We were driving up to Waterford, and it was later. It was probably about 8:00pm. Dad was usually tired, having to work the night shifts at good life Monday night to Thursday night. He had recently quit his weekend night job, so now he had Friday to Sunday nights off instead of just Sunday. Yet, tonight I could tell it was different. Although he was usually exhausted, I knew something was off about it tonight. He had to stop for a while at the side of the road to rest his eyes for a few minutes. Right then, I should have known something was very wrong, but I just brushed it off.
As we started driving again, my dad began to talk. I don’t remember everything he had said, but I know he said, “It’s okay to cry when you miss someone. There is nothing wrong with it.” His eyes started to water. “I still miss my Granny so much, and that’s never going to change.” As he said it, quietly crying, Rachel was crying in the back seat. I knew she was crying because she missed our grandpa, who had passed away almost 2 years ago.
I sat in the front seat, looking out the window, with tears silently dripping down my face. I was a little sad about my grandpa to, but that wasn’t why I was crying. I was crying for my dad. He had been sick for about 3 years now, with bad heart problems, and everyone who knew him well enough knew that. I had been living with him for just over a year now, and I had cried a million tears for him in that time. I never wanted to admit it to myself, but I knew, there wasn’t going to be that much longer.
So as he said this, I cried for him, even though he was still alive. In my conscience mind, I knew he was crying for his Grandma, and that it was silly to cry over someone who was alive and sitting right beside me, but I guess, somehow, subconsciously, that he was actually talking about himself. Telling us that when he was gone, it would be okay to cry when we missed him.
Shortly after, I had thought that somehow, he had known it would soon be his time, that his long, and very painful near the end, road was coming to an end. I latter found out that his doctor had told him, earlier that week, that he wouldn’t live to the end of the summer, but I doubt he thought he would die that soon.
We had finally made it to Waterford. He was still quiet tired, so he took a nap, well I went to see my aunt, uncle and two cousins, who lived a 2 minute walk away. I came back with my aunt after an hour or so, and dad was still sleeping, so she left to go home. This was at about 11:00pm. Within 15 minutes, dad came down to make a snack, which was quite normal for him. He made a sandwich and gave me half of it, and watched as me and Granny played cribbage.
It was about midnight when he went to go back upstairs to sleep. I gave him a hug, kissed him on the cheek, and said goodnight. Little did I know that that was the last hug I would ever get from him, the last words that we would speak to each other. I went to bed half an hour later. I set my alarm for 5:45am the next morning, planning to make some fresh made buns. It was his birthday.
I didn’t feel like getting up quite yet, and I was turning off my phone alarm, when he woke up to, and checked his phone, I ducked under the covers, so he wouldn’t see the light from my phone and know I was awake to. It was about 6am, before we both fell back to sleep. I got up 30 minutes later, not bothering to look at the bed across the room, with him laying on it. I don’t know if he was still alive at that point or not.
I’d made the buns, and just about everyone was up, my other aunt had made it to Waterford the same day as us, but had gone to bed fairly early. I went upstairs to wake up my sister at about 7:30. We had gotten one of those recording cards for my Dad for his birthday, but we hadn’t gotten a chance to record anything yet. When I went up to wake her, I noticed that his 1 eye was half open, but I thought nothing of it as I woke my sister and we snuck out of the room.
I don’t know if Dad had been dead long at that point, or had just recently passed away. I do not know if there could have been a chance to save him then, or if it was still too late. By 9:30, I decided he had slept in long enough. He usually slept in until about 11 in the afternoon, but at least got up a few times in between. Yet, that was when he went to bed at 3:00am or later, he had almost solidly been sleeping since about 9:00pm.
I remember it all so clearly, even righting this almost 3 months later, its as if I had just found him yesterday. I went up to his room, and kneeled down on the side of his bed, from the door, he looked perfectly fine, but on the other side, I could see the back of his head, and it was blue and purple. I knew something was wrong, I tried to wake, him. His one arm was hanging over the bed, which wouldn’t have been abnormal, but when I tried to shake it, it was like a dead weight. It would move, but it just drifted back to where it was, I tried for another few minutes to wake him, but when nothing happened, I ran downstairs as fast as I could.
I ran into the kitchen where my aunt Louise, my sister and my grandma all sat chatting, and eating breakfast (My grandpa had left to do some work for the lions club, which he was part of.) “Something’s wrong with dad” I said, almost crying, and ran back upstairs as fast as I could, Aunt louise was the first to make it up the stairs, and she quickly came over to him. She was checking for a pulse as Granny and Rachel came in, both crying, Rachel, already close to being hysterical, my aunt saw them, and told them to call 911, but didn’t tell me to leave to.
