Alone Together: My Life With J. Paul Getty

by Theodora Getty Gaston

  I thanked her and went back into my room, combed my hair, and decided to go in and see the night nurse, Louella, who had been on most of the day and night before, as was Ruth, another nurse. Louella was oiling Timmy and I went up to him and kissed him. I saw the platelets going in slowly, noticed his skin color was pink and good, but he was cold because the air conditioner was on. Louella rubbed his body with oil and talked to him. His breathing was better, 40 respirations. (I took it.) I looked at him closely. He acted like a fighter who had won a hard battle and was resting, or trying to rest. I prayed for him to take it easy.

  Louella said, “Precious, we are going to have you eating in the morning, you’re okay.” She said to me, “They gave him something to make him void . . . at seven o’clock.” (He had a catheter on him.)

  To look at him made me almost faint, but I felt he’d won the battle. I thought, Oh, so gently we must let him climb back and get his strength. A man came in to take his hemoglobin. He pricked his finger. Timmy didn’t seem to feel it. I thought it was because he was cold, or had had so many of those for the past year he didn’t care anymore.

  I turned to the nurses and said, “What can I order you both to be sent in from the restaurant?” Louella said lobster salad, and Ruth asked for a chicken sandwich, and then Dr. Shaccter came in. He looked at Tim, picked up the chart, and said, “Give me the phone.” He called Dr. Hoen and said, “I’m going now. Things look good here.” Then he said, “Dr. Hoen wants to talk with you,” and handed me the phone.

  Hoen said, “Teddy, things look good. Nancy [Hoen’s wife] wants to come over with me and visit with you. Would you like that?”

  I said, “Fine.” But I was tired and wanted to just stand there and be near Timmy.

  I gave up the phone to Shaccter, and the man with the hemoglobin report came in and told Shaccter something.

  Shaccter said, “It couldn’t be. Do it again.” Then Shaccter hung up the phone and started out of the room, saying, “Good night. I’m off now, and another doctor will be on call. Everything looks fine.” Then he took one last look, and walked back to Tim. He studied him a moment, asked for a stethoscope, and listened to his breathing. His respirations were still fine at 40, with his pulse 140, temperature 100, and blood pressure 110/60. Turning to Louella, Shaccter asked for the aspirator. He took the place where I’d been standing. I walked around the bed to the other side, held Tim’s hand very tightly, and told him in his ear, “Tim, boy, you are all right, right now. God is here. Don’t be afraid, all is well.” And then I put his hand to my lips and kissed it and kissed his cheek, and called Louella to hold his hand, for I hated what Shaccter was going to do and hated to watch, and felt it would hurt Tim.

  Shaccter, like some bulldog, took the oxygen tube out of Tim’s nose and put the aspirator, a suction pump, in. Then he took Tim’s head in his hand and forced open his mouth and put the aspirator down his throat as I looked at Shaccter, horrified at his seeming roughness. All I could do was pray Timmy would hang on—and I wanted to bash this man’s head in.

  Then Tim seemed to gasp and he stopped breathing. This I saw. This I shall never forget. Tim couldn’t fight or breathe and his heart stopped as mine wanted to. I heard Shaccter say, “Please leave the room, Mrs. Getty.”

  I left, not daring to believe what I thought was happening was happening. I went to my room, called Mr. Pittman, and told him I thought Tim had stopped breathing.

  I waited alone there in my room, fighting the fear. I prayed for Tim to gather strength, prayed for him to fight, and it seemed like hours later, but was only a little while, when Nancy came in, looking very alarmed. Hoen had gone straight into Tim’s room.

  I said, “Please go see how Tim is.” She never came back. She fainted in the kitchen. Dr. Hoen came in almost at once.

  I said, “What is it?”

  “The worst,” he said.

  “Oh my God, please, go back and try,” I begged. He went out, and I don’t remember anything except calling Mr. Pittman, who asked me to go into Tim’s room and talk to him . . . But Hoen stopped me at the door. “Don’t go in, Teddy. There’s nothing to be done. I don’t know what happened, it was so sudden.”

