Opening Remarks – Chrissy Hutzel from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Somewhere Out There – Squeezeplay Accordion Band from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Early Warren – Warrick Liang from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Hello, my name is Warrick Liang.  I am Warren’s younger brother. I’d like to share some stories with you about Warren in celebration of his life; however, I am afraid that I might not be able to keep my composure. So in the spirit of keeping this gathering a celebration of his life, I’m going to ask Krissie to read a few thoughts and memories I’d like to share with you. Thank you Krissie, for reading this for me.

Our early childhood years were spent away from our parents in a small, rural community in the Santa Cruz mountains of California. Our parents had immigrated from China where it was common among many families in those days to have a live-in nanny.

When they arrived in the U.S., they both had to work full-time, and although they were not able to find a live-in nanny, through others in the Chinese community, they were introduced to a wonderful Caucasian lady who was available to provide full-time child care in her home. Several Chinese families had their children staying with this lady, whom we all called Grandma, and on the weekends, our parents would often come and visit us.

As a result, until the age of 7, Warren’s primary caregiver was Grandma, and his extended family in Grandmas’s home included: Al, Grandma’s husband; Aileen, another child from another family; Earl, yet another child from yet another family; and me. Our older sister, Tina, was being cared for by other relatives in Hong Kong.

When Warren was 7 years old, our parents decided it was time for us to leave Grandma’s house to live with them. I was 4 years old at the time. And this was the beginning of my memories of Warren as the big brother who would guide and take care of me for the rest of our lives.

I remember the first night in our parent’s home when our Mom had us place the clothes we would wear the following day on a chair at the foot of our beds. We had never done that at Grandma’s House.

“Why do we have to do this?” I asked Warren.

“I don’t know, just do it,” he said. At the age of 7, he was already wise beyond his years, and he knew that in the transition we were making, we should not ask questions.

One weekend, our parents drove us back to visit Grandma, and I was in the back seat of the car with Warren singing happily, “Grandma’s House, here we come!   Right back where we started from!”

“Shh!” Warren said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just don’t sing that!” he said. It was then that I noticed that my parents were completely silent, undoubtedly feeling very sad. Stupid me. Smart Warren. It’s understandable that a 4 year old might be so obtuse, but how does a 7 year old come to be so empathetic and wise?

One day we decided to go to the beach just a few minutes walk from our home. So Warren got a pail, and off to the beach we went to collect whatever we could find. We found a big beautiful starfish, placed it in the pail, came back home, and filled the pail with nice, fresh tap water. (Pause). Well, as you can imagine, the fresh water killed that poor little star fish. Please forgive my big brother Warren. He had not gone to medical school yet.

One of the things that is unique about Warren is his way of turning something bad into something funny. Fred, Earl, Binh and I will always remember the potato chip incident.

We were in a parking garage in San Francisco and some driver did something very nasty, I can’t even remember what is was. As we left our car, Warren, who had been eating potato chips, spotted the nasty driver’s parked car, and used his finger tips, which were covered with the oil from the potato chips, and ran them along the side of the car. They left a nice, shiny, oily trail on the side of the car. Who would think of that? We all howled with laughter. Warren was good at that, taking someone’s selfishness and turning it into something funny for everyone to laugh about.

Warren has been with me my whole life, and he will be with me in my heart forever. Has has been with me and supported me through the transition from Grandma’s home to our parents’ home, through Grandma and Al’s death, and though our parents’ deaths. He made incredible sacrifices at work and at home to accompany me on two trips to Vietnam 15 years ago when I adopted my son, Binh, who was just a few months old at the time. (Yes, Warren brought his stethoscope!) As I have faced the challenges of raising a child as a single parent working full-time, he has always been available to offer support and guidance. I can not imagine an older brother as wise, as kind, as caring and as supportive as Warren.

I hope you all agree that the wonderful qualities that Warren has are qualities that we all aspire to have.

Thank you for listening to some of my thoughts and memories of Warren.

I’d like to end with one final thought: Although Warren pulled it off, you may want to think twice before trying that potato chip thing!

Tears in Heaven – Kenny Fukumoto from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Warren’s Work – Lori Walter, MD from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Over the Rainbow – Squeezeplay Accordion Band from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Sandy Lingo from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Greetings, Friends of Warren and Fred.  My name is Sandy Lingo.  Fred designed my website and we have become friends over the last couple years, but I was quite stunned when he asked me to speak at Warrenfest because, sadly, I never met Warren. I was flattered and humbled to be asked, but truly confused.  Why me?

