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For Siblings, a New Life After Deaths

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

They talk all the time about the problems kids face trying to grow up in a world of broken homes and violence and a lack of parental supervision.

Brother and sister Shane and Michelle Oblonsky, ages 12 and 13, have seen all that and more. They’ve huddled together against a childhood that has dealt them darkness and tragedy, first with their parents’ divorce, then the slaying of their mother, then, last month, the death of their father.

“These kids have been given such an awful, awful break,” said Lisette Silverman who, with husband David, will seek permission from a Superior Court judge to serve as Michelle and Shane’s legal guardians.

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“He’s gifted and athletic. She’s a 4.0 student. They’re good kids, so bright. What’s missing in their lives is some security, something to fall back on.”

It could have been a recipe for two more troubled youngsters, unwanted and unwatched, on the streets of California. Instead, friends, parents of friends, and school officials in this tight-knit community are pulling together to give Shane and Michelle a port from the storm, and a second chance at childhood.

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Their father, American-born Vietnam veteran Joel Oblonsky, and mother, Chinese-born accountant Sheau-Fang Chang Oblonsky, divorced in 1987, when Shane and Michelle were but babies, according to court records.

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The children stayed with their mom in her house in the Florecita neighborhood of Pasadena, near the edge of the Angeles National Forest.

“She was an entrepreneur. She was real strong financially and always trying to get ahead,” Sgt. Paul Gales of the Pasadena Police Department said of Chang, who resumed using her own surname following the divorce.

But in early 1993, a former boyfriend came to Chang’s house while the children were at school, Gales said. The friend, Bobby Dean Parker, apparently was despondent over a breakup in their relationship.

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Following a lengthy conversation, Chang was stabbed repeatedly with a buck knife, Gales said. In what police described as an unforgettable 911 call, Chang detailed what happened to her as she lay dying at the age of 41.

“She was losing blood, she was losing consciousness, but she told us who did it,” Gales said. “It was almost as though we could hear her die on the 911 tape.”

The 911 call failed to save Chang’s life, but it provided crucial information that enabled police to track Parker to Las Vegas, where he was arrested.

He was brought back to Los Angeles County, where he pleaded guilty to a voluntary manslaughter charge and is serving a 12-year prison sentence, according to the California Department of Corrections. Police considered the sentence relatively light, but said Parker had no prior criminal record.

The children were at school when the killing occurred and were met by police juvenile experts. For Michelle and Shane, it meant going to live with their father, and eventually settling in Seal Beach in a two-bedroom apartment in a building owned by Marilyn Bruce Hastings, now the city’s mayor. They both attended Oak Middle School in Los Alamitos.

“Their father was very interested in his children,” Barbara O’Connor, principal of Oak Middle School, said of dad Joel. “He got them involved in baseball and tennis. He was like a kid himself in many ways and liked to play with them. They were always off on an adventure, playing together.”

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Oblonsky had suffered for nearly a year from pancreatitis, eventually ceasing his intermittent work in electronics, and last December was admitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach.

By then, Shane had befriended Lisette Silverman’s younger son, Alexander. The Oblonsky children spent a lot of time at the Silvermans’ beachfront house, sometimes spending the night.

They were on one of those overnight holidays the Saturday after New Year’s Day when a nurse came to the Silvermans’ early in the morning. As gently as she could, she broke the news that their father had slipped into a coma and was not expected to live.

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For David and Lisette Silverman, who were raising three children of their own, there wasn’t a second thought about what to do. They knew the Oblonsky kids, and knew they could draw on teachers, school officials and coaches for support the kids would be needing.

“There was never any question, when you think about the alternative,” said David Silverman, 27, who worried about the Oblonsky children being split up and shuttled between foster homes or institutions if no one stepped forward.

“If we could have 10 more like them and could give them all what they need, we would do that too,” he said.

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On Jan. 6, three days after the visit by the nurse, doctors removed life support systems that had been used to keep Joel Oblonsky alive. He was 51 when he died.

