November 10, 1979

I was barely 2 years old. My father was outside working on a car. (1957 Chevy 4 Door). It was up on jackstands. My mother heard him scream from inside. She ran outside to find that the car had fallen off the jackstands onto my father. He was still alive but he couldn't breathe. We lived out in the middle of nowhere, so there was no chance of help coming soon. But it did, 10 minutes later a man drove by in a truck, my mother ran out to the road and stopped him (nearly getting run over in the process). He somehow managed to lift the car off of my father. My mother and the man with the truck drove him the 40 miles to the hospital. They stabilized his condition (putting him on oxygen). He regained consciousness the next day. He told my mother that he was going to be OK, and for her not to worry. Although my father lived almost 20 years after that those would be the last words he ever spoke.

When my mother came to visit the next day my father had become a vegetable. No higher brain functions were left. The hospital even claimed that he had never woken up since he was brought in. My mother found out what really happened from the woman sharing his room. She said that the nurse had made some mistake and turned off his oxygen. Hours later the woman was gone and the hospital claimed that Mark (my father) had been alone in his room since he was admitted. My mother was devastated. Their was nothing she could do to fight the hospitals coverup. (At least she thought there was nothing she could do). Her husband (my father), was gone. The cruellest part was that his body was still alive. But the man she loved was gone forever. He was 27 years old.

They said my father would live a few months, perhaps a year. But they were wrong. In 1981 they took him off of life support. He still didn't die. It became harder and harder for my mother to go and see him (emotionally harder not physically). She stopped taking my little sister and I to see him altogether. In 1986 she visited him for the last time. She said that she just couldn't bear to do it anymore. (By then I was 9 years old, and I had no memories of how my father was before his accident).

My father finally died on March 27, 1997 at the age of 45. 18 of those spent as a living corpse. His ashes were spread over the Pacific Ocean. My mother was finally able to have peace. I never cried about it until years later. It was when I saw my best friend talking to his father. The reality of what had been missing my entire life finally hit me. I cried for several days. Then, I also, had my peace.