Sad day

Twenty-two years ago today, my father died of a heart attack. Although he lived in New Port Richey with his new wife (my mother had died a few years back), he was in Tampa for a meeting. Apparently, he was driving when something like a stroke or seizure began. He ran a red light and hit a car with a baby in it. He got out of his mangled vehicle to see if everyone was all right in the other car. The baby was screaming in distress (she was unhurt), and the mother seemed to be okay. When he went to knock on someone's door so they could call 911, he collapsed. By the time paramedics arrived, he was unresponsive, and he died of a heart attack shortly after they reached Tampa General Hospital.

It was only four days after Father's Day. We had spent a nice day together (with his new wife). I took them out to dinner and then back to my little Tampa apartment for dessert and a Star Trek movie because my dad was a Star Trek man. I was so happy that we celebrated Father's Day together because neither of us knew it would be the last Father's Day ever.

At the time I lived in a nice riverfront neighborhood just over three miles from Tampa General Hospital, and yet I didn't "feel" anything about my dad's last journey. I was watching TV while my father was dying a few miles away. I have felt a kind of psychic push when some of my cats died away from home, yet I didn't know or intuit that my dad was dying. For some reason, this bothers me, even after twenty-two years. I hope wherever he is now he is happy. There wasn't too much happiness on earth for him, so I sincerely wish he is beaming now in heaven or wherever a soul goes after it has left the body. I miss you, Daddy-O.

My dad's college graduation photo