Dad and I

“This can’t be happening…”

But it was.

It was on the afternoon of April 1st, 2014 (4/1/14); it was April Fools Day but there wasn’t anything to laugh about.  If anything, it was probably the most horrifying event I’d ever witnessed in my life…I had a front row seat in watching my precious Dad die in front of my eyes.  Actually, my siblings, step-mother and I gave the ICU staff the permission to let him.

As I stood at the head of his bed, stroking his hair, repeating to him to relax and that everything would be okay, over and over, while seeing the tear-stained faces of my family also around him, willing for him to let go, we waited.  There was no noise other than the beeping of the heart monitor behind me and the light footsteps of the nurses outside in the hall walking back and forth.  They didn’t check up on him any more; they knew exactly what was happening behind the drawn curtain, they’d seen it hundreds of times before, just as they’d seen people like us; faces expressionless and staring, no longer praying for a miracle.

An hour and a half after the first injection, the heart monitor stopped beeping and the line that bumped along it’s screen was a straight line….then Dad flew away.  I stood back away from the bed, my brain unable to process what had just happened, looking at the skeletal and drawn figure that barely filled the sheet it was covered in.  How could this be my Dad?  The man that raised me and taught me the skills I would later need to live the unique life that I was destined for.  The man that was creative and kind…and outrageously funny!  How did this happen??

I know that most everybody has to go through this process but it never dawned on me that it would be this unforgiving.  To be given so many years with such an amazing man, of which I was so blessed that he happened to be my father, for him to just die right before us.  I had dreaded that day for many years but was grateful that I happened to be within driving distance of the hospital when the time came, when normally I wouldn’t have been.

It’s been four months since that horrible day and for some odd reason, I feel compelled to tell his story.  It’s not an intriguing story filled with danger and excitement, just a story of a father that loved his daughter as much as a father could…and he did.  He lived a simple life with honest values, away from the eyes of almost everybody except for his inner circle; our immediate family.  True, there were some bad times but most of the time I spent growing up with him was incredible and no doubt, helped make me into the woman I am today.  So, with that said, I’ll do my best to tell his story.