It’s the day I dreaded.

It started with a crash. I think it was my father letting me know that he knows it’s father’s day.

Actually it’s pretty weird, and Dee thinks it’s spooky. I had made a collage of pictures of my father and the family to display at his wake. I went through old scrapbooks at their house and took some of my favorite pictures out of a collage frame that was hanging on my wall. My mother loved what I made and wanted to keep it.

Of course I agreed, but it left me with lots of empty spaces in my picture frames. So I took the collage to my brother’s office, copied the pictures on his color copier and returned the copies to my frames. Job done.

Everything has been back in order for a good three weeks.

Until six this morning when the frame came crashing off the wall, knocking over a framed picture of my favorite uncle who passed away twenty years ago. I think my dad was letting me know he was around, or perhaps he and Uncle John were having an argument. They were buddies, so perhaps it was a card game?

The strange thing about this is that there are all sort of other pictures that could have been knocked down, AND the picture hook is still on the wall. There is no explanation for why this picture came crashing.

Strange huh?

I do believe in the supernatural and that loved ones never really leave us and still come to visit.

This probably sounds over the top, but there are times that I see figures and shadows and pretty much know that it’s a family member.

I don’t see it in the "Sixth Sense" kind of vividness, but it’s somehting that I’ve always believed in.

I haven’t written about the events surrounding my father’s death, but I think this is the time to do it.

It was about eleven o’clock , I was at school and an all call went over the PA for me. I was right near the office and when I walked (ran) in the secretary told me that my brother was on the line. I knew that meant that something awful had happened.

Rod was on the other end, tears in his voice, telling me that they thought dad had had a heart attack, had fallen down the stairs and "it doesn’t look good". I told him I’d leave immediately.

I told my principal what had happened and he offered to drive me to the hospital. I declined, grabbed my stuff, and reached the hospital in twenty minutes. The family was gathered in a private waiting room, and Rod met me in the lobby to tell me what was going on. It had taken the paramedics ten minutes to revive him and it was pretty bad. I joined my mother, other brother and sister-in-law in the waiting room.

After what seemed like hours, a doctor came to tell us that he was still unconscious and they couldn’t wake him up. They weren’t sure what had happened, if there had been a heart attack or a stroke, and that they were going to run more tests, including a CAT scan and an MRI. He said that it would take time. We knew that there had to have been some sort of an episode, as the house is handicapped accessible and my father made to attempt to save himself when he fell.

Meanwhile we sat and waited.

At one point the hospital chaplain in training arrived. She had white-blonde hair that hung like straw, and wore a dress and glasses that were out of Tootsie. She asked us if we were all right or if we wanted anything. We kindly told her know, and hoped she would leave. She asked us out religion. We told her Roman Catholic (which as far as I’m concerned should mean, "hey, if you’re not a priest, move along". She didn’t get the hint.

She decided we need to hold hands and pray. We are not a hand holding praying type of family. When she got to the point that she was asking the Lord to "cover us with his feathers" (huh? God has feathers?) We were ready to kick her out. Fortunately, she left.

So we waited some more. Finally the doctor (who was gentle and had a wonderful manner) came to tell us that he has broken his neck and needed to be transferred to a Boston hospital where they are equipped to deal with this type of injury.

We told him to arrange whatever he though needed to be done and off he went. We were in the state of shock I think.

I went to my mother’s house, because she needed some personal items, and I needed to make a couple of phone calls to let Dee know that I wouldn’t be at rehearsal.

There was a huge bloodstain at the foot of the stairs (there are only six stairs). My sister-in-law had worked to try to get it out, ands I took some time to work on it, but I didn’t make any difference at all.

I got back to the hospital and the family was in the room with him. He had regained consciousness but was paralyzed and could only blink his eyes. He couldn’t speak because he was on a respirator and was not able to breathe on his own. His heart rate would change when we spoke to him, so he was aware of us.

He looked broken. And so frail.

Arrangements were made to transport him to Boston. Rod was going to follow in his car, my sister-in-law needed to go home and meet the kids as they got home from school (and tell them what had happened), and my mother wanted to go home and get changed before going into Boston.

So I went home and got changed, called our relatives and a couple of my mother’s friends to let them know what had happened,then zipped to my mother’s house and she, my other brother and I went into Boston. I had only a vague idea of here this hospital was located, but managed to find it. I dropped my mother and brother off at the emergency door and went to park the car.

By the time I got to the room they had given us to wait in, a huge medical team was there. It was even worse than we thought. He had severed his spine and would never move again, would never breathe without a respirator again, and they felt that we should take him off life support. He had also had heart problems in the ambulance.

I can’t explain the horror of those words.

We were all crying, knowing intellectually what should be done, but in our hearts not being able to let him go. All I could imagine was how trapped he would be. He wouldn’t even be able to listen to his books on tape (he had gone blind in the last six years) without someone putting the headphones on his ears. What quality would his life have?

Of course it was really my mother’s decision in the long run and we told her that she was under no obligation to make the decision then and there. We told them to bring him to the ICU and to keep him alive. We all needed to see him

Once again, we waited for hours before he was ready and we could see him. When we finally got in his eyes were open and we knew he could recognize our voices. He was in a god-awful collar to keep him immobile and had all manner of tubes going into him.

