Diary of a Girl from Seattle

How Insensitive

Dear Diary,

I actually had a heart to heart with Cristina. Shocking right? She had a difficult case... Well sort of. She was watching the daughter of one of Teddy's patients. Unfortunately the mother died in surgery and Cristina had to tell the girl.

I knew that Cristina's dad had died. I over heard her and Jackson talking. So when Owen got paged 911 and had to leave Cristina's side I entered the on call room.

Cristina was sitting on the bed, face gleaming with lines of tears. I sat down across from her as she yelled at me to get out. She didn't think I understood, sadly I do.

When I was 8, my dad died. He was called to the hospital late one night because there was a severe cardiac emergency and my father was the only one qualified to perform the operation. It was early Saturday morning around 6 am when he finished the surgery.

Every Saturday morning we made breakfast together. Pancakes, bacon, eggs the whole spread. He knew how much I loved that time with him, just the two of us on a Saturday morning.

He was rushing home so he would be back by the time I woke up.

On his way home he was driving down Castaway Boulevard  when an oncoming car drifted onto the wrong side of the road. The driver of that car was reaching across the seat to grab her phone out of her purse. What she didn't realized was that doing so caused her to step on the gas and veer into the wrong lane.

My dad tried to swerve past her but he couldn't. His car flipped and rolled over and then down a hill. He was knocked unconscious by the impact of his head against the window. It took two hours for the rescue team to get him out and to the hospital, where my mom and I met him.

They took him into emergency surgery, his brain was bleeding excessively. They did everything they could to save his life but in the end his brain sustained too much trauma and he was confirmed brain dead.

I watched as they took him off life support. I saw my father take his final breath. I viewed the monitor as his heart stopped beating and I felt his body start to get cold.

Cristina looked at me bewildered as I told her this. She then told me how when she was nine she and her father had been in a car accident. Her dad had severe injuries to his chest. She had tried to stop the bleeding but she just couldn't. She felt her dad's final heart beat.

We sat there in silence, both trying to calm ourselves for a good half hour. We then got up and continued on like nothing in the world had happened. But I have to admit it's nice to know you're not the only one.

                                                  - Mattie

Author's note:

I know this comes before the shooting but I just watched this episode and wanted to write it anyway. So in Grey's order this would come right before Death and All His Friends. Sorry for any confusion.