Tears were streaming down my mother’s face as she stood in front of me, “Daddy’s dead” she said and she moved to my little brother and repeated what she had just said to me. I was aware of what that meant. My father had explained it to me a couple years prior. I was sitting in the same big old chair in the living room where I had just received the news of his death. “Everyone dies someday” he said to me. I had cried for hours while he was at work that day. I remember my mother speaking with him on the phone . “She won’t stop crying, I can’t even get her to go to sleep.” Later that night he explained to me the best way he knew how to repair any damage to a four year old’s worried mind. “Sugar, you are going to be all grown up and taking care of yourself before anything like that happens to mommy or daddy. Nothing like that is going to happen for a very long time.”
His heart stopped when he had been grocery shopping that night with my mother. The car would not start and he was trying to evaluate the problem when he clutched his
chest. He died before the ambulance arrived. It did not seem like a long time even to a four year old, between the conversation with my father and the news of his death.
My grand mother and uncle arrived a few hours later and worked all night to pack the house and move us back to Maine with them. As he walked through the front door of the house, I said “Hi, uncle Bob”. He was our family comedian, easy going with a little bit of a belly and a quick smile. That day as he walked through the front door he gently kissed my forehead and said “Hi Reenie”. My nickname I had inherited from my little brother who tried to say Noreen and somehow only got the Reen part correct. He was on the phone a few minutes later at my father’s desk in the dining room of our home. I was standing beside him tugging on his shirt sleeve. “What day is today?” I never wanted to forget this day. I knew my life would change forever.
Technology advanced over the years and I began college. Without objection and at the urging of my family I chose Nursing as a course of study. I was in my last semester of school when introduced to cardiac nursing. I immediately knew that I wanted to specialize in this field. I understood it, liked it, and craved more of it. I finished school and began my career. One of the best feelings is putting the paddles on a technically dead person’s chest and with the burst of electrical energy bringing them back to the one’s they love. I am reminded of my own loss and what a wonderful thing it is to return to a loved one someone who was thought to be gone forever. For every successful resuscitation
I often think “This one’s for you Dad”. Being able to provide what was not provided for me is the biggest reward in my life.