We finally left at about nine o’clock. There was no point in staying, and he needed to rest. We instructed them to keep him out of pain and not to do anything extraordinary if he were to have a heart attack during the night, but to let him go.

I dropped my mother and brother off at their house then decided to go to rehearsal to drop off score sheets that they were all waiting for.

I snuck in,with the hope of just handing them to someone, but I was noticed and had to tell the chorus what had happened. I totally broke down and left. Dee and one of my other friends came out to comfort me.

I was a wreck.

I went home, but knew I wouldn’t sleep.

The next morning we decided to go into the hospital at about ten, so again I picked up my mother and brother and we met my other brother and sister-in-law in the hospital room.

Dad wasn’t conscious. He has rate was at about fifty and his blood pressure at 82/26. He didn’t recognize our voices, and there was no change in his heart when any of us spoke. Eventually the medical team came in and told us that nothing had changed, that he was not in any pain, but that he would never recover.

We knew that we needed to make a decision. We asked for a priest to come and give last rights, and told them that once that was done we would be ready to let him go. I don’t know that that’s the right word. No one is ever ready for this.

At one point the hospital chaplain (another woman) came in and my mother threw her out! She said that her family was her support system and that we were waiting for a Catholic priest. Yay, Mom!

It took about an hour for the priest to get there, because he was saying a noon mass. He came, and administered the last rites (which aren’t officially called that any more). He was gentle and comforting and I think it helped all of us a lot.

The medical team came in to disconnect the respirator, and told us that we could stay and that he would still be getting oxygen, he wouldn’t suffer and that he might hang on for a while, there was no way of knowing.

It took about an hour, but finally at 2:15 the nurse came in and told us that he was gone. It was peaceful but also surreal and awful at the same time. We said goodbye, tears choking us, and left the hospital room. We stopped in the restaurant downstairs because none of us had eaten and it was important that my mother eat due to the medications that she takes. She kept telling us that she wasn’t hungry, but we forced her to have something.

I have to say that the medical team at that hospital was wonderful, and they tried to make it as gentle as possible for us. His nurse kept telling us that we had done the right thing.

We stopped at my brother’s house to drop him off and the kids came out to kiss Nana and to see that we were alright. I know how hard it is for the kids to see us upset.

From there we went back to my mother’s house and I started making phone calls. I called the funeral home and had to wait to hear back from them. We wanted to get this underway so we made arrangements to see them as soon as we could get there. My mother and brothers went to the home and I stayed and called all the other people in our life who needed to be notified. I then joined them at the funeral home.

I had no idea that things could ever be so complicated.

Because his death was a result of an accident in the home, his body had to be taken to the medical examiner and we had no idea when it would be released to us. If they chose they could keep it for a week and could even investigate to see if my mother had pushed him. Good Lord!

Then we didn’t know if we would be able to have him buried on Saturday (if the body was released) because it would be overtime at the cemetery (which was in the other end of the state). We wanted to have the wake on Friday (he died on a Wednesday) and funeral on Saturday. We just didn’t want to drag this out any longer than we had to.

The man at the funeral home was great. He was very helpful and guided us through doing all the things that we needed to do. He gave me a packet with Bible passages and lists of songs that could be used at the funeral, so I could pick things that would mean something to us.

We left not knowing what was going to happen though, and if we were going to be able to have the wake and funeral or not.

We went out to eat together, but I don’t think anyone had much of an appetite.

I went home, but didn’t sleep that night. I felt very alone, and I don’t think that anyone in my family thought of it, but I was the only one who was by myself. Rod has his family, and my mother has my other brother, who lives with her.

Thursday was a day filled with running errands and dealing with little things for my mother. My godmother, her best friend, arrived to stay with her and this was a good thing. They went out to buy an outfit for my mother to wear to the wake and funeral, and I stayed at my mother’s house to wait for phone calls and to do some cleaning. I really worked at the bloodstain on the rug, but only managed to lighten it. I also did some dusting and vacuuming.

While I was there the funeral director called to tell us that everything had worked out with the cemetery and that the body was being released. That was a huge relief. When my mother returned we chose the readings and songs for the service and then I went to my brother’s to see the kids.

I felt that it was important for them to see us and to know that even though we were sad, we were ok. They had decided that they would go to the funeral, but not the wake. They didn’t want to see the body, as Matilda said :"That would give me bad nightmares". Matilda loves family stories and I had pictures with me that I had gotten while I was at my mother’s house, so she went through them with me. She carefully looked at each one, and decided in which ones Papa looked the happiest, because those were the ones that I should use. I think it made her feel better.

Keith was the usual gentle soul that he is. Just hugging me and making sure that I was alright.

Dee came over to keep me company that evening while I made the collage, and it was a huge help. I also got phone calls from several friends, some of them unexpected, and I really appreciated that kindness. I asked Dee to do one of the readings at the service and decided that I would do the other one.

My family was shocked that I would do that. But speaking before a group is something that is easy for me to do and this was something that I knew I’d be able to handle.