Having found no pulse she started doing CPR on him, I sat on the bed beside him crying, holding his hand, trying to get him to hear me. The logical part of me made me feel stupid, just sitting there crying ‘Daddy’, but, I couldn’t help it. After a few minutes of this, my aunt told me to go make sure that they had called 911 downstairs. I didn’t argue, I just rushed back down the stairs. Granny was talking to the operator on the phone downstairs, and I reached out for the phone and she gave it to me.
I spoke to the operator for a minute, she asked if my Dad was breathing, she then asked if I needed CPR instructions, which I answered with another no, and said my aunt was doing it, and she knew how. She told me an ambulance was on its way. I handed the phone back to granny and ran back upstairs. Rachel was shortly after starting to come up the stairs crying, I told her to go back down and she didn’t argue.
Aunt Louise was still doing CPR when I came back up, but not too long after, she stopped. He was gone, I knew it, she knew it, but I didn’t want to leave. The Paramedics came then, and took over, but we all already knew he was gone. At least everyone upstairs did. We had to go downstairs so they could do what they needed to. Before I went from the room, I pulled myself together enough to speak clearly without crying. I reached in to his gym bag, and grabbed the big Ziploc bag with his medicine in it. “This isn’t all his medicine, he’s out, was out of a couple of them, but I don’t know which ones.” I said as I handed the bag to the male paramedic. Then I went downstairs with my aunt.
Granny had gotten a hold of my Aunt Lisa who lived a few blocks away. We were all in the living room crying when she, ran up the sidewalk to the front door, with tears already in her eyes. With Uncle Bruce, Mike, and Tom following behind her. I got up when they came in. We all hugged, and told them he wasn’t here anymore. I sat down on the couch, and Tom snuggled up with me. He was crying worse than I was. Mike just sat there. I think he cried a little bit at first but not much.
With me, I don’t like crying in front of people at all. I tried to concentrate more on comforting other people, then thinking about why I needed to comfort them. The next hour seemed to go by very fast, yet at the same time drudgingly slow. One thing is for sure though. It was the worst hour of my life, the worst day of my life, and it always will be. It doesn’t matter that I still have so much time to live through, but losing the best thing that ever happened to me, the best person in my life that I could ever dream of asking for was gone.
After that hour, we went on a walk, my aunt Lisa trying to get us all out of the while they brought my father’s lifeless body down the stairs. We walked for about 45 minutes before we went back. The fresh air was good for me, and so was talking about a million unimportant things that I can’t remember. It distracted my mind from what just happened. It really helped me calm down, even if it was for just briefly. I walked a fair amount that day. There were many things my family was doing at home, and even though I’m only 15, and it was hard, I helped with it. I couldn’t not help, and I think it helped a bit too.
Many things had to be done that day. We had to call the close family, and some other people. Even if someone dies for natural causes or from a heart attack or anything, if it’s at home, a police officer has to come and ask a few questions. It was a girl, but I can’t remember her name though. At that point, I was kind of numb, and a lot of things that I heard went right through one ear, and out the other. She had asked Granny and Aunt Louise some questions while we were all on a walk, but she needed to ask me some since I was the only one that lived with him.
We went onto the side porch to talk a little privately. She told me that they had talked to my Dad’s heart specialist. He was positive, without even being here, that he had died from his heart problems. She asked me Questions like ‘How long were you living with your dad for?’ and basic things like his job, his schedule, that kind of stuff. I went back inside when we were done talking, and sat at the kitchen table with everyone else. They were all having lunch now. I couldn’t eat. I was to upset. I barely ate anything that day. I barely ate anything for the next few days, actually.
That day was the worst day of my life. The thing was though, without even being told, I knew it wouldn’t have been that long. I knew it wouldn’t have been that long a few months before he was told he had about 6 months at most to live. I had already cried a million tears before that day because I knew he wouldn’t be there to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day, handing me off to my husband. That he would not be in the hospital the day his first grandchild was born, holding him or her for the first time. That he wouldn’t be there to see me graduate high school, let alone college or university.
Although these are just simple things in life, they were moments that I wished he would be able to see. Things that I wish he would be standing right by me when they happened. Yet now, I still wish I could have those things, but more than anything, all I want is one last hug from him, one last kiss on the cheek, and one last good-bye spoken from his lips.