I am not being modest when I say I have a very shallow pool of skills that would qualify me for this speaking gig.

I was an English teacher so, yes, I have some facility with my native tongue.  I was a librarian, so I know my way around the Dewey Decimal system.  I am a stand up comic so I can  . . . stand up . . . in front of strangers.

Which brings me back to the question:  Why me?  Fred said, “You will be like the minister.”  Oh, Fred, you really don’t know me at all!

It is true that I never met Warren, but I did have a sense of him through Fred.  Through conversations sprinkled profusely with, “Warren said . .” “Warren thinks…”  “Warren likes…”  From their busy joint calendar that prevented Fred from meeting with me: “That day Warren and I will be  . . .” “I won’t be able to see you that week because Warren and I . . .” The fusing of the lives of two people who have loved each other for a long time.

And the Facebook posts that not only showed them together on enviable trips in far flung places, but that they were a handsome couple from beginning to end.

The librarian in me was compelled to do research, so I went to Warren and Fred’s house cum art museum and spent three hours getting to know Warren and how he inhabited that space:  where he liked to relax, where he read, where he played the piano, where he ate his meals.

I looked at hundreds of photos, including the one of a little boy playing an accordion in a Monterey parade.  And a silly picture of Fred and Warren posing side by side with their faces appearing in cardboard cutouts.  I was surprised to learn that it was Warren who had to cajole Fred into posing.

I did my Larry King impression, asking Fred probing questions.  I learned their love story that began in 1981 with their first date.  Fred said they both just knew that this was IT.

I learned that it was Fred who first fell in love with their beautiful Walnut Hills mansion.  He had to have it! Warren, however, didn’t feel like he had to have it, but he loved Fred, and Fred loved that house, so they bought it in 1991.  It came complete with a few friendly ghosts!

The decorating was all Fred, but Warren loved the mannequins, doodads, and tchotschkes, the furnishings, the chandeliers, and the art work.  The whimsy, the beauty, the history, the shelves of books and the assortment of musical instruments embody who Fred and Warren were to each other and to the world. They both loved their home.

Fred was grateful that Warren handled the business end of things in their marriage, competently and transparently.  Warren was always observing, always acutely aware of the feelings of others.  He was humble. Warren almost never sought the spotlight, but his warmth, humor, and talent drew people to him.

Fred admitted that at first he didn’t know why he felt compelled to ask me to speak, which was very reassuring, as you can imagine, but in time he realized that it was because a blogpost I wrote a while back so resonated with him.  “That was just so Warren,” he said several times in the last couple weeks.  A few days ago, Fred emailed and asked me to tell you about that blogpost.

The title of the piece is, “A Fine Day to Die.”  It begins like this:

It was a beautiful day outside, but my friend Teri and I sat in recliners in her basement, checking our emails and binge watching Botched, an A & E reality show about plastic surgery gone horribly wrong.

After about three hours, I said, “Teri, they say we should live each day as if it’s our last.  This could be our last day, and this is how we spent it?”

She paused then said, “I’m good with that.”

Teri and I were both teachers, and we worked our asses off (not so you’d notice) for three decades.  In retirement, we’ve become slothful, like pet rocks.  We are absolutely over all the activity: the setting of alarms, the running to meetings, the grading of papers, the getting out of recliners.

As I got to know Warren, I came to understand the connection to this part of the post.

Warren had a brilliant career as a psychiatrist.  He won awards and national acclaim.  And he won the hearts of the hospital staff, especially the nurses.

He had a great gift for putting people at ease.  If someone said, “Are you analyzing me right now?” he’d answer, “Not until you show me your insurance card.”

I have a friend who volunteered at AVOC who said, “I loved Warren!  He was warm and funny.  A very cool guy.” He taught the volunteers the psychosocial aspects of HIV in a way that lay people could understand.

People who achieve such professional success often have trouble walking away from their careers, away from the admiration, the mental gymnastics, the adrenaline rushes, the routine.

But Warren retired in 2008.  Completely retired. Really retired.  He even let his medical license lapse because maintaining it took time away from home.  Warren’s medical bag is the doorstop for their bedroom door, a metaphor a writer can really appreciate.

His colleagues had trouble understanding how Warren could just walk away from his medical career, and, honestly, so did I.  I said to Fred, “Wow!  They must have thought he was crazy.”  Um, yeah, I called a psychiatrist “crazy,” but when I tried to apologize, Fred laughed and said, “Warren would have laughed, too.”

