The Christmas Your Father Would Never Remember
~A mother’s memory for her daughter, Athlyn Deon
It was the 8 of us, your father, a dairy farmer, had started negotiations for a dairy that a neighbor was selling. We were all so excited to be farming without Grandpa Sid. Right before we signed the papers, your father, Grandpa Bob, and his friend were all involved in a terrible automobile accident not far from our home on Ridge Wood.
In one small moment, our lives were changed, forever. This was December 17th, 1976. A day we would never forget and a day your father will never remember. Ryan, your little brother was 18 months, you were three and a half, Jennifer had just turned 5, Heidi was 7, Katherine 9, and Sid Patrick was 10. I had just discovered I was one month pregnant with Christiana. Christmas was near.
The weather was foggy that morning, but lifted early. I had been reminiscing our short ten years of marriage, and only one day away from eleven years. I was busy finishing decorating the tree and home. I had wrapped all the gifts and started to vacuum when I felt an overwhelming amount of gratitude for our good life and all of our blessings. At that same moment, the doorbell rang. Every detail after that is indelible in my mind.
“Your husband has been in a terrible head-on collision and is being rushed to the hospital,” the officer said.
All the other words that followed I had seemed to block out. I lost all color and sound as shock filled my body. Is my husband still alive, I wondered?
When I reached the hospital, the doctor gave me no hope for your father to live. The head injury was so destructive. The right side of his skull was crushed, his face was lacerated and beyond recognition. There was a massive hemorrhaging in the skull and his brain was compressed against the left side of his head. Your father was in a coma and paralyzed on the left side. The right eye sustained severe trauma and was bleeding. He was in surgery for 4 1/2 hours that day.
The surgery was inadequate and he hemorrhaged again. The result was the brain was compressed over the brain stem. This was even more grave and they knew there was no hope. The team of doctors tried to convince me, but I had been comforted with the knowledge that I felt within me, that he would in fact recover. This was beyond any capabilities of this world and the doctors did not want me to carry a false hope for your father or grandpa. The third passenger in the pickup that day had the least injury, a broken arm, and ruptured spleen. He died a day after surgery. The doctors told me the brain damage for Dad was so severe that if he did somehow live, he would not be able to function. Grandpa Bob had suffered some brain damage, broke some ribs and his collar bone. He was tough at seventy.
Christmas came and all the presents under the tree seemed unexciting. I tried to be cheerful for you kids, but my thoughts were so preoccupied with your father. All I wanted was for him to wake up from his coma and come home.
For the rest of that month and into the next, I lived at the hospital and came home to bathe you children and answer questions. I tried to love all of you, but there wasn’t enough of me to go around. You were so young and couldn’t comprehend what was happening. All six of you were frightened about what life would be like after that point.
I did physical therapy on your father every two hours a day and night. Your Dad began to respond, but the doctors never believed me neither did the nurses. If anything, they thought I was starting to show signs of being crazy.
Miracles occur when man can do no more and divine help intervenes.
The team of doctors and nurses was my witness and one month after that tragic accident, your father woke up. He couldn’t talk because he had a plastic tube that was inserted into a hole made in the back of his neck so he could be on a breathing machine.
I was able to bring dad and your grandpa home. The doctors couldn’t believe what had happened. I needed them home because I couldn’t take care of you kids at home and Dad and grandpa at the hospital. It was a blessing that they released them to my care.
Recovery was long and there were many setbacks, but over those next few years, we made steady progress. Your father was able to regain a normal life.
