Crossing the Border

I believe that everyone at some point in his or her life will experience tragedy, if he or she hasn’t already, some maybe more than others. In my twenty short years of life I have come face to face with tragedy twice. I was 16 the first time. It was a weekend in March 2014, and I remember it like it was yesterday. By the end of this traumatic experience I can confidently say that I have a newfound respect for my parents and I never miss the opportunity to tell them how much they mean to me.

Earlier in the week, Dad had been sick with the flu, and we all know how men are when they’re sick. He was babying this flu like it was his job. He stayed home from work the whole week, was too weak to get up and do anything and drove us crazy. At this time in my life I was fully submerged in basketball, going on recruiting trips to America from my home in Barrie, Ontario. It was just part of the job. The trip that coming weekend was to some convention centre in Pennsylvania, and Mom and I had plans to carpool with another family. On Friday, we woke up ready to go. Dad said that he was starting to feel better, so he drove us to where Mom and I would continue south, and Dad would drive back home.

Over the course of the weekend, Mom and I reached out to Dad and on Saturday he said he felt so much better that he even went out and got himself some wings. He had some game on that he was watching, and he seemed fine; all was good in the world again.

Now was Sunday, the tournament ended, we placed third, and the inevitable ride home was here. This was where it got complicated. For Canadians, if you don’t have a phone plan that allows you to roam in different countries and you use your phone while in a different country, your phone bill will double. So it became routine for me to turn my phone off as soon as I saw the first sign on the highway about the U.S border approaching. When we got through the Canadian border and back on homeland, I was finally able to turn my phone back on.

As soon as my phone was on I saw that I had nearly 20 missed calls from my sister, brother, and grandparents. As well as about 50 text messages from everyone freaking out saying I needed to call back as soon as possible and that it was an emergency. I remember calling my sister and all she said was, “Dad’s at the hospital right now in surgery.”

I had no idea what was going on and so I handed the phone to mom and she started crying. Seeing my mom react this way I knew it wasn’t good. It felt as if my heart sank into my stomach. The people we drove with did a 5 hour drive to meet my grandparents in about 3. My grandparents then drove Mom and I to the hospital where my sister, Tori was in the waiting room by herself. The three of us waited in the small room for what seemed like days for the surgeon that saved his life to come out and tell us what happened. Waiting for him to come out felt like I was watching the paint in the dimly lit waiting room to dry. Once he walked in, we were relieved and comforted to find out that the surgeon was a family friend of ours. He sat down with us and explained that Dad went into septic shock because something in his intestines burst. He then proceeded to tell us that they had to revive him twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and three times on the table. He explained to us that Dad was brought to the ICU and will be in a medically induced coma and would be for the next few days.

When we went to see him it was like seeing something out of a movie. Seeing Dad’s still body on the bed and only being able to hear the whimpering from my mother and the sounds of the heart monitor made me feel like I was at home watching something people could only imagine. He had tubes all over and he wasn’t breathing on his own. He looked peaceful and calm and even though just seeing him like that put all of us in pain there was a part of me that knew he wasn’t. The hardest part was not knowing how to act while sitting with him in his room. My initial reaction was to cry because of the situation, but then I went cold. I felt as though I didn’t have a single emotion in my body to express. It was as if I’ve come to realize that this cold, numb feeling is a trend for me when it comes to traumatic experiences. I know everyone says that there is never a right or wrong way of dealing with it but I can tell you that showing nothing is probably wrong.

It was hard on Mom and I, but it wasn’t until we were home later that night when we realized that Tori was the one who came home to find dad like that. She was the one who had to call the ambulance and had to sign all kinds of forms once at the hospital. She was the one who came home to find Dad close to death. It all makes sense now that she didn’t want to be at home at all, if she wasn’t at school, she would spend the night at her friend’s house. We barely saw her for the next week to follow. I don’t blame her for not wanting to wonder what she would open the front door to every day, and I respect her for how strong she was able of handling the situation.

Mom and I spent all the time we could at the hospital. We would sit there in complete silence, the only audible sound being the beeps from the machines that were keeping Dad alive. I think it was Tuesday when a lady approached me and asked me to sit with her in a private room. This is where I experienced my first counselling session. At the time I didn’t want to talk about how I was feeling at all but I wish I did. I wish I told her that I thought it was my fault that Tori was the one to find Dad, that I felt as it it was my fault that Mom and I weren’t there with him to see it coming or there to take him to see a doctor before it became a life or death situation. I wish I told her that because Mom was with me at a basketball tournament and not there with him I wanted to quit and spend every waking second trying to make up for my mistake. I wanted to get a job to help my mom pay for bills or food to simply feed us. Without Dad being able to work we only had Mom’s income and it wasn’t enough. I never really said it out loud and it’s honestly hard to admit but it’s my fault.

Our family experienced huge adversity that initial week and then month to follow. We all had different ways of dealing with it, Tori busied herself in school, my brother, James, busied himself in work and I don’t think he was ever okay with what happened. He never came to visit dad while in the coma and rarely visited after that when he was awake. He hadn’t spent time at home leading up to this and he barely reached out, so I think he felt bad for not speaking to Dad as much as he wished he had. I stayed with Mom as much as I could, I felt bad for her. She had to deal with everything and everyone by herself. She has three kids that all needed her to put on a strong face because if we saw her crack than that would’ve been the breaking point for our family, but no one was her shoulder to cry on she had to do it all alone. She was the one that would go to bed with an empty space beside her and cry every night until she would fall asleep just to do it all again the next day. I respect my mom so much for how she dealt with all of this, and single handedly was the rock of our family but she did this all without having her rock to turn to.

I know this was the situation that made me realize how important family is. I never miss an opportunity to tell my parents I love them and that I’m grateful for them. You never know when you’ll have your last conversation with someone you care about and when we crossed that border those messages could’ve said something that I’m terrified to ever hear, and if I had to think what the last thing I said to my dad was, I hope it was an “I love you”.