corps honor guard delivered a 21-gun salute and a bugler played “Taps.” Old Glory was folded and presented to my mother.

Roadways named for generals, admirals and battles lace the cemetery. Coincidence has placed this old man in an aloha shirt just off Pearl Harbor Drive. He would have liked that too.

*

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com. Please include a phone number.