The following weekend I get a call from St. John's Hospital. Probably a recruiter, No I don't want to apply for your RN position. Oh? Not that, It's the ER nurse wanting to know if I am Robert's sister, he's been in an accident and want's me to come up. What? First of all where's his wife? Second, why does he want me? Is he going to be OK. Sure, he just broke his leg. OKkkkkkk.
As we walk through ICU, I see what looks like my dad in the bed in room 9. What the heck is going on? Well it turns out it was my dad and his friend Fred who were in the accident. Other than the fact that he didn't remember breaking this same hip 8 years ago he seemed OK for a 76 year old man. Well that is except for the oxygen mask on his face.
Turned out he had massive blunt trauma to the chest, couldn't get enough of a breath to get enough oxygen and some pretty bad, previously unknown vascular disease. He never made it to surgery for his hip repair and died 3 days later. So did Fred.
Of course this brought all my family home again, including my brother from CA, my son & daughter in law (to be) from FLA and my daughter and grand daughter from Phoenix. It was nice to see all of us together. Only Nick, my son-in-law and my sister-in law and niece from CA weren't there
Fast forward 2 weeks and it's down to Florida for my son's wedding. This time Nick was there but of course Dad wasn't. At least not in person. It was a great time, a great wedding and I have the best daughter-in-law in the world -- she's a lot like me :)
See what I mean. Up and down and up again. That's my life I guess.
At least this time though, it's a bit easier knowing Dad & Mom are together again. Did I ever tell you that after she died, she regularly visited both me and my dad. No we weren't seeing things. But when he would need something or would break something, somehow, he'd be able to find it or one of the many replacements my mom had around. The toaster broke one day, and he swore he didn't know why but he opened a door, he rarely opened and there was the toaster they had received as a wedding present 50 plus years ago. She still had the dang thing. The only thing different was a new plug my oldest brother put on it when we all still lived at home. Now, tell me Mom wasn't there guiding him along!
There were other similar occasions and he would then call me and say, "your Mother's been here again". Sometimes I could tell him that she'd been at my side too. I could hear her yelling at me for thinking something or doing something, and I'd have to say, OK OK Mom I hear you. Now get off my back.
It's quiet here now. It's been quiet since about a week before the accident. I guess he's bugging her now.
I can hear it now "Shoot a beer, Dot"
