This is a picture of my beautiful daughter sitting with my beautiful daddy. I received a call last night around 10:30 that he was at Bellefonte hospital. Someone had seen his car pulled over on the side if the road and called 911. I called the hospital and all they could tell me was that he was critical. I got to the hospital around 11:40 and they escorted me back to "the room". I knew immediately and had to force myself to step into that room with my mother and brother already there. He had a massive heart attack and although they worked on him an hour, he did not come back to me.
He is the most knowledgeable man I know. He taught me the joy and love of living a christian life and the meaning of being a good neighbor. He was my rock! My one constant! How do I go from being the definition of "daddy's girl" to not having him a phone call away?
I am babbling. I don't care. I need to tell someone, anyone, maybe even myself how badly I am hurting. We lose loved ones, it is part of God's plan. Knowing this does not make it any easier for the little girl inside of me. Nor, I am sure, will it ease my daughters pain, who was also very close to "grampa". I have not told my 5 year old son yet. They tend not to understand the ramifications of such a final ending and I think I would go a little insane talking lightly of it just now.
It was so hard to leave the hospital. My mother turned to me and said she felt like she was leaving him. That is exactly what I felt. I did not want to leave the "little room". I did not want to leave him in the hands of the organ donor team flying in to see what parts and tissues they could forage from him ( I am all for organ donation & thank him that he had it on his license). There is some kind of insanity that makes you think if you stay, he will not go away.
You play the scene over and over in your mind. What did he feel? What was he thinking? What was I doing at that exact moment? How will my mother survive this? I am so ashamed to say that I could not be her shoulder! She literally cradled and rocked me as I cried out in agony.
I am 33 and will forever be daddy's girl.
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