Part 41: Tragedy In The Family
Our wedding day was set for May 13th, 2023. In February, Brody and I made a trip to Abbotsford for me to go through the temple and for my bridal shower.
He had turned yellow, with jaundice. He was like an empty shell of my dad, with little to no energy or life to him. Something was very wrong. We were about to head into Family Day weekend, and all of the doctors were telling my dad to come back after the long weekend. My one of my philosophies my whole life has been, "if dad isn't worried, then I don't have to be." But this philosophy was shaken when my dad told me that he was in fact worried about how this would turn out.
We all sat around our living room, it was pouring rain outside and the overall mood was very glum. I was beyond anxious that my dad was going to die. I had made up my mind that he actually was going to die, and there was nothing that I could do to stop it. Just as I was about to lose it, Brody suggested we go for a walk in the rain. I was about to marry a man that knew my body language so well, that he just knew I was about to break down. We got in the car and drove up Eagle Mountain to the park. I cried the whole five minute drive there. We got out of the car and started to walk around, as my face stung in the cold with my wet tears down my face. Brody eventually stopped me and I stood with my back up against a wall around the back of the school. I told Brody that I was genuinely wondering how we were to plan a wedding after my dad had died. I was actually considering pushing it back. I thought he was gone.
When we got back, I couldn't keep it together and continued to sob. This evolved into one of my only ever panic attacks. I sat with Brody on one side and my dad on the other. They sat quietly while I continued to struggle for breath. My dad told me to absorb the energy of those around me, which is good guidance, but I was beyond reasoning.
My dad eventually decided to go to the ER. We probably wouldn't see him before we had to go back to Calgary, but he had to get taken care of. This has been one of the ongoing struggles I have faced since moving out of my parents house, the idea that if something bad happened to one of them, I wouldn't be close enough to get there quickly and I would never see them again. This goes through my head almost every time we get dropped off at the airport, but especially this time.
While in the ER, it was discovered that the cause for this scary health episode, was a blocked bile duct from the gallbladder removal. It was fixed by a gastroscopic procedure (I asked my dad for clarification on that) and it went away.
I have never feared for my dads life the way I did that weekend. Though the answers came and it was a simple fix, it put it into perspective how lucky I am to have him. "Lucky to have him" feels like an extreme understatement, but I can't really put into words what he means to me.
-
About a month before my wedding, I woke up to a group text from my dad. The group chat included me, Brody, Manda, and Ethan. His message read, "Dummy broke up with Jill last night. Things are not very good over here."
His name wasn't Dummy, but there are a lot of things that I want to call him that aren't appropriate for this setting. Dummy had been dating Jill for about a year and a half at this point and he was around our house a lot. In the past few months, he had truly shown his true colours and the majority of us in our family did not like him at all. I don't fault him for breaking up with her, but it was just the cherry on top of months of bad behavior, and Jill was devastated to say the least.
This was the hardest part of living away from home. I think I was partly spared by not being in the same home as Jill when this was happening, because it was absolutely awful. However, knowing what bad shape she was in, and not being there to support her was killing me. We had been secretly hoping for Dummy's departure, but it triggered something in Jill. It took me back to when Gaston left me and it triggered some incredible abandonment anxiety. Jill could not fathom the idea that Dummy didn't want her and that she was alone.
It would start to get better, we would all start to believe that things were going to be okay going forward, and then I would get a text from my parents that Jill was in the hospital because they were worried she was a threat to her own safety. As someone who doesn't actually know much about the psych ward, I pictured my sister strapped to a bed, in a windowless room as she screamed for help. She wouldn't stop wailing. I would call home to see how things were, and I would hear her screaming from a different room.
I decided to make a trip home for Easter. As I sat across the table from Jill, she looked like someone I didn't recognize. That was not my my sister. How could a loser like Dummy do such a number on a wonderful person like Jill?
It was a long few months of ups and downs. All I wanted was for Jill to sing at my wedding, but she had expressed that she just couldn't. I felt the similar feeling I had felt before, that my family was falling apart and we were never going to make it back from this. It was a long year for all of us, but I'm sure it felt even longer for Jilly.
That is why Jill is a miracle in my eyes. She is resilient and strong and our lives are all better because she is in it.
Comments
Post a Comment