  I screamed, “Shaccter took the oxygen tube out, aspirated him, and he gasped. That’s what happened! He was too weak to fight. You and your doctors killed him! Where were they—Kupperman, Golomb, and Bloom? None of you were here! Timmy trusted you, and you let him down.”

  Hoen had tears in his eyes. I stared at him, turned, and ran to the open window. It was pouring rain—it seemed like the whole world was crying. I wanted to throw myself out; Louella’s hand stopped me. The phone was ringing, it was Paul. I told him, and he burst into tears sobbing, “Oh my poor boy, my poor boy . . .”

  I told him I had been so jubilant when I’d gone in to see Tim at 8:15 P.M., and the nurses had told me that his vital signs were better. I knew I had reason to be happy—it just seemed that finally the battle was won. Though Tim was tired, he was breathing easier and then in walked Dr. Shaccter.

  Perhaps Tim would have gone that night anyway, but, before God, he did look better. I sensed he was just sort of holding his own, and if that damned fool had left him alone and not roughly opened his mouth and forced the aspirator in, I feel we could have weathered that night. Why did he do it? Why didn’t I stop him?

  The final report on his hemoglobin was 7, which meant that his blood was getting lower . . . and ties in with my observation that, had they not given the serum in the first place (which tore down the platelets in his bloodstream), had they obeyed their own man-made laws and not given it against their own report, which said, Don’t give it when the count is under 100,000, then all the complications would not have happened—the hemoglobin going down, the platelet count going still farther down.

  They started blood plasma on Saturday, which helped, but they should have checked the platelets and given those Saturday, too. They stopped the plasma when they gave the platelets on Sunday. The agony of it all is that it was sheer disobedience on all their parts—Hoen, and Drs. Golomb, Shaccter, Kupperman, and Bloom. Tim and I obeyed God, and obeyed them, too. We clung to the truth like you’ve never seen, even while they lied to us and let us down.

  I told Hoen to do an autopsy. It showed the entire tumor had gone. There was not a particle of it left in Timmy. Also, there was not one tumorous cell in him, either, which meant that they had had no reason to give the tumor serum anymore, and should not have given it at the time of surgery. There was also no sign of hemorrhaging in the stomach, so whatever was coming up was due to the steroids. Hoen said the autopsy showed it was his heart that gave out. Well, you tell me whose heart can keep going when his platelets are as low as 78,000, they put tumor serum in you that kills more platelets, and lowers your hemoglobin from 12 to 7. How could you survive when, after rallying for two days someone forcibly takes out your oxygen tube, forces your mouth open, and aspirates you so roughly you just gag and stop breathing.

  This, before God, is the truth. I never left Tim’s side. I saw it all. He was well and happy in the country, and we both wanted to go home. It was not the operation, but what happened afterward. My little Timmy, my child whom I loved so dearly, is gone. The torture is over, and the fight we won is lost. Never has there been such courage, for Tim knew fear, yet bravely faced the battles. Never has there been such love, for he blessed those that hurt him and forgave the doctors when they did make mistakes. (Once one dropped mercurochrome in his eye and he said, “I forgive you, Dr. Bloom. You didn’t mean it.”)

  Always we’d talk of being obedient to the doctors, and trusting God. When they took a long time tapping him, or giving the serum, he’d cry a bit, then say, “How much longer, sir?” He’d grit his teeth, and tell me to call his practitioner for help. He never complained—he was always cheerful. He trusted Dr. Hoen. He turned in agony to God. He was grateful to everyone—the nurses, maids, and aides. He was always so happy when someone thought of him, or called him up, or wrote a not
e, or sent a flower, or remembered him. He loved his Bible lessons, which we did every day, and he taught me what they meant. He was so pure in heart that he saw the Truth. When things were hard to bear, he’d call Mr. Pittman and grow in hope.

