It was just five days before Hal died. He called me. “Guess where I am?” he said, with that familiar endearing chuckle of his. “I’m at the Serenity House. I’ve come full circle.”
The significance of Hal being at Serenity House, the beautiful hospice facility on the Mesa overlooking Santa Barbara, can’t be overstated. Serenity House was built at the site of the Community Environmental Council’s (CEC) headquarters, and a portion of that original CEC building is incorporated into the Serenity House complex as it stands today. Hal and I were CEC’s codirectors back in 1970, the year CEC was founded by a community galvanized by Santa Barbara’s momentous 1969 oil spill.
Hal told me that he was about to exit this life from a place and an organization that was, in many respects, his birthplace in Santa Barbara. His call was a poignant one. I sensed it could be our last conversation. Sadly, it was.
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