In the months before their father’s death, Shane and Michelle had tried to assume more and more responsibility for their daily lives. As their father’s condition deteriorated, the kids shopped for groceries and even wrote checks for bills at their ailing dad’s direction.

When he died, relatives of Joel Oblonsky came for a memorial service held at the VA hospital and then left, approving of plans for the children to live with the Silvermans.

The Silvermans and the Oblonsky children struggled with decisions over living and logistics. Bunk beds were moved in and bedroom assignments made. Household chores were parceled out, and the Silvermans had to adjust their schedules to incorporate two more children with active school lives.

On top of it all, they had to deal with a loss of another kind. In a misunderstanding, the children’s belongings from their old apartment were thrown away by cleaners, and with them went some important memories.

“There were a lot of things I wanted that were important to me,” said Michelle Oblonsky. “Like Jacques, my stuffed monkey that my dad got me when I was 5, and other things.”

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In spite of young lifetimes of adversity, however, the siblings hold vivid and pleasant memories of traveling with their mother, and of encouragement from their sports-minded father for their athletic pursuits.

“He spent a lot of time with us and took us to all our sports,” Shane said. “He came to all my games. He even was a coach for football and baseball.”

There were games of catch, outings to play miniature golf and ride go-carts. Of their mom, they recalled walks on horse trails, dinners of clams and Mongolian barbecue, trips to Palm Springs.

The Oblonsky kids recite the facts clearly and articulately; they are more subdued, as young teens and preteens can be, discussing emotions.

“Emotions, they have no meaning to me, maybe because I have so many, that it is physically impossible to count,” wrote Michelle Oblonsky in a poem, one of many she has written. “Mentally it might be possible to count, but it will take some time. But time goes by so fast.”

To provide a base of stability for Michelle and Shane, the Silvermans and school officials are emphasizing the sources of stability that already existed: neighborhood, friends, familiar activities, sports and school.

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“Life has totally changed for them, and school is probably among the things that is the least changed,” said principal O’Connor.

These days are hectic at the Silverman household. Also crowded. Besides the Oblonsky children, there are Lisette Silverman’s sons from a previous marriage, Andrew, 14, and Alexander, 12, and the Silvermans’ daughter, Ariana, 5. The Silvermans need more room, but for now, with the help of bunk beds, there is one bedroom for the three boys, one for the two girls and one for the adults.

“We have the smallest bedroom of the three,” Lisette Silverman said.

Afternoons and evenings are an unending commotion of book bags, briefcases, skateboards, homework and dinner plates. Once a week, there is a counseling session at the Jewish Community Center.

On a typical afternoon, Shane walked in and dropped his book bag. He greeted Lisette, then excused himself to bound outside and check the waves.

Michelle had missed the school bus. She walked in the house later and collapsed on a sofa. “I have soooo much homework!” she said, then disappeared into her bedroom.

On another night, David Silverman said he needed to run out “for a quick haircut.” Before he could leave, though, Michelle had talked her way into the trip and wanted to bring 5-year-old Ariana, so they could both get a trim.

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“No such thing as a quick haircut anymore,” Lisette Silverman said sympathetically to her husband.

Lisette Silverman is continually taking inventory of the kids--”1-2-3-4-5,” she counts out loud--and the missing one is usually little Ariana.

“We’re a family,” said Lisette Silverman. “We sit around the dinner table at night. We say grace. We’re committed. But for Michelle and Shane, we think we need to let the dust settle before someone says, ‘These are your new parents.’ ”

But, in time, everyone will get the hang of functioning together as a family, the Silvermans hope. And, they hope, the lingering pain of loss will give way to a growing bond of love.

In time.

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A fund is being established to provide for the needs of the Oblonsky children. For information, contact officials at Oak Middle School in Seal Beach, (562) 799-4740, or write the school at 10821 Oak St., Los Alamitos CA, 90720.

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