Mom and Dad
The center of my life.
On the afternoon of December 14, I was in Union Station at a celebration of life for one of my best friends, Christian Anderson, who died in October. It was at that moment I received a call from my sister Romy telling me our father was dead. Minutes later, she called back telling me our mother was also dead.
The 45-minute Lyft ride from downtown to the west side was unendurable. My world, as I knew it, had collapsed. I was in a trance. The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened.
This is my story. Romy will tell hers in her own way and in her time.
I was robbed of so many things that day. My parents won’t be at my wedding, they won’t get to hold their future grandchild, and they won’t get to see me have the successful career I’m still seeking. It simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me.
Nothing can prepare you for what it feels like to lose both parents instantly at the same time. It’s too devastating to comprehend. I still wake up every morning having to convince myself that, no, it’s not a dream. This truly is my living nightmare.
I can’t even begin to put myself in my parents’ shoes, but one thing I keep coming back to is how frightened they must have been. They were the last people in the world to deserve what happened to them. They deserved to be loved, they deserved to be respected, and above all they deserved to be appreciated for how much they gave to all three of us and to the world.
They should be enjoying the rest of their lives peacefully while growing older together. Instead, that was ripped away from them, from me, from Romy, and there was nothing we could do about it.
To me, my parents are at the center of my life. They are my guiding lights, the foundation of who I am as a human being, and the most giving people I have ever known. A lot of people don’t have the luxury of having the best parents, the best mom, or the best dad, but I did. The love they have for me, my brother, and my sister is truly unconditional. And the love they have for each other in their marriage is something I always looked up to as the standard of what a successful relationship looks like.
My mom was my confidant, and I was hers. We could talk to each other for hours about who was bothering us that particular week. Whenever I’d call her and she was in the middle of something or didn’t have enough time to talk, she’d say, “Is this just a chit-chat or is it an emergency?” If it wasn’t an emergency, she always promised to call me back later, and she never forgot. Anytime I was going through a tough time or had a complicated issue to hash out, I leaned on her brilliant perspective. I always felt like she was in my corner. I get my intolerance to bullshit from her, and I love it. She was never afraid to tell the truth. She was also sensitive and always cared about everyone else before she thought about herself.
My mom was really funny and constantly complained about how nobody in the family thought she was. It always made me laugh when she’d say something sarcastic, and none of us would pick up on it because it sounded so genuine. She loved to laugh, and I always felt like the funniest person of all time around her because whenever I’d make a bad joke, she was oftentimes the only one who’d laugh.
To fully understand what we lost, my mother was the engine, the backbone, and the heart of our entire family. And not just our immediate family. She was the reason behind why we spent time with our extended family too. She was the one who planned every Thanksgiving, complained how it was too much work every year, vowed never to host again, and then promptly hosted it the following year. She was the one who planned every trip we ever took as a family, and she always planned it perfectly. She had a passion for life most people wish they could attain.
One of our things was going to see musicals together. We particularly loved Les Misérables, and we made sure to see it every time it came to Los Angeles. We used to laugh together in the car ride home because we somehow always forgot parts of the plot each time we’d see it. She’d be in the passenger seat saying, “19 years in prison over a loaf of bread? That’s the whole premise?!” Despite that, one thing we never forgot were the incredible singing voices.
My mom was the one who helped me move in and out of dorms and apartments at Syracuse University and continued to help me move in and out of apartments when I began my broadcasting career. Her support for me never wavered, and I always felt how much she loved me. I feel her presence everywhere, every single day. I miss her so much.
The way my dad presented himself in the public eye was exactly the beautiful person he was at home. He was authentic, passionate, and his sense of humor has always been my sense of humor. My connection with him was first built on baseball. It was my grandfather’s favorite sport, passed down to my dad and then to me. We loved the Dodgers more than anything. We went to so many damn games. I’ll never go to Dodger Stadium again without feeling my dad’s presence and hearing his voice tell me why Shohei Ohtani should never bat in the leadoff spot.
When I was little, I would cry my eyes out when the Dodgers would lose a regular season game, and he’d say, “Buddy, you have to realize, at some point, that there are 162 games. It’s going to be alright.” He took me on baseball trips every summer beginning when I was like 11 or 12, and eventually we made it to every ballpark around the majors.
My dad is my hero. I love how he would analyze my dreams or how I felt I could come talk to him about anything. No subject was ever off-limits. Whenever I was in a difficult relationship, he would challenge me and say, “You need to really think about what draws you to a person like this, and once you figure that out and break that pattern, you’ll find the person who is truly right for you.” I’m proud to say I have found that person in Maria, and I couldn’t be more grateful she had the chance to know and love my parents. Just like my mom, my dad also supported me in whatever I wanted to do with my life. I was nervous when I made the switch from broadcasting to acting because I didn’t know how he’d react. I guess I should’ve known because all he ever wanted was for me to be happy and love what I do. I wish he and I could’ve worked on a project together from start to finish. I miss him so much.
It’s not lost on me that I was able to have these incredible experiences, that most people don’t get to have, because of who my parents were. But I would trade every Dodger game, every Broadway show, every vacation, if I could just spend just one more hour talking to them and to say goodbye.
When you are not living through a tragedy the specific way Romy and I are, it’s hard to wrap your head around just how horrific this has been. Because they weren’t your parents, it might be easier to move forward or even forget for a moment about what happened that day, but for us, it’s every single day.
Every day since then has been horrendous. Every meeting we take, every person we talk to, every tear we shed, every movement we make is connected to our parents being murdered. In the middle of trying to process the most devastating moment of your life, the world demands meetings, paperwork, decisions, and explanations; as if documentation must come before mourning.
My goal in writing this piece is to offer some insight. Not only to what I lost but also to celebrate what my parents meant to me.
A lot of people have said to me, “I don’t even know what to say,” and I don’t blame them. If I weren’t in the middle of this shitstorm, I wouldn’t know what to say either. It’s too specific. Too dark.
We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable. Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the center of it. It’s almost too impossible to process. I understand that people have questions about what happened. Some of those answers will come in time. But some parts of this belong only to our family, and keeping them private is the only way to protect what little remains of something that was taken from us.
What the hell do you say to someone who is living through this reality?
The truth is, there is nothing to say.
I just ask for love and compassion - the same principles my parents lived by.
