The night my Dad died was the most surreal night of my life. When I walked into the house there was a policeman standing "guard" at the bathroom door. My Dad was behind that door, dead. The policeman couldn't/wouldn't move until the funeral home came to pick up my Dad. It took hours for the funeral home to come. On one hand I never wanted them to get there but on the other, I was sick to my stomach about him lying in the bathroom, alone and in the dark. At one point I asked the policeman to please turn on the light for him. Not that it made any difference but I needed it to happen.
A few hours later the funeral home showed up. They agreed to allow my Mom and my siblings and I to say goodbye before they took him. I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin waiting for all of this to happen. It felt like the worst moments I had ever experienced. They spent some time in the house getting him out of the bathroom and finally called us in. I went in with my Mom, Bobby, Heather and my Dad's brother.
They had put my Dad on a stretcher and had in my the living room. It was the most heartbreaking vision I'd ever seen. I was in a fog and willed myself to wake up from this nightmare. We all cried and some of us said goodbye and some of us couldn't muster more than a word or two.
The most heartbreaking part of this experience was my Mom's begging my Dad to get up and to be OK. She was saying what we all wanted to say but knew it would do no good. It was more than I could take but I couldn't walk away. I'll never understand how I made it through those moments but before I knew it, he was gone.
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