Tomorrow represents the 3 year anniversary of my Dad’s death, and without trying to mark my return to blogging after the Leaving Cert with a depressing story, I feel this is due given the day.
I was 14 when he died and just after finishing 2nd year, I still remember that day like it was yesterday. So many things happened, all of which I still remember.
I woke up early because the new DS Lite was coming out that day, so I ended up going to the bus with him(he always got the 66x to work), and that was also the last day of the Leaving Cert for my cousin Gillian, she finished with Italian. We were all at the bus stop laughing and talking like family members do, when his bus came, the last words he said to her, true to his form and said with a chuckle and a wink were “Feck off and good luck!”
I ended up getting the bus with Gillian as his bus went a different route than we needed, and I ended up spending nearly a half hour on the phone with him after arriving at Liffey Valley, I arrived for 9 and the store didn’t open till 10… it was one of the best conversations I’d ever had with him, and I can remember each sentence.
Having got the DS I trotted home and played around with it for a few hours, he arrived home early at 4, he was playing a golf tournament that afternoon, we again talked for a while when he came in, and even asked me how he looked before he left, he was wearing a dark pink golf t-shirt his golf partner and one of my parent’s best friends Una had bought him, he asked me about 5 times if it was ‘too pink’ I told him it was grand and off he went with our usual high-five we always shared whenever either of us went somewhere(a mannerism myself and my Granda still share).
My Mom arrived home shortly after and we got some dinner, one of the strangest things to ever happen to me is that at about 7:30 that evening I got really violently sick, and was in one of the worst fits of pain I have ever experienced, and was unable to even move for several minutes…my Mother thought I had gotten food poisoning, and as unlikely and almost supernatural as it seems we later found out he died at around 7:30.
At around 8 O’Clock another of my parent’s best friends Susan arrived to the house, I can still see her face as I opened the door, I have never seen someone so white, and for someone who works as a make-up artist I knew she was wearing make-up and wouldn’t leave herself looking like that, she rushed in the door and ran up the stairs as she heard my Mother in the shower, she told her that my Dad had collapsed on the Golf Course and was on the way to Blanchardstown Hospital.
We went as fast as we could to the Hospital, we arrived shortly after 8:20, where we were brought into a room and told the news.
My heart sank… I could feel my legs fall from underneath me and my Mother collapsed into Susan’s arms…It is not only one of the worst things that could happen but also one of the things that completely changes your life.
When Una arrived(my Dad’s golf partner and the person who called the Ambulance) she told us about what had happened. One of the people they were playing hit their ball way off to the left, so the 4 of them went to look, while searching they saw him collapse on the ground, Una called an ambulance while one of the players rang the golf club to come out with the Defribulator, luckily there was someone in the restaurant that was a paramedic so they came out to use it, unfortunately it was too late.
The stories of Adrenaline from that night also shocked me, from the place where he collapsed to the gate the Ambulance came in was a good 2km distance, Una doesn’t even remember going to the gate, she doesn’t know if she ran or walked, but she knows she got there and jumped over the 5 foot gate really fast. There’s also about 4km from where it happened to the club itself, and I was told of people running to the place as soon as they heard, and some of these golfers wouldn’t be in the best of fitness either…
Over the next 6 hours in the hospital family and friends arrived from all over the place, some were still in their golf clothes, some even in their pyjamas, at about 2 a.m. we decided to leave, I fell asleep in the car home from pure exhaustion while at least 30 people were in the house all night without sleep, they were talking, consoling, crying, hugging, and trying to comprehend what had happened.
To this very day, despite having seen his body, seen his funeral, and said my Goodbyes, I still expect him to walk in the door at 6:30 each day like he used to, and I still think on Sunday mornings that he should be golfing with the lads like he always did.
It was after seeing the incredible work of the doctors and staff in the Hospital that confirmed my childhood dream of being a Doctor, today the HPAT results came out, I got a 165 and was in the 75th percentile(meaning I was better than 75% of the people who sat the exam) but I know that won’t be good enough to get me into Medicine(though I’ll leave it on my CAO in the off chance it is) but it looks like I’ll hopefully be doing Science and a Post Grad in Medicine. Through all this my dream of becoming a Doctor has not wavered, it may take a little longer that hoped but I’ll get there eventually, and hopefully some day I’ll be able to help save some 14 year old’s Father, so they never have to experience something like this.
And with dreams and memories aside, my Dad was a great man, I was told countless stories about him over the following weeks and months, and even to this day I’m still hearing new stories, his funeral was a testament to him with nearly 3,000 people in attendance, completely overflowing the Church and shutting down the village for a good 2 hours as the procession moved to the Graveyard. Not to mention the countless people who turned up to the house in the days before and after as they couldn’t attend. It also showed who my true friends were, so many of them came, so many were at the funeral and at my house, and some of my best friends stayed with me from the night it happened till days after the funeral and kept me busy the entire summer, not only do I owe eternal thanks to them, but my love also, and even more so I love my Dad, and miss him everyday.
