I always had a normal life, until December 2nd of 2006. It was just a normal December day for my family and I. It was chilly and a little windy outside; we were going to run some errands to finish getting ready for Christmas. My dad loved Christmas, from inflatables to lights, anything that was Christmas related he put up in the front yard.
That December morning I woke up, went downstairs to see my mom and dad, and to eat breakfast. We had borrowed my uncle's trailer for something that I can't remember-- my dad insisted on moving it himself from the side of the house to the cul-de-sac in front of our house. Our truck that we had at the time didn't have a trailer hitch attached, so instead of waiting for my uncle to come and move it with his truck that had a trailer hitch on it, my dad wanted to do it then. My mom kept telling him not to try to move it himself and just to wait, but my dad was stubborn and hard-headed, so he wouldn't listen to my mom.
I went back upstairs and into my sister's room to watch my dad from the window. He successfully moved the trailer, and when he came back inside he started to clutch his chest. I could hear him in pain from upstairs, so worried, I ran down the steps and saw him squirming around in intense pain. My father had already had three heart attacks, but this was not like the others. My mom called 911 and police, fire, and rescue came as fast as they could. We didn't live far away from the firehouse, so they arrived within about 5 or 10 minutes. My sister and I clung onto each other, scared because we didn't understand why he was in so much more pain this time than the previous times.
When the paramedics arrived, two men got to work on my dad immediately, while a female took my sister and me upstairs so we didn't have to see what was happening on the floor below. My mom had called our grandmother and she was going to take us with her. Both of us packed a bag with clothes for the following day. The paramedic took both of us outside, and we knew something wasn't right. This heart attack was not like the others. Still crying and terrified, my sister and I sat on the bench that was on our front porch waiting for our grandmother.
The paramedics took our father out of the house on a stretcher and rushed him into the ambulance. Little did we know, that would be the last time we would see our dad alive. My dad could hear us screaming for him when he was in the back of the ambulance. Our grandmother took my sister and me with her to her house, and our mother followed our dad in the ambulance. At 10-years-old and 6-years-old, you could probably imagine how scared we were.
Once my grandmother calmed us down at her house, she took us to get our dad 'Get well soon' cards like we always did. We met our mom in the intensive care unit waiting room; at the time neither of us knew what that meant, all we knew was that we wanted to see our dad. Our mom told us that daddy had a lot of wires and tubes attached to him, so even if we did see him, we wouldn't really be able to see him or even recognize that it was him.
My sister and I went back to our grandmother's house for the night, a family friend took over and stayed with us so our grandma could go and stay with my mom. We said a prayer for my dad asking God to watch over him and to heal him so he could come home.
The next morning, on December 3rd, we didn't go back to the hospital, we stayed at my grandmother's house. The family friend said that our mom would be coming to the house soon, and we didn't think anything of it. When she walked into the house, our grandmother and all of my dad's family came in behind her, we hadn't seen them in about a year or so. We were excited to see them, but we could tell that most of them weren't very happy.
My mother took both my sister and me into my grandmother's bedroom and the three of us sat on her bed and she wanted both of us to listen to her. She then explained to us that like helium in a balloon starts to wear off over time and the balloon deflates, that is what happened to our dad. Before she even told us that the balloon deflates I looked at her and said, "Daddy's dead isn't he?" Of course only being 6-years-old, she just shushed me and told me to listen to her. When she finally told us that our dad was dead both of us broke down in tears. We had to calm down and try not to cry in front of our relatives, because if they saw us crying, they would start crying too.
I was angry. I was angry at the doctors for not doing more to try to save him, at God for taking him away from us, I was even angry at my dad for not listening to my mom when she told him not to pull the trailer. It was then later explained to me that no matter what the doctors did, my dad wouldn't have survived and if he did he would be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. He was brain dead. We then had the long process of going through all of his belongings. My mother, sister, and I moved in with our grandmother until we got our life back together.
This was and still is the worst time of my life. My mother raised my sister and me with the help of my grandmother who passed away from cancer in 2011. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about my dad. I want to thank my mother for all that she has done for me because I know that I don't thank her nearly as much as I should. Mom, you mean the world to me and I don't know what I would do if you weren't in my life. Thank you for everything that you do for me. I love you to infinity to beyond!
Never forget to cherish the time you have with your parents because you don't realize how important someone is to you until they're gone.
