I will never set foot in Cold Stone Creamery again. At least, not that Cold Stone Creamery. The entire place is filled with awful memories and it sparks up old panic that I do not want to feel again. Let me explain.
Many college students feel they are too cool or too busy to have time for their parents. They have jobs, school and a social life to keep up with. Yet, it breaks my heart that so many young people take their families and loved ones for granted. They could be so easily taken from us at any moment. Through experience, I have realized that we need to cherish every moment with our parents.
It had been a warm, summer day filled with daddy-daughter fun. My father and I had gone to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL, for the day. This was one of the first times I had ever dared to ride the Giant Drop and I remember that I had caught my favorite blue cardigan on a part of the ride, ripping one of its buttons off. I rode every roller coaster that my dad had begged me for years to go on with him. We had so much fun, it seemed like nothing could ruin the day.
On the way back home, we decided we would drive past the movie theater to find out when the next showing of Toy Story 3 was. Dad then suggested we go get ice cream, which I was more than willing to do. He decided on Cold Stone Creamery, which struck me as odd. I knew he thought their ice cream was mediocre at best and extremely overpriced, but I went with it because, well, ice cream. However, my father has no recollection of this conversation or anything that happened for the next hour and a half.
Let’s flashback to a year earlier, when my dad found out that his diabetes was slowly putting him into kidney failure. He had been diagnosed with diabetes at 18, and now it was trying to take his life.
A few months before our day of fun, he had started dialysis. He was required to come into the hospital a few times a week so that a machine could systematically clean his blood, taking the place of his kidneys. However, this caused other problems for his diabetes. Dad frequently fell into bouts of low blood sugar, which could potentially put him into diabetic shock. The only way quick enough to bring his blood sugar back to normal was to ingest sugary foods such as soda, a candy bar, or maybe ice cream.
My father doesn’t even remember driving from the movie theater to Cold Stone, a three-minute trip that crosses a major highway, but he must have had some self-awareness to know that he needed sugar. His blood sugar was incredibly low, lower than I had ever seen it. However, I had no idea what was going on. To me, we were just continuing our day of fun with a frozen treat.
I started to sense something weird was going on when we got inside the ice cream shop. My father was sweating like crazy and acting really strange. If I hadn’t been with him all day, I might have thought he was drunk. That is exactly what all of the Cold Stone employees thought. He was making weird faces, laughing loudly at a joke the rest of us hadn’t heard, and taking an insane amount of time to decide what flavor he wanted.
When we sat down, things only got worse. We picked a two-person table near the door, next to an older couple. We took bites of our ice cream and then things got scary. It was as if my dad was three different people in one body. He would talk to me coherently for a moment, and then he would completely space out. His eyes would glaze over, and it felt like he couldn’t move or speak. This would last a minute or so, and then he would come to and ask me why I looked so frightened. Every once in a while, he would do this maniacal laugh that terrified every inch of me. I had no idea what was wrong with him, and I really didn’t know what to do about it.
After a few rounds of this, I started crying. I’m not sure what the people around us were thinking at this point, but no one asked what was wrong. I’m sure they assumed we were in a fight or I was just a whiny little girl.
While in his stages of alertness, my father would become alarmed that I was crying. I would tell him that he was being really weird and suggested that I call my grandparents, who lived nearby. He told me everything was fine, and I had no reason to call anyone. He was my dad, so I listened at first, but when he continued to spiral through different personalities, I decided I didn’t feel comfortable not calling for help.
Through my tears, I dialed my grandparents’ home number. No one picked up. I don’t remember which of their cell phones’ I called next, but they could immediately tell something was wrong. Alarmed, they asked where we were and I told them, all the while listening to my dad’s ever changing characters’ crazy laughter and worries about who I was talking to.
It seemed like forever waiting for my grandparents to show up, but when they did, the situation went even more downhill. My grandparents walked in with their cousin and his wife, and as they did, my dad’s chair fell back as he went into a seizure.
At this point, I was convinced I was watching my father die. The guy who I believed was invincible was about to breathe his last breath. I refused to be in the room while the man I loved most in this world passed away. I ran out of Cold Stone as fast as I could, and my cousin’s wife held me as I cried.
My grandparents instructed the employees to call 911, and an ambulance arrived shortly after. I was convinced to come back inside, being reassured that everything would be okay, and my dad was still alive. When I saw him again, he was sitting up, sucking on a tube of medical glucose. When he finished, he was taken in an ambulance to the nearest hospital. We sped along behind him.
I can’t remember how long it took to be able to go see him, but I do know that I was terrified to go in. I had not been convinced that my father was going to live beyond this experience. Upon entering his room, he held out his arms for me to come to him. I ran into the hug, and we both began sobbing.
It was the first time I had ever witnessed my dad cry. This served to frighten me even more because, as I knew him, my dad wasn’t afraid of anything. He had always been the tough guy who didn’t feel pain or fear. Yet, he couldn’t believe he had driven with me in the car without being fully aware of what was going on. He felt awful and at fault for having scared me so much. I was just glad he was alive.
In the six years since, my dad has received a kidney-pancreas transplant, which has cured him of diabetes altogether. He has been able to see me have my first boyfriend, graduate high school and head off to college. He’s going to be able to be there when I get my first real job, to dance with me at my wedding, and hold his grandchildren. These are things that most people take for granted. They don’t wonder how long their parents are going to make it; they just assume that they will be there as long as they need them.
But this world is not fair and often takes from us the people we love most too soon. We need to remember that our parents are growing older as we are. Working hard to earn that degree, realizing you have found your friends for life — these are great accomplishments that take some time and effort. But don’t forget to put effort into the most important relationship in your life: your family.
