Family Stories - One of the Worst, and Also, One of the Best Holiday Seasons

Best and Worst Christmas

   The Christmas season of 1982 was one of the best and also one of the worst of my life so far.

It really started in October of that year.  I got an unexpected call from my dad.  A trip to the doctor's office after minor chest pain led to him being wheeled across the street to the hospital.  They were going to do an angioplasty the next morning and could I please come up.  I dropped everything, leaving my husband to take care of our family.  The tests showed that my dad needed at least  double heart bypass surgery.  The next day my dad got to leave the hospital.  I took him down to meet his heart surgeon.  He got to spend one night at home, then I took him down the hill for his heart surgery.

  Probably the longest 8 hours of my life.  Dad ended up needing a triple heart bypass.  He came out of surgery well.  I stayed with him for about 3 weeks.  Dad had friends and neighbors to care for him.

   The doctors agreed that dad could fly down to spend Christmas with us.  After he arrived, dad told me that the doctors had recently found an aneurism in his brain that would need surgery after he got home.  Would I come up again for him?  Of course.

  It was an amazing visit.  We took an afternoon to visit our home town.  We talked about memories and got food at an old Mexican place.  Christmas Eve was at my mom's house.  My parents had finally made peace with each other.  Christmas Day started with just us at my house.  Christmas Day dinner was at my mother-in-laws.  On the way home my dad told me that this had been "one of the best Christmases ever for him."  He couldn't have asked for more.  It was one of my best holiday seasons as well.

   Dad was supposed to fly home the day after Christmas.  Instead I woke up to my dad yelling my name.  He was in intense pain.  We didn't know it, but the aneurism had ruptured.  I was with him in the ambulance and up to the time they wheeled him into the ER.  While I filled out paperwork the doctors fought for his life.

   According to the medical staff, the minute they opened him up "all hell broke loose."  There was nothing they could do.  Eventually my husband took me home where I had to break the news to my kids, then 10 and 8.  My dad was 69 years old.

   Until the morning of the 26th it was one of my best Christmas memories.  Then it became one of the worst.

To counteract all this gloom, next Thursday I'll write about my best Christmas, ever.