My last day with my Dad

Sunday 16^th September 1990

I don’t recall much from this day at all maybe because it was just another normal Sunday for The Wood’s or maybe I can blame it on trauma.  But it probably started with us 4 girls waking up to get ready for church.  Our parents would drop us off at Sunday School and then come pick us up again. Although all my sisters weren’t of Sunday school  age around this time and I even think my eldest sister could already drive.  I don’t remember if this was the case or not.  Just a rundown of what I recall Sundays to be like in our home.

We would then usually come home and there would be the most delicious and tantalising smells of a hearty home cooked meal that would smother you as soon as you step into our home. (Food is my Mom's love language)  My Dad would read the Sunday paper and there would be some country music or Elvis Presley playing in the background on our vinyl record player.  We would all sit and eat around our table. Sundays were good days.

Fast-forward to lunch and then to a fight among us sisters about kitchen clean up duties.  Then one part I remember from Sunday the 16^th September 1990.  I was writing an exam the next day, it was biology/science can’t remember exactly what the subject was called.  But I clearly remember not understanding the work at all, but trying to study it anyways.  Early on that evening I asked my dad if he could help me and he sat down with me and tried explaining some stuff to me.  At this point I was crying and panicking so much about the exam, I clearly remember saying, “I wish I didn’t have to write exams.”  Be careful what you wish for!

After that we probably all bathed and got ready for bed as my Dad was strict about bedtime.  I would usually go lie by him while my Mom still watched TV.  But I don’t recall my last words to him that night or if I even went to go lie by him or if I even kissed him goodnight.   

I fell asleep that night thinking that writing exams is probably the most dreadful thing that could happen to you.  Little did I know that when I closed my eyes that night that I would wake up and the trajectory of our lives would be changed forever.   It was just another ordinary Sunday and this moment in time taught me to appreciate just another ordinary Sunday as this ordinary Sunday was the last day I ever spent with my Dad.  Little did I know that in a few hours myself and my sisters would become Fatherless and that my Mother would become a young widow with 4 daughters to care for on her own.  How many days I wish I could just still have one ordinary Sunday with my Dad or that he could meet and see all his beautiful grandchildren and that he could tease the socks off them. 

The next hours of the early morning are all fragmented and I had to go asking my sisters about that night.  You see, we have never spoken about the night my Dad died nor did we ever go for therapy or counselling or whatever.  It’s just wasn’t the norm 27years ago.  We just all learned to deal with it on our own and process this on our own.  We could speak about moments with our Dad, holidays, hilarious things he would do to embarrass my teenage sisters, but never did we speak about the moment he died or how it affected us.  At times we still might think that it didn’t affect us. 

Last year I plucked up the courage to ask all my sisters what they remember about the night our Dad died.  I was so nervous to ask as we just never ever talked about the night our Dad died.  I didn’t even pluck up the courage to ask my Mom about the night our Dad died.  Even when I asked there wasn’t a lot that was said or remembered so I tried remembering really hard and as I have said my recollection is very fragmented and I don’t have an exact starting point or ending point.  Just jaggered pieces of memory the night my Father died. 

In the last 2years I have really taken a look at my life and seeing things there that I could never explain why and realising that my life, our lives, were altered drastically the night our Father died.  I have helped a lot of people deal with trauma in my young adult and adult life and have never considered myself as ever having faced trauma.  I was helping a young girl who lost her Dad and as she was talking my heart was aching, I thought it was for her and it was for her.  But for the first time it was for me too, I couldn’t hold back the well of tears and heartache that I felt.  I never considered or ever thought that we went through trauma with my Dad’s sudden passing.  There was never a gap to feel  “sorry” for ourselves.  After sitting with this young girl, I just cried and cried and cried.  For the first time I remember feeling sorry for myself because I lost my Dad and I was a real Daddy’s girl. And for the first time ever I reflected on the trauma I faced as a newly 13year old girl.  (Before this day I thought I was 11 when my Dad died.  But I never worked it out because I never really thought about the night my Dad died).

I remember being woken up with a lot of noise and commotion in the early hours of 17^th September 1990 and immediately knew we were flung deep into chaos.  I remember running to my parents room and seeing my Dad lying halfway on his tummy on the bed.  I remember seeing my Mom standing there.  That’s all I remember from that part.  I remember running outside and waiting and crying with one of my sisters waiting for the ambulance to arrive.  It felt like it took an eternity for the ambulance to arrive.  I then remember seeing my oldest sister running around off around the corner to go to her best friends house (she lived in the street behind us).

My next memory is seeing my Dad (he was a very large man) lying on a stretcher in front of us and the paramedics using a defibrillator to shock his heart.  I vividly seeing my Dad’s body jump  so high from the massive current from trying to bring him back to us.  I am not sure how long or how many times they used this “life saving” gadget, but some parts happened in slow motion and I saw my Dad’s body spasm a few times until they said; “He’s gone”.  I don’t know at what time they called his death or what my Mother was doing.  I remember my one sister holding onto my Dad crying and begging him to come back.  I remember them covering his face and rolling him out of our home on a stretcher.  

I remember running out to our drive way and screaming into the dark morning sky.  And that is all I remember.

That was my last day with my Dad.  That was the last day I ever felt normal.  

(P.S  I never wrote my exam the next day.)