  He was a child, and loved Donald Duck and Teddy Bear, and slept with Teddy folded in his arms. But he was a man in wisdom. He quoted from the Bible, and he listened to the news. He was aware, alert, far superior to most men in judgment. He spoke sharply to those who were cross, ugly, or wrong. He had compassion for the world, for others who were sick. He had a memory perhaps better than most, because he never remembered but the good. He said, “Don’t clutter up your thinking with the bad.” His sense of humor was all the more touching because he never lost it in moments of pain. One day, he called his doctors, who were whispering about output and intake, over to him, and said, “Gentlemen . . .” Then he sang, “You belong to the Mutual Tabulation Society, my baby and me!” He felt he would see again, walk again, and he had been seeing light for the previous two months. The day after his last operation he asked Louella to cover the mirror and the pictures because of the glare.

  He was proud of being a “teenager.” He was five-two and weighed 122 pounds. He had a beautiful little body. His hair was like spun red gold, and he had an elegance about him as a young prince of long ago.

  We had spent every weekend of that summer in Connecticut at Bill Gaston’s house while he and his sons were in Maine. I’d built a little ramp for him to be wheeled in and out. I’d bought a screen house for him to sit and lunch in, or sleep in, for outside. I’d bought a rubber pool for him to be naked in out on the lawn. Tim loved the sound of the river, loved the warmth of the sun. He adored little Clover, his puppy, who we picked up from the dog kennel each time we drove out to the country in the ambulance—Clover would lick Timmy’s face, and they’d cuddle together as we sped along the Merritt Parkway. I put blocks under the piano so he could roll his wheelchair under it. We had picnics out in the tent. The nurses and I would read to him and play his favorite records. I cooked all the things he loved—“specials”—and he was so dear and loving and grateful.

  Sometimes I’d get down on my knees and hold him close, and he’d put his arms around me and tell me not to worry. Then we’d talk of going home. I thanked him for being my dear friend, and giving me so much love and help, and we’d speak of all the memories of good times together. He’d say, “Mom, there will be more to come.”

  He was full of love for his dad. He never knew he was the richest man in the world. He’d heard it but he’d say, “That’s what the world sees. I see him as my own darling daddy, whom I love.” How he missed Paul! Sometimes I sat quietly beside him while he seemed to be thinking and he’d suddenly say, “When will he come home? I wish I had a daddy like other boys have. Do you think he really loves me? I wish I could talk to him.”

  “Well, let’s talk to him,” I’d say, and we’d call Paul. He’d tell everyone then for days that he’d spoken with his father. He never asked for any material thing, all he wanted was to see his dad. He never begrudged the fact that Paul never came. He was too loving . . . and yet in his heart, he needed a father.

  He was proud of being “the last of the Getty boys,” proud and loving about all of his brothers, especially Gordon, who had come to see him that last September. Neither Ronnie nor Paul Jr. had time when they passed through, but Clyde Beatty, the animal trainer, came and brought him a lion’s claw. Eda Edson came from California. Ware came every day, and Bill, when he was in town, came over with gifts like woolly slippers from South America, or a duck call. Audrey Davis brought books, people sent flowers, and all the telephone operators, maids, and bellboys at the Pierre called or asked for him and prayed for him.

  Out in the country, during the last weeks, he had a few children over from Daycroft—the Clar family with three sweet kids—and these weekends gave him a sense of being home. He loved it so out in the country and didn’t want to go back to the rehab or the hospital. I wish I hadn’t let him. I wish we’d said no. I wish Dr. Hoen had kept his word, and done only what he said he would do.

  Tim said, “I don’t dare believe,” when I told him Hoen promised we’d go home right after he fixed the bump on his head. Well, Tim was right, and Hoen was wrong. He did more than plastic surgery (all we signed for him to do). He even photographed the inside of Tim’s head in the operating room and put the serum in, without first checking the report . . . And God knows what else he did, for I wasn’t there to see. I wish we could drag those doctors before a court of law, for they murdered my son, they didn’t follow the laws of medicine. I read the report and it’s haunted me my entire life.

  I was inspired by Tim’s courage, his fighting so long, unwilling to accept defeat—hoping always has made me incapable of comprehending the fact that he’s gone! I loved Timmy. I love him now as protectively as a mother lioness her cub, as proudly as an empress her heir, and I miss him just as fiercely. He was a child of our love. He was the answer to my prayers. I just sat there in that cold hospital room with my heart broken. My little lamb dead and I couldn’t believe it, for all had been going so well. Exhausted from no sleep for three days, I just sat in that cold room and hoped I’d die, too.

