By Sam Whiting
San Francisco Chronicle
OAKLAND, Calif. — When the second alarm buzzed his cell phone at 11:31 p.m. Friday, the Rev. Jayson Landeza got out of his bedclothes and into his “turnout” in the rectory of St. Benedict in East Oakland.
By the time he’d driven his black Crown Victoria 10 minutes to the Ghost Ship fire, he’d transformed himself from Catholic priest to “minister of presence.”
That’s his own patented job description where no sermonizing or administering of last rites is required. What he does is stand there with his coat open so his clerical collar is visible, with an open expression on his face to show that he’s approachable.
“We don’t do the Catholic thing,” he said in an interview Wednesday at the nearby Wendy’s which has served as his temporary sanctuary during the five days and nights he has been at the scene of the tragedy that claimed the lives of 36 people.
“I’m just here to listen to folks and attend to their basic needs,” Landeza said.
When he was not at the scene of the fire, among first responders, onlookers and media from all over the world, he was back at the rectory in quiet prayer and reflection over what he had seen and heard and felt. Then he’d go back and do it all over again, always maintaining an upbeat demeanor.
“I’m a happy person who likes to see the good in others,” he said. “And being able to express that provides a sense of care and compassion of something sacred to people in trauma.”
Officially, Landeza is a volunteer chaplain for the Oakland Fire Department, Oakland Police Department and Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, which also houses the county coroner. Unofficially, Landeza is the volunteer chaplain for anybody who needs him.
“He brings a certain calm to situations, where families show up that are grieving, and it’s invaluable” said J.D. Nelson, public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office. “As first responders, we don’t always know what to say to somebody who’s had this terrible situation. Some are better than others, but Father Landeza is as good as they get.”
Among the first responders, the firefighters at Station 13, which is right behind the warehouse, rotated out after working on the fire and have not been back on duty. The coroner’s office has also worked in shifts.
But there has been no shift change for Landeza. He got there Friday night thinking it was just a warehouse fire and found an unexpected number of young people milling about outside. “One of them said, ‘Some of our friends are still inside that building,’” he said, and that’s when he had a hunch he would be there all night.
He left Saturday morning to fulfill a prior commitment to officiate at a funeral in Hayward. But he came back Saturday afternoon and stayed through the evening. Another clergyman filled in for him at St. Benedict’s so he could be at the Ghost Ship all day Sunday. And Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
“Police officers and firefighters will come up to me and say ‘Jeez, you know, I’ve got a kid the same age,’ and that’s all they have to say.”
In the first days after the fire, survivors had their own chaplains on duty in a Family Assistance Center across the street. But those chaplains don’t have the access that Landeza has.
Aside from his official capacity, he grew up in Berkeley and attended St. Mary’s College High School there. He’s lived and served up and down the 880-corridor ever since, and seems to know everybody. Strangers would approach him to go take a photo of the fire scene, or ask him to place a flower at the door, “just so they would have a sense of closure about the place where their loved one passed away.”
Even after the coroner’s office had removed all the victims, the fire department and demolition crews had pulled out, and the family members were gone, there was Landeza, in his white helmet and turnout with the word “chaplain” in yellow letters on the back.
“Just stand there and listen to people talk about what’s going on,” he says. “Ministry of presence. I’m not out here pushing anything.”
On the afternoon of his fifth day, rain started to fall, and Landeza’s upbeat demeanor started to leak out.
“I’m exhausted, I’m sad. I’m tired,” he said. “No sleep. Too much caffeine.”
So he left the site and drove his cop-style Crown Vic to visit his mother at a rest home four blocks away.
He told her that he loved her and continued on to his psychotherapist’s office.
“I just needed to go work through my own grief,” he said.
Copyright 2016 the San Francisco Chronicle