My grandfather had less than a week left to live, my dad told me, as I began shifting my direction back home for the summer. My budget for the Walk was of course severely limited, and Dad wasn’t recommending that I seek any emergency flight home– as my grandfather, who hasn’t remembered any of our names or faces for years, was gasping through some difficult final breaths.
After catching a ride to Phoenix, to spend a handful of days with beloved friends the Shamhart family, I found a Craigslist rideshare to Los Angeles, which delivered me into the caring hands of Pamela “Maravilla” Samuelson on the evening of June 18, 2010, the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death from cancer– the date I’d originally set to arrive to the White House– the day Grandpa George, after whom I was named, passed away.
I slept outside that evening, on Pam’s porch, relaxing into the fresh coastal air seeping into Pam’s Hollywood Hills home. I awoke the next morning to an introduction to Pam’s hello. Pam had been recommended to me seven months earlier by Alissa Eva, a Bay Area friend whom I’d originally met at a meditation course in the lush hills of central Mexico. Alissa & I had remained in contact, and after I’d reached San Francisco on foot, within a minute of meeting up with me she somehow felt compelled to tell me that I needed to meet her friend Pam, in L.A.
Alissa placed Pam & me into contact via Facebook, and as is the case with many of the people I’ve felt directed to across the miles, I somehow knew I’d be meeting Pam in L.A. I arrived to L.A. on foot in mid-February, and Pam was out of the country for weeks. I wandered into some confusion that I wouldn’t be meeting Pam (??). I continued on my way out of L.A. a few days later, not really considering not meeting Pam. Then suddenly, months later, I’d received a Facebook invitation from Pam to attend a weekend spiritual healing course that she and a friend were hosting, June 18-20th. Perfect timing.
Having arrived late the previous evening, the following morning I joined nearly a dozen fellow students at the course. We worked on meditative, healing exercises. Charo, my first partner, a woman from Spain, ended up telling me that she “sensed” the presence of my grandfather, who’d died less than 24 hrs earlier, over my right shoulder. I’d not told any of them anything about my family, so this was quite a revelation– especially given that Pam’s course had absolutely nothing to do with any sort of “readings” of spirits beyond.
I met and worked with some of the most amazing people during these brief few days in Los Angeles, with Pam and friends. I also finally was able to witness a crowd of people my age who love their L.A. lives– markedly different from the endless torrent of transplants who relocate to the Pacific NW and elsewhere, seeking “liberation” from Los Angeles.
Toward the end of my handful of days in the palm of Pam, she brought me to an aerial acrobatic workshop she was teaching, in an up-and-coming co-op, near LAX airport. I met the owner of the co-op, Andre Freimann, who explained to me that he was converting his leased space, an old airport hangar, into a co-op for classes ranging from sewing to aerial acrobatics. Mission Control , built from a hangar which dated back to Howard Hughes’ construction of Spruce Goose– (the hangar’s original purpose) was now being renovated with frequent 20-hour, labor-of-love workdays by Andre and Derek, his business partner, to build their dream. A man my age, Andre was also pouring all of his available resources into his dream.
As I’d soon be returning home, I’d been keeping in contact with my father almost daily. Spiritually, Dad was not in good shape. He was experiencing an enormous amount of stress with my grandfather’s recent passing. Though I knew it wouldn’t be effective for me to “offer a hand” to pull my beloved father up from his misery, talking to him about where I was, and what I was seeing and doing were sufficient to redirect the destructive pattern of mind into which he’d fallen. I told Dad about Charo telling me of Grandpa’s presence above my shoulder. And as I was talking to him from Mission Control, I revealed the current in-progress story to him. All of this utterly fascinated him– tying up the pinnacle of his interests and redirecting him toward a very positive state of mind, out of the mud of misery he’d been dirtied in in recent weeks.
By the end of the week, Barbara, beloved cousin born shortly after my mother’s passing, and named for her, was leaving from her college home in Orange County, headed home for Grandpa’s funeral. Barbara picked me up, and we enjoyed a 15-hour drive back home, in which we talked at length, getting to know each other much better than we ever had at any other point in our lives.
We all came together in time for a funeral led by Pastor Michael White, who had also led my mother’s funeral, 25 years earlier. With the advent of easy video, we saw a variety of funny Grandpa moments compiled by Dad, pulling us from our sadness and leaving us with the best, fun memories of Grandpa.

RIP: George Calvin Throop, Sr., 1924 - 2010