the call.

“Dad, what is the matter? What happened?!”

“Mary you just need to get home now, right now. Where are you guys? You need to get here now. Oh, they can’t see her like this,” he sobbed over the phone.

“DAD – you have to tell me what’s going on,” is all I managed to get out as my own eyes began to tear up. Having gone almost 27 full years with never seeing or hearing my dad shed more than a single tear, I knew immediately something was gravely wrong when hearing the utter fear and panic in his voice.

My husband and I are such homebodies and are rarely far from the house and of course on this Saturday night at 7pm we were about 45 minutes away at a friend’s housewarming party. My husband watched my face and voice turn to a near panic while on this call and acted immediately when I demanded with tears streaming down my face that he get my purse and coat.

As he retrieved my black, dressy coat I so rarely wear, and black purse from the nearby bedroom, I tried to control my now-convulsing body and dialed my brother’s house. Living about four minutes away from my parents’ house I prayed as I dialed they were home. My very pregnant sister-in-law answered and I stammered out something about the distressing call I got from my dad and later find out she immediately called 9-1-1 when we hung up. Thank God.

I didn’t even answer the first call from my dad. I heard my phone ringing as we were chatting in the kitchen with friends, picked it up and saw it was my dad. He loves to call me at all hours with nothing important to say, I think just to check in because he misses me and loves talking on the phone. So I just let the call go to voicemail assuming it was his usual ‘just calling to say hello’ phone call. And normally I would let the voicemail wait until the next day but for some reason I felt compelled when I heard the little voicemail chime go off on my phone. I have learned through all of this that weird things happen in these dire, life-threatening situations. Some stars just tend to align, like something inside me made me check that voicemail.

That’s when I heard the most horrid, hysterical message from my dad that I deleted immediately. All I knew at that moment was I never wanted to hear that again. I called him back as quickly as my shaking fingers could dial and heard his fear-stricken voice.

“Why won’t he tell me what’s wrong?!” I yelled through my uncontrollable sobs in the car as Greg tried his hardest to find his way out of the unfamiliar, winding subdivision we were in.

God dammit. I stared out the window of our sturdy white Jetta and could not even believe what was going on. At that point I think I was just numb and in a zone. I really do not remember that car ride – I think it was the longest and quickest ride of my life all at the same time.