Sunday, June 30, 2024

How could I know?

For some reason, my family has always expected me to just know everything, without ever telling me anything.

When I was 4 years old, Dad died of cancer.  Nobody told me.  One day he was in his hospital bed in the living room, then he and the special bed were gone.  Then the house was full of strangers, and I had to share my (twin sized) bed with Mom and some strange woman.  I wasn't at the funeral.  I didn't even know there was one.  Then Mom took me on a road trip.  We spent the night in South Carolina at some strange woman's house.  Then we went to Florida, and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.  We went to the beach, and I got to go to a brand-new Disney Land!  Wow, the Haunted Mansion sure was scary, Nemo's submarine was fun, and the Swiss Family Robinson's tree house was amazing!

And when we got home, there was still no Dad.  He just wasn't there any more, and nobody talked about it.  Months later, I finally asked my aunt (I was mostly raised by three of my aunts), "Is my daddy dead?"  She just looked at me like I was stupid, and said, "Of course he is."

2 comments:

  1. Same thing happened to my wife, who came home from college to her grandma having been in the hospital for weeks. And no one told her.

    ReplyDelete

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