In A Blink Of An Eye

The Unexpected

It was 5’ 0 clock in the morning, She was just peacefully sleeping like any other day. She hears this voice yelling her name and saying “WAKE UP” “WAKE UP”! At first the girl thought it was a dream but then she noticed the yelling woman was her mother. Trying her best to wake up and collect her thoughts to understand why her mother is yelling her name at 5AM, all she hears coming out of her mother’s mouth is “Call 911, something is wrong with Pa”.

Standing there trying to come to terms to what her mother just said she rushes into her parents room to see what exactly is wrong. She sees her dad in their half bathroom unresponsive and drooping. Grabbing her phone, shaking, tears falling down her face, waiting for the dispatcher to answer the phone. “Hello, this is 911 is this an emergency” pacing back and forth she answers “ YES, it's my dad he’s not responsive, something is wrong with him! He keeps coming in and out, he's drooping, please help!

Both her and her mother are anxiously waiting for the ambulance to show up. What’s taking so long? We live 5 minutes away from the hospital the girl thought to herself. It felt like forever but finally the ambulance showed up. They’re getting my dad on the stretcher, while asking me questions. “ Anything we need to know” As the girl is staring at her dad, shaking, not paying attention to the man questioning her. Finally she turns and says “ Sorry, yes he has a pacemaker, he’s had a few heart attacks before, and he can’t take aspirin”.

As they’re wheeling him out the girl says “ I Love You Pa '' because at the moment she knew it was his time to go. Her Pa was able to say “Ok” when her mother said i'll follow you there. The mother had hope, faith, this was her partner, the love of her life. How could she think that would be the last time she’d hear his voice? The girl is outside waiting for  her mother to gather everything she needs, but the ambulance is still there. Then a little red cop/ ambulance car pulls up. And they’re all in the ambulance, why? That’s when she notices closely with her tear filled eyes the ambulance moving up and down. A few minutes later they take off to the hospital. Thankfully her mother wasn’t outside to see that. How could her 20 year old daughter tell her that she believes pa died already.

Racing down the street trying to keep up with the ambulance, the girl is calling her brother and sister trying to tell them to get to the hospital explaining that in a nice way that you need to be here ASAP! Yet, they didn’t take her as seriously as they should’ve and they left everything on their baby sister with their fragile mother. We pull up to the hospital and go to the front desk explaining how her dad was just rushed here from the ambulance. The nurse tells us to please sit and wait until they can find someone.

Her mother was shaking, high blood pressure, anxiously waiting for someone to let us see him. But her daughter knew better. She walks up to the nurse “ excuse me? You see my mother over there? Well she has high blood pressure and i know what y’all are going to tell us. Is there something we can do to help my mother? I’m concerned with her health”. The nurse said ma'am the doctor will see you in one minute. She goes to sit down and holds her mother”s hand to give her mom some hope. But she looks up and sees the doctor and he says will you both come with me. At that moment her mother's hope was high, but her daughter's heart fell to her stomach. She knew exactly where they were taking them, they call it the “Family Room”. Ha what a joke! A family room? They call the room a “family room” just to tell families that they’re sorry but your loved one died. Fucking joke!

We walk in and you see a big round table and some chairs. They ask us to please sit. “So where is my husband?” her mother said. As the girl is looking at the doctor with the “Tell Her” face, he said “ I’m so sorry for your loss”. Yelling and screaming from a mother of a loss of someone you love with all your heart, is something no daughter wanted to go through, especially alone. Other than being heartbroken due to her Pa passing away she had to be strong for her mother. But best believe she was pissed at her siblings for sometime due to the fact they needed the confirmation before showing up because they didn’t take her seriously beforehand.

Her mother asked the doctor “Can we see him, tell him goodbye”. They took the both of them into this room where the door was made of plastic and there he was laying there. They’ll never forget what he was wearing, white tank top, PJ pants , one slipper and his praying hands necklace her mother bought him and he never took off. We all watch movies and see bodies lying there or in a morgue and just think “oh wow, or depending on the movie we laugh, we say yeah die fucker”. But when you're face to face with someone you love and they're hand feeling warm and suddenly feeling his hand turn cold that completely changes things.

As she watches her mother talk to her Pa telling him how much she loves him, she’s zoning out thinking about just last night he picked me up from work. How when she would use the bathroom in the middle of the night and look and he’d be sitting up sleeping. She remembers how he would call her “big head”. Or how one day she came home and he bought her a new comforter set and he made her bed for her as a random surprise. She stares back at his body and closes his eyes and says “In a blink of an eye, we never saw this coming....