My Moma was diagnosed with terminal cancer, My daddy was in a accident,drunk driver. They both have passed now, my therapist suggested I write about it…
Held Through the Fire………
The ocean was calm that morning.
I remember standing on the deck of the Disney cruise ship with a cup of coffee in my hand while the wind tangled my hair. Kayla was laughing somewhere behind me with Sadie and Turtle, and for the first time in a long time, life felt light. No schedules. No hospital calls. No bad news. Just sunshine reflecting across the water and the sound of people enjoying their vacations around us.
I didn’t know my world was already changing.
Somewhere between the ocean and home, my phone rang.
I can still remember the feeling in my chest before I even answered it. The kind of fear that arrives before words do.
My daddy had been in an accident.
Everything after that felt blurry and sharp at the same time. I remember the panic. The confusion. The feeling of standing still while my entire life moved underneath me.
When I stepped off that ship, I stepped into a life I no longer recognized.
My daddy was in a coma with a traumatic brain injury. Machines breathed beside him while doctors spoke in careful tones that never sounded hopeful enough. At the same time, my mama was already fighting a battle of her own. Her cancer had returned, and this time it had spread to her bones.
Terminal.
That word settled over our family like a storm cloud that never moved.
I would later learn my daddy had gone alone to Chili’s to watch the Georgia game. He had been struggling emotionally in ways I understand more clearly now. He was overserved alcohol and tried to drive himself home.
He never made it.
A tree stopped him before he could get there
And in one single night, the life I knew disappeared.