  I reached Ware, who flew back from the Vineyard, as did Bill from Maine. The three of us left for Santa Monica, bringing Timmy back home to his beloved California. I held Clover, Timmy’s puppy, in my arms the entire flight home. On August 22, 1958, services were held for Timmy in the Little Church of the Flowers, at Forest Lawn’s Memorial Park, where he was interred beside Paul’s mother and father.

  Paul sent a note expressing his profound sorrow at not being able to attend, but he must have known I didn’t expect him.

  A mother never gets over the death of a child. All I can do is hold fast to the love I’ve known, and be proud that Timmy was a true soldier of God, whose Light has not gone out, whose Love is ever present with us, if we will continue in his way, and do good to our fellow man. God is Life, Life is eternal, and His good lives forever.

  EPILOGUE

  I spent the following week surrounded by my entire family at the beach house. I was crazy with grief and needed them around me. When Ware returned to the Vineyard, Bill took me to his island in Maine and I stayed there with him until the first cold winds of fall drove us down the Old Post Road to his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, the one I had shared with Timmy that past summer. It was there I realized how much Bill meant to me and when he said, “Teddy, I’m in love with you, marry me,” I couldn’t say no.

  Timmy had loved Bill and Bill had helped me through those tragic months. Finally, I was offered a new life with a man I now loved. We had a child; a baby girl whom we called Gigi. I never dreamt I would have a child that late in life, but she came and filled a cradle Bill had bought for me with a note attached that read, Fill it!

  When Gigi was born, Bill was there with me and he picked the baby up, kissed her, then looked at me with tears in his eyes. When a strong man is tender, it heals your heart. Gigi was beautiful and a gift from God.

  I thought of Timmy and imagined him raising the flag at the beach house and yelling, “Bravo, Mom! We got a girl!”

  I ALWAYS WONDERED why Paul had never come back to see Timmy. It had killed me inside, it was what made me divorce him. After Timmy’s death, Paul had said, “Don’t leave me, stay married to me, and you can be richer than the Queen of England.” I said no. I was too hurt. It was not until 2010 that I found an unopened letter from Paul saying,

  Oct. 12, ’54

  Dearest Teddy,

  I wish I knew my plans. I want to return home to the U.S. I am very eager to see Timmy. I think of him every day and long to be with him. 3 years is a long time in a child’s life. I’ve developed an allergy to ships. I dread being on them and don’t care for the North Atlantic in winter. I may have to go Saudi Arabia again soon. If so, I don’t like the thought of crossing to N.Y. and Cal. then returning across the ocean in a few weeks. />
  I’m very weary of Europe. I doubt that I’ll want to revisit it again once I’m home. The U.S. looks good to me!

  The Neutral Zone is different now since this is the first year of production and sales. There is much to do both here and in the Zone, but I dread the long 8 day rail trip there. Why don’t I fly? Why am I so childishly timid about flying?? Anyhow, I plan to be back in the U.S. within six months—and stay there. My dread of the ocean will keep me there. And, as you know, I used to like ocean travel. And, even went sailing with you at Martha’s Vineyard!

  What had I better do? Let me know. And tell me all about Timmy—and what school does he go to? Ronny said that you and Timmy both looked fine. I’ve written to LA regarding the trade-in of Timmy’s car—but what good will it do until you return to Cal?

  Love to you both.

  Paul

  He had reached out to me in this letter, wanting to come home to us, his family, and I had never opened it until 2010! I had never known. Would I have stayed with him if I had? I don’t know.

  Years later, I did see Paul. It was 1975, and Gigi, my sister Nancy, her daughter Lisa, and I were in Europe. When Paul heard we were there, he asked us to visit him at Sutton Place, Guilford, England. Hearing his voice over the telephone, after all those years, I couldn’t say no. I felt I needed to see him again—he must have felt it, too.