But being a psychiatrist wasn’t who Warren was, it was what he did —spectacularly, by all measures.

The day Warren retired at age 56, he turned the page and started a new chapter, where the setting was home and the main characters were his husband, friends, and family.

When Warren retired, Fred cut back on his work, too.  “I let go of most of my clients,” he said.  Fortunately, I have not yet received my pink slip yet.

The guys cut back on entertaining in their home.  They stopped going to fancy gala benefits, the “la di da parties,” as Fred put it.  They focused on each other.  From their favorite room, the sitting area in their second floor master bedroom, they watched the squirrels frolic, and they even tracked the visits from a familiar owl.

Fred and Warren set about traveling the country:  San Francisco, three times a year; Palm Springs, twice a year; Saugatuck, Michigan annually; D.C., Chicago, New York City; San Diego, Los Angeles, Maui; and, as Fred says, “Ft. Law-dee-dah.”

And they traveled internationally, too:  to Australia; Scotland; France; Germany; England; the Republic of Cyprus. Fred showed me Shutterfly books cataloging their trips.  Hundreds of pictures of the two of them, thousand-watt smiles, Citizens of the World.  When they traveled with friends or family, Warren would often let them decide the destination.

Returning to my blogpost, “A Fine Day to Die,” I sleuthed for more clues to the Warren Liang philosophy.  Here is another excerpt:

I am good with the mundane day, and I would be happy if I had nothing but mundane days until my last.

A day when I wake up and my phone is fully charged so I can burn up an hour, still reclined, liking and replying and friending and sharing.

A day when there’s plenty of hot water and a reliable toilet.

A day when I turn the key in the ignition and all those car parts I can’t name and don’t understand fire and hum and carry me forward.

A day that proceeds in a march of ordinariness.

Although Fred and Warren’s life was full of travel adventures, they were also content in their home together, doing the everyday business of living and loving.  As I read and reread “A Fine Day to Die,” I finally started to hear Warren’s voice.  Maybe this is how he would have said it:

I am good with the mundane day, and I would be happy if I had nothing but mundane days until my last.

A day when we go to Squeezeplay practice, me with the accordion Fred gave me, Fred with his clarinet.

A day when I give a friend a tour of our home and she oohs and ahhs over Fred’s artwork.

A day when I swam my laps at the Y.

A day when I balance the checkbook and Fred picks out my clothes.

A day when I sit at my piano in the late afternoon sun, selecting sheet music that Fred organized on the table he gave me for an early birthday present.

A day that proceeds in a march of ordinariness . . . unless I decide to jump into a grocery cart and take a ride!

Here is how I think Warren might conclude “A Fine Day to Die” if he had written it.

And, as is our custom, Fred and I watch all the day’s news broadcasts I have recorded before we go to bed.  And sometime during that mundane day, one of us will turn to other and say, “I’m the lucky one.” And the other will say, “No, I’m the lucky one.” And we’ll both be right.

And it’s thanks to luck that I have had this mundane day, a day of enough:  enough food; enough health; enough safety; enough love.  And I know that this lucky day would be beyond the wildest imaginations of many people.

But here’s the thing:  Fate sneers at the lucky. I can buy insurance, wish on a star, or pick shamrocks, but once Fate points its fickle finger at me, I’m going down. A clogged artery, a lightning storm, a texting driver, a rogue cancer cell, a hemorrhage – could make me unlucky in an instant, and would make humdrum look pretty darned great.  Bring on the mundane days, every day to the last.

Warren was lucky, lucky to have a fulfilling career, lucky to share adventures and mundane days for 35 years with Fred, lucky to have art and music, friends and family.

But I am reminded of what my mother said, and she was surely right, that the harder you try, the luckier you get.  Warren made a lot of his so-called luck, with the intentional choices he made in his professional and personal lives.

It’s cliché, I know, to say, “Live every day as if it’s your last,” but I sense that’s what Warren really did.  Fred has told me that Warren’s example has mobilized his friends to reassess their lives and their priorities, to play with their grandkids, leave the office early, stop delaying that vacation.  Warren has continued to impact his friend’s lives.  And he has touched me.

This gentleman, Dr. Warren Liang, had it figured it out, didn’t he?

Amen?

• Sandy Lingo (www.SandyLingo.com)

 

 

 

Dancing Queen – Squeezeplay Accordion Band from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

City Proclamation – Chris Seelbach from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

Uplands+Lifecenter from Fred Martens on Vimeo.

ChickenDance-side from Fred Martens on Vimeo.