March 17, 2023 • 5PM
Santa Ana, California
We Are One: Eulogy by Jenny Doh
Thank you for being here. Thank you for loving, remembering, and celebrating Gerardo Mouet.
THE PERFECT FIRST BITE
One of my favorite memories of Gerardo is of a hot summer day when we were dating. We got everything packed including a watermelon that Gerardo couldn’t wait to eat. I was looking forward to eating it too, but I wasn’t as excited about it as he was. When we got to the beach, he started cutting up that watermelon and he pulled out the first wedge. I knew he wanted to gobble up that perfect first bite but then his gaze turned toward me and offered it to me instead. That was Gerardo.
ANYWHERE BUT HERE
Another memory is when I decided to put my career on hold to stay at home with our infant son and toddler daughter. As much as this was my choice, I was overwhelmed by it. Gerardo one day rushed home at around noon and when I asked why he was home he said that he wanted me to have some fun and that I could go anywhere I wanted to, for one hour. So, I took that hour, wearing stretchy pants, shirt with dried-up baby vomit, and unwashed hair in a ponytail, in search of a place that was anywhere but here. I ended up going through the drive thru at McDonald’s to get a soft serve ice cream cone and then parking my car at the CVS parking lot and blasting the radio as I imagined myself in alternate realities. It was the most glorious hour and I would come to enjoy that type of hour on several days when my husband came to help me have some fun as I remained tethered to my actual reality. That was Gerardo.
ARE YOU SURE?
Another memory is the day when I decided to become a working artist. This is after the many twists and turns that my career had taken me, from social worker, to El Sol charter school fundraiser, to magazine editor, to book producer, to art studio owner. With every new career interest, Gerardo was my biggest cheerleader. But when I decided that I wanted to paint, I was concerned that he might say something like “Again? You’re changing your mind again?” But he didn’t say that. He asked me only one question. He asked, “Jenny, are you sure?” And when I said that I was, he said, “Okay then, let’s get things ready so you can paint.” To which I countered by asking what we would do with all the paintings. To which he countered, “If you’re going to be a painter, the only thing you should be thinking about is painting. You should not be thinking about where to put those paintings. If we need to rent storage, we will rent storage. Your job from now on is to paint.” That was Gerardo.
FOR MORE THAN A DECADE
In 2013, Gerardo had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his bile duct. Every year after the surgery there were things that started to happen as other complications related to that cancer and surgery emerged. For the past five years, he started to significantly suffer. For the past two years, he had debilitating pain with scattered moments of no pain. For the past eight months, there was agonizing physical and emotional pain, and for the last two months before he passed, he had the kind of suffering that no living creature should ever endure.
One of the things that comforted Gerardo in the midst of his suffering was for him to put pencil to paper and write. He loved to use a wooden #2 with a good white eraser top. Even if what he wrote didn’t make any sense, the process of writing helped him. Incredibly, during one hospitalization when he called me before I came to visit him, he asked me to bring something to the hospital. I thought he would say a clean shirt or a soft blanket. Rather, he asked me for just one thing: a pencil sharpener. That was Gerardo.
During the past year, his favorite beverage at home was cranberry juice mixed with topo chico. And true to his Director form, he wanted each mix to be just the way he wanted as he pursued the perfect blend and would ask me “Honey, can you bring me a cranberry and topo chico and this time can you make it with 65 percent cranberry and 35 percent topo chico?” That was Gerardo.
On February 28th after Gerardo had been taken from UCI to UCLA by ambulance, Gerardo told me that he had no more fight left in him and that he wanted hospice. On March 2nd, his sister Lily flew into Orange County and Manuel Gomez picked her up and drove her to UCLA to be at Gerardo’s bedside with me. On March 4th at UCLA, Gerardo transitioned into comfort care at which time the doctors and nurses said he was allowed to eat or drink whatever he wanted. He asked me to get him popsicles. And true to his Director form, he said to me “Cherry is ok but grape would be preferred.” So, I walked to Whole Foods in Westwood and got him popsicles which he enjoyed. During those moments, I was able to tell him that as difficult as this past decade has been, it has been my honor and privilege to care for him and take him to the finish line, no matter the outcome. And to my face streaming with tears, he said “Jennycita, I want you to be happy, starting NOW.” That was Gerardo.
The truth is, he had always wanted me to be happy. That had been his goal as my husband. For me to have fun and to be happy.
WISDOM
On tonight’s program, you will see the words by Confucius, that guided his adult life:
As the sun makes it new
day by day make it new
yet again make it new
You will also see the words he penned as Director of Parks & Rec to guide the agency:
Learn.
Have fun.
Get fit.
Be respectful.
You will also see the words he repeated to anyone who ever talked to him about the joys and tragedies of life:
Everything has a beginning, middle, and an end.
You will also see the words he penned on a final paper for a philosophy class that he took at UC San Diego where after writing about all the readings and lectures for the class, he put forth his bold concluding thesis in the final paper, positing that:
We are one.
Sadly, he got that paper back from the teaching assistant who used a big fat red pen to cross out his thesis and write back “No we are not!” with a failing grade.
STARTING NOW
I think that that teaching assistant was full of bitter grievance. Grievance easy to catch and difficult to get rid of. I think Gerardo was correct. I think as we in this world try to hold onto perceived grievances, and as we point to what Kristin Dombek describes in her essay as The Selfishness of Others, we forget that we too are perpetuators of all that we disdain. We are (as masterfully illustrated by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), all muddling through EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE. And when voices try to convince me that nothing matters, I will strive to make each day new and join Gerardo’s optimistic thesis in recognizing that indeed, we are one.
Before we raise our popsicles to Gerardo, I want to thank my trusted friends—my girlfriends, my gym friends, my barre friends, my art friends, my UCI friends, and most of all, I want to thank Lily. In Spanish, the term for sister-in-law is cuñada. Technically, she is my cuñada. The word for sister is hermana. And that is who she has become for me. Mi hermana.
Lily: thank you for being there for Gerardo during his suffering and for being with me by his bedside at UCLA as he transitioned from intensive care to comfort care and then at home to hospice care. Thank you for being with me to help work through the layers of sorrow, the rage, the exhaustion, the relief, the love, the forgiveness, and the peace. Thank you for echoing Gerardo’s charge for me to be happy, starting NOW
And now, whether you have a cherry or grape or orange popsicle, let’s raise it together.
To Gerardo. May he rest in peace.
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