Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: fathers (06/06/05)
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TITLE: The Day I Almost Lost My Father | Previous Challenge Entry
By Christina Hammond
06/12/05 -
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The three of us, Jennifer, Tanya, and I, were sitting around my kitchen table playing with the Holly Hobby cutout set I had just received the previous day for a birthday present when a man named Phillip burst through the front door yelling for buckets of water.
“Water,” he cried. “We need lots of water. Buckets of water. There’s been an accident.” Phillip was a carpenter and he had been working on a project down the street with my father.
So my mother, leaving us children in the capable hands of several adults who just happened to be in the house that day for whatever reason, dutifully collected a few buckets of water and lugged them down the road, Phillip by her side carrying a couple of buckets himself.
Mom says that to this day, she has no idea what the water was for, considering the buckets in question were left, full, at the scene of the accident and never touched again.
The remainder of the day was pretty much a blur to me. The only thing that I truly remember about that day was that the electricity had gone out and we had to order pizza for supper that night.
In reality, the remainder of the summer months and the subsequent months that followed ring a little hazy in my memory. What I do remember is having a babysitter or a live-in nanny, if you will, named Kim, who stayed with us, my younger sister and I, for my mother was working full time as a nurse. I remember visiting my father, laid up in the hospital, and saying that he was lucky because he had little “bendy” straws to drink his juice and water through. I remember him returning home in a wheelchair, though I can’t tell you exactly how long he stayed wheelchair bound – it couldn’t have been that long, for I do recall that he was on his feet by Christmas time.
When I was six years old, I could not fully comprehend the fact that I had almost lost my father. He will always have burnt tissue scars on his feet, and he will probably hold up the power that electricity can shoot through a metal ladder and then a person with a much higher respect, but he still has a long, productive life with children and grandchildren and all of the responsibilities and benefits that follow along with those titles.
Twenty fours years later, to the day, I am sitting here at my computer and I thank God that my father’s life was spared.
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