I need to remember this moment.
It was 5:05am, June 19th, 2013.
My cell phone had already rang through once. I had heard it, on the edge of waking but shrugged it off. The second time I was too awake to ignore it and knew it meant something bad. It was my mother's number, but Anne was on the other end when I picked up. I didn't try to feign that I wasn't sleeping like I usually do with a cheerful "Hey, what's up Mom?", all I said was "Hello?"
She asked if I was sitting or laying down.
I knew already.
"Just tell me, Anne."
My dad is dead. My mother was coming down, we needed to go to Regions. I said "Thank you." and she apologized and we hung up.
Over the next 20 minutes I got up, dressed, put on boots, and without trying, just grabbing what pants I had worn yesterday and fresh shirt and such, I dressed in 100% black.
I didn't realize I could move and dress while incapacitated by sobbing. Apparently I can.
All I kept saying is "No. No, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't it. This can't be it. He was supposed to get better. He was getting help." and everytime I held is back for a few moments I'd just scream "NO!" as loud and as long as I could on a breath.
It's so surreal. The world will continue on, it'll spin and people with move on, but my dad won't. He won't call me and tell me how the Wild did last night, whether I had already watched the game or not, I know that was his 1939 way of telling me he loved me.
Three days ago, he came down with a part to help fix my lawnmower and when it didn't work he couldn't verbalize what the next step in diagnosing the problem was. This really worried me so I told my mom to take him in, but he passed her stroke warning signs, could raise both arms above his head, stick out his tounge straight, and was coherent enough.
Then Monday he called to have me call the guy fixing my boat engine because he couldn't write down the numbers. He just couldn't make the numbers "work" so I immediately called my mom and told her she HAD to take him in. Lakeview Hospital checked him out, and after finding a shadow on his brain scan, transferred him to Reagents as "he was beyond their level of care".
Reagents diagnosed it as a clot and began treatment to dissipate it. He was supposed to be coming home today. His heart rate was a little weird this morning in the early hours and at 4:00am he complained about shortness of breath and was given an inhaler, at 4:20am he began having severe issues and at 4:45am he was gone.
I wept while I could, but as I do in times of crisis I shut off my emotions when my Mom arrived. We talked and she cried a bit on the way to the hospital. We met with the Doctor and nurse, both expressed how utterly shocked they were by his rapid downturn.
So here I sit. 7:24am.
Wearing a watch we gave him three days ago for Father's day.
I'm still so shell shocked. On the way out of the hospital, someone was chatting and they talked about what a beautiful day it was gonna be. I couldn't help but be kind of shocked, to me, this is the day my father died. That feels so wrong, so horrendously unfair. It should pour with rain and thunder should crack the skies and the world should shudder and quake and everyone should feel like it's momentous and noteworthy, but it's not to them. To them, it's just Wednesday.
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