In my opinion….letting go may be the hardest thing someone could do for themselves. I’m the kind of person you meet that has been holding on to her past for way too long, needing to, as the title says, let go.
On Sunday, November 25Th of this year, my dad, Dave, picked me up for church. It was a normal day, just like any other. Or so I thought. At around 4:00 on Sunday night, my brother Chris walked into my room pushing me to get off the phone. He seemed distressed and confused. Something was wrong. He told me I needed to go with him. I didn’t know where I was going, I just asked why. His words were, “Dad is in the hospital. From what I’ve been told, you should be saying a lot of prayers right now.” I was scared. I didn’t know what was wrong with my dad. I just prayed. Chris called my other brother Blake to see how our dad was doing. Things weren’t looking very good. As soon as he got off the phone I asked what was wrong. My father had stopped breathing and his heart beat had failed. Medically, he was dead. I wasn’t sure what do. I just leaned my head against the car window, and cried. My thoughts were simply,”My father is dead. Does he know I love him? Why today?” We arrived at Los Robles Hospital and ran to the ER. The ambulance had not yet arrived. On this particular night, the ER was filled. Families everywhere with little children, husbands and wives, bags of ice, wheel chairs. I stood in an unreachable, remote corner of the ER waiting room. I was surprised to see my mom and step-dad walk in. My mom knew that even though she and my father had divorced that she was supposed to be there. I still stood in the corner, head down, with my cold hands wrapped around my shaky arms. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I blocked out every noise and every person, except for when I could hear Chris talking to our other brother, Kyle, who lives in Boston. Since we had no answers of where or how our father was at this point, Kyle was concerned if he should come out to California or not. With millions of different thoughts running through my head, I saw from the corner of my eye a blond man walk in with great speed towards the counter and his wife and her sister with wrapped arms around a small distraught woman. As I looked up to gaze at this group that had just walked in, I realized it was my own family. Our step-mom Dolly, my brother Blake, his wife Angie, and her little sister Mandi. Angie and Mandi’s eyes were blood shot red, filled with tears. Blake’s eyes were different. They were searching for answers, cold, and full of wonder. Dolly on the other hand was lost, in complete shock and broken. Mandi walked over to me and I fell into her arms. She just held me there as the tears suddenly and finally broke through. I couldn’t control myself. I wanted answers. I needed answers.
Our pastor, Gordy, as well as Angie and Mandi’s father, walked through one of the ER doors with news for my family. Just before he walked through the doors, Dolly pulled herself together to tell us what she had seen. My dad had gone into his room to nap. Lately he had been getting unusually tired by three PM everyday. Dolly thought it would be a good time to leave the house to go to Von’s or do laundry across the street. But something told her to stay. As my dad went to sleep he had no idea that his life would almost end. Dolly walked into their room to do some work on the computer when she abruptly heard him struggling for air. She walked over to the side of the bed where he was sleeping and shook him multiple times saying over and over again, “HUNNY??? Hunny! Are you OK??? Wake up!!” His face suddenly turned purple. Scared and not knowing what do do, she quickly dialed 911. The operator walked her through giving my dad CPR. She continued with the CPR for about ten minutes. Then the paramedics arrived, two fire trucks, three police cars. They worked on him for about another twenty minutes. By this point Dolly had already called Blake, who rushed from Simi to T.O. in 15 minutes. We later found out that the paramedics had to shock his heart four times before it started beating on its own which wasn’t until after they arrived at the hospital. This was good. Not great…but better. He had responded. They still weren’t sure of what caused his heart to stop beating. We think someone might of accidentally said he had had bi-pass surgery before which he hasn’t. About fifteen or sixteen years ago, he had surgery on his heart to remove part of the muscle. The surgery was performed due to his heart condition. A small procedure was done on him to see if he had coronary artery disease and we all knew he didn’t. Before this procedure, they were allowing family to come in, two at a time. I again blocked out every sound and every person. I looked up as a small child brushed up against my shoulder and noticed they were asking for any more people to come in and see him. I sprang to my feet not thinking about what I was about to see. As Chris and I walked down the what seemed to be long, never ending, cold hall way, he told me not to be scared and that our dad had some tubes stuck down his throat so he would probably look pretty uncomfortable to me. We walked in the large room where I saw my father lying on the cold, hard table with tubes down his throat making weird movements. He had a neck brace on and you could tell, he just wanted out. He looked so uncomfortable, so helpless. I watched in terror of all the nurses and doctors filling the room and conversing over my father. My feelings were beginning to store up inside again. I was getting scared, I started panicking. My throat was starting to close. And then the hard tears came. Chris squeezed my shoulder. I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get out. We walked through the what seemed to be small door and into the open hallway we had once walked down before.
