On Memorial Day, the Dead and the Living

A grandchild comes into the world, into your life, into your heart, and you pledge that you would do everything in your power to keep this kid safe from harm.

Lori Gonzalez, a beautician--a beauty herself, from the photographs I have seen of her--was the granddaughter of a man with considerable power, Bernard Parks, the chief of police of America’s second-largest city.

But he was as powerless to stop what happened to Lori as any other grandfather in any other line of work.

She was shot to death Sunday night in a blue Chevrolet at the drive-through exit of a chicken franchise. A passenger in her car could have been the intended victim, but he apparently ducked when a guy with a gun appeared out of nowhere and pulled the trigger.

This sudden death was what the Memorial Day weekend--long known for its remembrance of the dead and for holiday fatalities that add to the list--had in store for L.A.’s top cop and his family. He lost the daughter of his daughter.

Lori Gonzalez would have become a woman of 21 this Sunday. She did not live in Los Angeles, but was paying a visit to her mother here.

Hers was a tragedy that left others thinking of lost loved ones. The mayor, for instance, reflected on those from his own family who had died young. And a councilwoman called it a stark example of the perilous times in which we live “when the granddaughter of the police chief of the LAPD is gunned down.” It’s enough to make one wonder how any of us can keep our children and grandchildren safe.

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I was driving Monday afternoon in a Ford Explorer on the northbound Interstate 15, returning home from a hospital in Riverside County.

The worst of the Memorial Day weekend’s homeward-bound traffic hadn’t accumulated yet, but the freeway was considerably more busy than it had been a few hours earlier, when cars sped by mine like Indy 500 drivers.

Even in the heavier traffic, though, cars weaved in and out, drivers changing lanes so recklessly that they came within inches of other fenders. I kept thinking to myself and muttering aloud at times, “Somebody’s going to get killed out here.”

Somebody did.

I didn’t find out about it until the next morning. But shortly after 1:30 p.m. Monday--about the same time I was driving--on that same northbound Interstate 15 in Riverside County, there was an accident. A car--a Ford Explorer, same as the kind I was driving--got hit by a big-rig truck.

Two girls riding in the Explorer were killed.

Ages 8 and 13.

I got the shivers as I began reading details of the accident. How the vehicle with the children inside had evidently just pulled into a zone between an off-ramp and the slow lane. How the big rig allegedly struck the Explorer from behind. How it flipped 75 to 100 feet. How the poor kids--not wearing seat belts--were reportedly thrown right out of the cargo space of the car to their deaths.

More Memorial Day memories for somebody’s family. More bereavement. More grief.

It was designed to be a national holiday to honor our war dead, to honor those who gave their lives so others may live. Decoration Day, it is still called in some parts of the country. The governor of California--a decorated war veteran himself--spent Monday morning at a cemetery in Westwood, pinning a medal on a surviving World War II vet. A ceremony such as this always makes me think of my own old man, who fought in that same war, was awarded a Bronze Star and was carried to his grave by six pallbearers from the American Legion.

I was thinking about him all morning long Monday, driving to that hospital in Riverside County.

Thinking about conversations we had, thinking about the wartime danger he endured, thinking about the number of times he asked when I was going to finally get around to give him some grandchildren.

Thinking about another Memorial Day and more life and death.

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And so along came another of these grim “holidays,” with a couple of little girls ages 8 and 13--there one minute, gone the next.

And a lovely, loved woman of only 20 years--lost in the blink of an eye, leaving a man mourning a grandchild.

While there I stood Monday, cradling in my arms 6 pounds, 15 ounces of a baby boy named Reggie Cannon, age 15 minutes, my new grandson.

He was wrapped up so tightly that nothing else in the world could get at him. How I prayed he could stay that way.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com