Two brothers, 12 months, a filmmaking dream

“I don’t want you boys to be angry with me,” he said, about to open the door, staring out.

“We’re not, Dad. We love you. We’ll get through this ... We’re proud of you.”

He shrugged, frowned, as though he didn’t believe us. And that killed. We felt like failures. We weren’t where we wanted to be in life and neither was he. None of us could help the other, and we all felt ashamed about it.

We dropped him off in town and gave him money for a meal and a cup of coffee. It was the last time we saw him alive.

******************

We were farther down the Promenade now, on the crowded corner of Santa Monica Boulevard, when Noah decided to check the messages on our cell phone.

The first and third messages were from our mom, the second from Coach Gough. Neither said why they called, something like “Call me when you get this message.” But the tone in their voices said everything. There was terrible news awaiting us.

We called our mother. It was as though she didn’t need to tell us, we already knew.

“Noah, is your brother with you?”

“He’s right here.”

“Your father passed away this morning ... I’m so sorry ...”

“No ... Poor Dad ... Poor Dad . . .”

We leaned against the side of a building and cried. People stared.

“He deserved better ... I wish he’d had a better life.”

We loved our father as much as any sons can love. We prayed for him every day and we prayed for him now.

Video   Filmmaker twins touch home April 27: After their dad died, Logan and Noah Miller decided to work together and make a film that honors his legacy. Today show

Earlier that day two sheriffs had stopped by our mom’s house in Fairfax to inform us of our father’s death. At first, they wouldn’t tell our mom why they were there, only that they were looking for us. So she wouldn’t tell them anything either. If they wanted to know where her boys were, then they were going to have to tell her why, and maybe then, maybe, she’d tell them where we were.

We told our mom that we were driving home immediately. The next day there would be a story in the newspaper about an inmate dying in jail. We didn’t want Grandma to find out that way. We needed to tell Grandma in person, sit down with her. This was her son. Our dad was more than some reporter’s scoop.

We hung up our cell phone and walked crying down the busy sidewalk, around the tourists, panhandlers, and buskers. Everything was blurry.

We hugged each other when we got inside our apartment, threw some clothes into a duffel bag, and headed North on I-5. It was past midnight. We listened to memories through the dark-ness.

“Poor Dad ...” Noah kept saying, shaking his head as he cried. “I wish he’d had a better life ...”

He died alone in jail, a horrible place under any circumstances, but to die there gasping on the floor with no one who cared . . .

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