Appendix E. Joanne Butler

John had found something he truly enjoyed doing, I thought, remembering how I used to play “Tell It Like It Is” and “Natural High” and the “Khachaturian Piano Concerto” on my phonograph and “direct” the productions in the safety of my room. Before college I had had few opportunities to be in an actual serious production of a great piece of music, but John had gotten a small part in the La Canada High School “All School Musical” production of West Side Story this year and had enjoyed every aspect of it. He would come home and listen to the music on his CD player late at night, sometimes all night; he would fall asleep. It was great music, to be sure.

I enjoyed the LCHS production so much myself that I attended twice, once with the family on the second night, and again at the Saturday matinee. The high school band, with a little help, did remarkably well with the difficult score. I chased director Ms. Hamry down the hall after the matinee to tell her so. It was not Broadway – professional class of course, but it had been a good production. There was something about doing the Romeo and Juliet story with kids who were actually that age that brought the edge to life, and this was true in the orchestra pit too. I had grown up listening to professional recordings of West Side Story but being there listening to a live performance, I was hearing things I’d never heard before. This had me ambling around daily singing parts of it myself, or trying to pick them out on the piano.

Viannah had to return to school on the east coast before the production even opened, but had been able to attended one of the dress rehearsals before leaving.

Viann had been involved in makeup, helping Jody Kenney one of John’s former teachers. They worked backstage most of the week through the final rehearsals and the performances. I had not helped at all. In fact, I had rarely helped in some standard parent role with anything like this, so I had decided to volunteer for set strike. This was scheduled for Sunday afternoon June 4, 2006 and all of the cast members were required to participate. Although we had a church picnic that afternoon, I volunteered to go. John had to be driven over to the school anyway.

Viann went on to the picnic while John and I drove through some fast food place for lunch and proceeded on to the high school to help out. I came in as any old guy would: we’re not trying to avoid work here; we’re trying to do it. The sooner we get done with what we have to do, the sooner we can go home. We moved lumber around, made new bins for it, took down sets and carted things to a big dumpster parked out back then, at the end, rode around in the cherry picker and worked on the backdrops. The sets were rented and had to be folded up just so and put back in their tiny shipping boxes perfectly. Also, other curtains needed to be hung in their place.

I taught a kid, and my own son too, how to use a power saw. By the end, the guy in charge was impressed enough with me to tell me I was “good as gold.” He knew how to inspire the volunteers. Maybe I would come back and work sets or something again in some future production. Or something.

In the middle of the mayhem, as cast members were starting to evaporate one by one and disappear, my phone rang. It was Viann, who had just left the picnic early. For some reason (and this was unusual) she had checked voicemail messages at the home phone number. There was one from her friend Joanne Butler. Joanne’s speech was slurred, it sounded like she had collapsed or something. Viann was going straight over there to see what was the matter.

Joanne had been a friend of the family for at least a dozen years. She was reclusive beyond anyone I had ever known, demanding on any friends she had, and often clueless about social situations. She would sometimes make friends, but would wear them out. She would have gentlemen friends off and on, but they never wanted to be serious, they seemed only interested in using used her. We had been through these scenarios with her time and again. Viann kept up with her as a personal psychology project, I thought. Joanne was very narcissistic, Viann said, and a person like that needed someone solid to just be around for long periods of time for there to be any hope of improvement. Not that she wanted to improve, or thought she needed to.

She had come over for Thanksgiving and Christmas off and on for many years. One year there was a disagreement and she hadn’t been around for a couple after that. But, she had been here this last Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had pictures to prove it. The Thanksgiving group had been her and us and the Tarsala’s with their two girls. The Christmas picture was with the blow up Peanuts display that I had impulse bought the week before. She was a fan of peanuts things and usually brought me some Peanuts paraphernalia when she came over. I didn’t need it; she was just being nice, as she understood it.

Recently Joanne had not been feeling well. Something was wrong with her leg, and her vision, and her thinking. There had been at least one incident out in the car late at night where she had gotten lost and confused and had been scared. Somehow this had all worked out, however. I knew about these things, but not usually in much detail.

We were finally dismissed from the strike, some of the last few to leave the backstage area at the high school. I took John over to the cast party, dropped him off, and went home to figure out what to do with the rest of this unusual Sunday. Katy was at work at GameStop.

Viann called. She had raised hell with the apartment manager people to let her into Joanne’s apartment, calling 911 in the meantime. Paramedics had come and taken her to the local hospital in Newhall. The apartment was a mess ordinarily and now it was worse. It looked like she might have suffered a stroke but they didn’t know much yet. They were about to transfer her to UCLA Medical Center down in west Los Angeles.

Suddenly this was “The Summer that Joanne was Sick.”

Eventually it was discovered that she had ovarian cancer in an advanced stage. This had caused clotting malfunctions with her blood leading to unwanted clotting and bleeding, and ultimately a stroke. Her left side wasn’t working well. And there was some sort of heart problem.

Viann started going to visit her nearly daily, running by Joanne’s apartment in Newhall on the way home in the evenings. She hadn’t had much else planned this summer, only to finish remodeling the upstairs bathroom and do some serious cleaning in the garage. We hadn’t been able to park in the garage since 2001 when we moved everything from the guest room to the garage in preparation for my mother’s visit then. Then, a load of furniture had arrived from Dayton, inheritance from Viann’s grandmother (died in 1984).

But, none of the plan was going to happen this summer break.

The rest of us started visiting Joanne pretty much once a week, usually on Sunday. Realizing that Joanne would probably never return home, we went to her apartment after one of these visits and got her cats, Alex and Sassy and brought them to our guest room.

Joanne had open-heart surgery to repair what was wrong there. Viann got signed up for medical Power of Attorney. I wouldn’t allow general Power of Attorney. Viann wouldn’t be good at that and we didn’t need all the trouble it would bring. Joanne had big credit card debts.

We discussed chemotherapy and she had two treatments before deciding it wasn’t worth it. In late July she was moved to another hospital for palliative care, a little further away in Santa Monica. The daily and weekly visits continued there. Things were stabilizing.

I wondered if I should even go on the trip with John right now. I didn’t want Joanne to die while we were gone. Viann told us to go on anyway; you could never reasonably second-guess these things. But, had it been a family trip that Viann was supposed to have gone on, it would have been cancelled, or at least postponed a year.

When we went to visit on July 30, I told her I wouldn’t be back for three weeks. She didn’t think she would live that long. Shortly after our return from the trip she was moved to a nursing home in Pasadena for hospice care. This was much better for us. The daily trips would be much closer. It was actually on the way home from Viann’s job at Azusa. I printed a set of pictures from our trip and took them to her. She asked me what was the best part about such a trip, then answered for me, “Being with your son.”

Late in October Joanne Butler passed away. She was 46.