Back out in the ER waiting room, they told us to walk over to the main entrance waiting room of the hospital to wait and hear from the doctor who would perform this pointless procedure on my father. As we waited, Chris and Gordy walked down to the cafeteria to buy food for everyone. Thirty long minutes later, they arrived back with what seemed the whole cafeteria. We all ate and tried to enjoy the food we were given, knowing that our father had been put in a great amount of danger this day. I got phone call after phone call. People from our church mainly wanting to know how my dad was doing. I wasn’t up for letting all my emotions out at this point. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about this whole thing. I was still trying to process it through my own mind. I couldn’t bare to be inside anymore anxiously waiting to hear of how Dave was doing. I went outside along with Blake, Angie and Mandi. All I remember Angie telling me was that my dad was dead. Those words rang in my head endlessly. I know she meant it in a way to say, “REJOICE! God has given your dad another chance to live.” But it didn’t come out that way. Some people from our church came to be with us as we waited to hear of how our dad was doing. Finally the doctor came out. He looked at me and my brothers with tired eyes and spoke words that hit home hard, “Your dad is going to be OK.” I could breathe now, but just for the moment. The doctor repeated words like he had memorized them and was bored of saying them. He told us that his heart had gone through what they call a cardiac arrest or in words some of us could better understand, an electrical storm. His arteries were fine, there was no need for the procedure to see if he had coronary artery disease. Pointless. But the doctors still had one concern. Our dad had gone into a coma. They did not know how long it would be until he finally woke up again. Their words were, “If he doesn’t wake up in 24 hours, that’s fine. If he doesn’t wake up in 48 hours, that’s ok. If he doesn’t wake up in 72 hours, that is bad.” At this point, we were just praying that he would wake up on Monday morning. We walked down the long, continuous hall to ICU to see our father. As Dolly, Blake, Angie, Chris and I all walked into his room, room J, we sat around and listened to the doctor as he told us our dad could hear us, but wouldn’t be able to respond. He also said that he was breathing above the ventilator which was also good. For what seemed like twenty minutes, we sat still and silent just staring at him. Suddenly, Dolly said we should pray over him. We all put one hand on him and she started praying. I couldn’t fight back the tears this time. I had to cry. As we continued in prayer, I looked up and saw tears flowing out of Blake’s eyes and an extended arm towards the ceiling. He wasn’t raising his hand to ask a question but praying before a Holy God. One of the hardest things for me to do is watch my brother, someone who is so tough, so strong to me, break down in tears. Angie had also looked up and when she saw this motion Blake had done, she walked out of the room letting go all of her fears and tears. Words that Blake prayed that night that haven’t left my head yet were,”We need our dad. Don’t take him from us yet.”
We left the hospital in hopes that our dad would wake up the next day from the coma. I had just returned to school from Thanksgiving break and as I saw my friend Beka walking up to me, I broke out into tears. School was the last place I wanted to be with my father in the hospital. Since Grace is such a small school, i didn’t want people to find out. If teachers or any other students that i didn’t want to know found out, they would constantly come up to me and say,”I heard about your dad.” or “I’m sorry. Are you ok?” I mean I definitely wanted people to know so they could pray for him but I just wasn’t up for announcing it to the whole school. At lunch, I called up Blake and Angie who had stayed the night with Dolly the night before, to find out how dad was doing. He had said that our dad had woken up at around 3:30 AM from the coma. The same exact time our Uncle Don had walked into the hospital. Amazing. Just a twelve hour coma. He said that in half an hour they would be taking him off the ventilator to see how his breathing was and if he could talk. I remember walking into the hospital that day scared of what was ahead of me. I walked into the waiting room where Blake, Angie, Dolly, Uncle Don, Chris & Dolly’s friend Alice were sitting. As Blake walked me down the hall to see my daddy, he informed me that our dad was experiencing some short term memory loss. He tried to be funny by saying that he didn’t remember my name. I wanted to hit him- hit him hard. With the situation we were all in, that wasn’t exactly something I wanted to hear that moment. Finally, we arrived into the new room our dad had been placed in. He remembered me which made me very happy. But you could tell, he was very confused and not really sure what he was at the hospital for. One minute he would ask us,”So, what did you do today?” and I would say,”Well, I went to school today and then I went to tutoring….” Then he would interrupt and say,”School??? What day is it today?” “Monday dad, it’s Monday.” “Monday???” He was in absolute shock that it was Monday. And then two minutes later he would ask the same question, we would tell him the same answer, and he would be in the same shock. My dad is so funny and he loves to joke around that at first I wasn’t sure if he was playing around with me or not. I soon realized he wasn’t. I stayed for three hours and visited him about three different times while i was there. While we were there, the neurologist doctor did a cat scan on him. You see, they were not sure if the short term memory loss was permanant or not. They were concerned with the lack of oxygen to his brain during the thirty minutes without a heart beat or breathing. Just as Dolly, Alice and I were about to pray over him, the neurologist called back with the news of his cat scan. Normal. There was no brain damage at all. The doctor went on about how encouraged he was that my dad was alive and without brain damage. He told us we definitely needed to celebrate. I was in so much shock and full of so much joy, I couldn’t help but cry. What a blessing.
The week continued as the doctors decided to put a difibrilator in on Wednesday night. I was so happy for my dad that he was given back the oppurtunity to live. The paramedics that took him to the hospital came in to visit him later in the week. They said that when they were told that my dad was still alive, they had to go and see for themselves. My dad said they told him they expected him to be dead and that he is only the 2nd person to live from not having oxygen for that long in 10 years. Amazing. All the doctors were amazed and couldn’t get over the fact that there was no brain damage and that he was alive. I went in to see him on Thursday and he told me all about how he met so many Christians in that hospital. I was so encouraged by all the little things like that that he would tell me…I just knew it was God working in this whole situation.
Soon enough, Friday rolled around and he was allowed to go home. So, this is where my story ends. My dad’s alive and walking stronger in his relationship with God than ever before. If you should take anything from this, let it be that God is still doing miracles today. My father is a miracle. The power of prayer is so amazing. Millions of people from Asia to Europe and through the U.S. were praying for my dad. Have faith that there is so much more to life and that though God may take something so special from you, it’s for a reason. I’m so thankful that my father is alive and that he’s still here. I thank God everyday knowing he gave my dad another chance to live and breathe. Our days are numbered and no one can change when we go or how we go. It’s all God’s plan and its amazing.
