Sometimes, oddly enough, I think my Father did me a favor when he died.....

I know that sounds  REALLY strange, but I keep coming across full-grown people who have not experienced death or grief---a real loss. It's horrible no doubt and there's no reason not to grieve but a sudden death is a completely different kind of loss. It's probably the Mother of all Losses.

I had a really hard time when Daddy died. I was 26 still living at home but just about to move out. You see, I had tried to move into an apartment several years earlier with two other women and one day I came by to drop some stuff off and found them in bed together, quite happy and generously invited me to join them. I passed and the next day, I decided I would  move out of my "apartment" and out of my parents house when I had everything I needed as to not depend on a roommate. Nothing against what they had in mind. In fact I think they were happy without me there. We just didn't have common interests and I just preferred to come home after work to a dog instead of a party. 

Anyway, the week before I moved out, my father encouraged me to graze thru the attic to see if there was anything that I could use in my apartment. I was already beginning to nuture a fear of heights, and these were not pull down steps, not to mention, no ladder was provided, He and Mother just stacked books and bricks to get up there. Once I got up there, I don't remember much except Daddy encouraging me that it was okay to walk around up there. So being the good Southern daughter that trusted her Daddy, I took my first step and came thru the sheet rock. Even worse is that I got tangled up in the light fixture so it was searing the inside of my thigh. 

But you see, I didn't quite fall all the way thru, so I was dangling in wire and sheetrock and 30 year old attic funk and there's Mom and Dad telling me to come on down. And me telling them that no way, they were going to have to call the Fire Dept cause I wasn't moving. Now calling the Fire Dept was a BIG NO NO..... Hell I believe Daddy would have called the Power Company before calling them.

So eventually I came down and they carried me to my bed. Mom went to get Ice and Daddy tried to dig the sheetrock our of my shins, except that wasn't sheetrock. I sat up for a moment to see what the hell he trying to kill me a second time for and very impolitely explained that that WASN'T sheetrock--that was my shinbones. 

I drove myself to the ER. Nothing was broken but they bandaged me like a mummy from mid thigh to ankles and hobbled home and to work the next day. 

While at work, the next day,  our administrative assistant found me and told me my mother was on the phone. She told me Daddy wasn't doing too good and the paramedics were there. To this day, I never have a totally empty tank of gas anymore. I had to stop and get gas, made it to the house and the neighbors told me that Daddy was at the ER. The same one I had been to the day before. 

There's a whole lot more to this story but basically Daddy felt he had to repair the ceiling I had fallen thru. He probably hadn't felt good for a while but doing that did him in and of course, he wouldn't let Mom call the Fire Dept........