It was a special thing to be Paul Worthman’s daughter. His “favorite oldest daughter,” he called me, and my sister Kristin, his “favorite youngest daughter.” 

Pete was all the things you know – brilliant, passionate, funny, a jock (if lapsed somewhere in midlife when he was bargaining around the clock and living on coffee, fast food and cigars), anti-elitist, committed to making a world that wasn’t based on capitalism, racism, sexism, imperialism, or ecological exploitation – and not at all sentimental about it. 

Pete also cared deeply about being a father, even if he didn’t go by the label “Dad.” (The reason being, Lin and Pete wanted Kristin and I to see them as people, not as their roles.) In the last month of his life, I was lucky to take time off work and spend long days again with him and Lin. One of the most moving things he said to me during this time was how he valued being able to talk with his closest friends about parenting. 

He had a side of him that was deeply wise and generous, and I felt that I was seeing a part of the “real” Pete when that side emerged. It was the side that believed wholeheartedly in me and Kristin and gave us the freedom to take risks and grow, the same side maybe that helped him settle complex and contentious bargaining disputes, loved James Baldwin when he was in college, and sent us all articles that expressed deep grief about the war in Gaza  — articles by Judy Butler, Masha Gessen, and one about a swim team in Jerusalem and the divisions that arose between Palestinian and Israeli kids after October 7. 

He cared tremendously about Kristin’s and my political education and training. We grew up going to picket lines and demonstrations and were often given jobs to do. We knew how to ask someone to sign a petition or take a flyer just like we knew how to breathe, notwithstanding (at least my) natural shyness. When we drove around L.A. together (often heading to swim practice or a swim meet), he explained L.A.’s racially constructed geography, the history of each neighborhood and its inhabitants and workers, why there were food deserts, and it seemed like he knew everything that mattered. 

Pete was for many decades my mentor and closest intellectual collaborator, maybe beginning with first grade when he coached me to ask my teacher why there were two lines (boys and girls): why not three? Breaking down categories from the beginning. When I was in fourth grade, he trained me how to do original source research in the census for a biography of Harriet Tubman. In high school, he tried to teach me how to write about dialectical materialism for a paper on Rockefeller and Eugene Debs. When I worked as an organizer and researcher in the labor movement, he collaborated with me on strategy and shared complaints about the bosses and corrupt union leaders. When I later became a lawyer, I talked with him about my most important cases before I argued them. Some of the best advice I got came from his training union members to present grievances to an arbitrator:  Start with a simple, compelling sentence, “This is a case about …”

There are so many stories I want to tell, but since it’s the holiday season I’ll focus on a couple appropriate to this time of year. One is that I gave him the sweatshirt that he wore almost every day for the last three years: a picture of Marx (looking a lot like Santa) with the slogan, “All I Want for Christmas is the Means of Production.” I bought him two new sweatshirts for his last birthday, including a fresh one and one that said “I’m Dreaming of a Red Christmas,” figuring he could use a refresh. But he only wondered why I spent the money on them. (One of the things I realized about him, though, in looking at old photos, was that Paul Worthman had a stylish side earlier in life… maybe we’ll get to post those photos sometime.)

Pete could be grumpy about “bourgeois holidays,” but there were many years when he channeled the Christmas spirit, like the Marxist Santa he was. Red diaper babies though we were, Kristin and I grew up waking up before dawn Christmas morning excited to see what was in our stockings. Pete would wear the red Santa hat – like Lin’s dad Lou did before him – and hand them out. Inside were funny little items from the discount dollar store Pik n Save, all with witty comments written on the tags.  Along with Christmas bathrobes, slippers, books, bikes, and other traditional items, we got gifts like the Class Struggle board game, and – my favorite – one I received as an adult, this tear apart Boss Doll the year I was non-stop complaining about my boss. 

When Alex and Tenaya were born, I got to go with Pete to Pik n Save and acquire discount holiday items to try to give them the same experience. He loved his grandkids both so much, of course, and I’m so glad they both got to spend time with him before he died.

Pete was raised Jewish, although decidedly atheist and anti-Zionist as an adult, so some years we also celebrated a version of Hanukkah – a version where the workers triumphed because they collectivized their oil, because it lasted longer that way and everyone had enough when they shared. 

Not a holiday story, but one I think of often as a highlight. After the Soviet Union collapsed, like many leftists Pete was depressed. Not that he had ever been anything other than a deeply critical, anti-Stalinist, but at least the U.S.S.R. represented the possibility of an alternative to capitalism and support for such alternatives around the world.  But then … the Rangers won the Stanley Cup! Pete was transformed, and his spirits lifted.  I saw them lifted again when the Dodgers finally won the World Series just before he died. The Bums finally succeeded, just like he knew they would if they ever listened to his advice.

While Pete was in hospice, I reflected often on the gifts I got from being his daughter. Unfortunately, I didn’t get his talent for ball sports (despite his giving me a baseball glove to sleep with when I was an infant), but I hope I can carry on his vitality, energy, passion, confidence, loyalty to his people and causes, and commitment to making a better world. I see those things in my kids, too. 

And I have realized, too, I’m grateful I got to grow up close to Pete’s full expression of emotion, including anger — a gift that can sometimes be hard to appreciate, and may be one of his defining characteristics to the people who know him best. Anger, says the poet David Whyte, properly understood, “is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt.” Anger, he continues, is “the purest form of care.” There is no real wisdom, no real commitment to transformation, without anger. “The internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for.”  If you read this essay, I think you’ll recognize Paul Worthman.. I miss him.

One last thing, although I want to keep sharing more: Pete sent me cassette tapes regularly my first year at college, when I was missing home. He passed on his love of what we could call anti-fascist music to Kristin and me, and we made this playlist. Hope it reminds you of him, too.

…