It is the morning after we were at the hospital all night because they had to sedate him because breathing was too hard with the breathing tube in for him. It is around 9 in the morning and I wake up and to my surprise everyone else is asleep from the long night…

The phone rings and it is his oncologist and I answer it and he mistakes me for my mom. He says that they did blood tests and there is a serious infection with his kidneys from his low white blood cell count, and there were slim chances of him actually coming out of the sedation. At that moment I almost died because I could barley breath and I hung up the phone. For 10 minutes I was alone, completely alone and I did not know what to do.

I found it in me to get dressed and leave with my family, and the Jason, and Marlo to go to the hospital for the day. To sum it up, I sat around in that ICU room the entire day waiting for my dad to die. That is one of the hardest things that I have ever done in my entire life, knowing and counting the minutes until he died was just horrific. When I went in for the first time that day to talk to him alone, I told him that he couldn’t leave, and that everything was going to be okay. I told him that they were going to figure everything out and he was going to come home and everything was going to be better. Then the doctor came in when I was in there to check his counts, and he told me “things are looking better for your dad you know, we are starting to figure it out” then he started to lower the sedation so they could see how he would react. Unlike everyone else I forced myself to believe that he was going to wake up because I just knew he would.

So now it is late at night, and Melvin, Justice, and Taylor are taking a break and staying the night at the sutorius’ house to take a break. My mom says I should go home with my great grandma and get some rest. well when i went in to say goodnight, i remember that they had lowered his sedation medicine so he they could see how he was reacting to the infection. and when i was in there alone, i was talking to him, just saying how he was going to wake up and everything was going to wake up and all. and then my hand was resting next to it, and he held it and squeezed it, and i asked if he heard me and started responding to me in blinks. At that moment I knew that me and only me thinking he was going to make it all day that he would. When he squeezed my hand, I thought it was going to be okay.

Then, I even asked him if he was going to be okay, and if he was coming home. and i said blink once if you are and twice if you aren’t. And he blinked twice but I didn’t let myself believe it. He laid there knowing he was going to die, and he had to tell me that. When I left that room, at 2:00 am on February 16 I had hope that he was coming home. Then five minutes after I left he died. All the hope was gone, and I was off to go say goodbye to my father’s dead body, that was worn down for 13 years, all to lead to DEATH.

It must of been hard to lay there knowing that. And all day he couldn’t say anything to anyone else. I think me being the only sibling to stay was for a reason. I was the only stubborn one who knew that doctors would be wrong. i think that is why he squeezed my hand, and answered by blinking.

When he told he had leukemia I don’t really remember what I was thinking at that very moment. But one thing I do remember is that I never thought that what happened on February 16, 2009 was ever going to happen. It didn’t even cross my mind for the slightest second, until February 16, 2009 happened; I never thought I was going to lose him. On that night of February 16 everything changed forever and I have realized that I will NEVER be the same again.

On February 16 my dad died, and I was 14. He had leukemia and obviously he did not make it through. On February 16, my Dad died and along with him went half of me. I am not the same person that I used to be, and I do not know if I ever will be again. There are a million different words to say how I am feeling right now, but I think that I can sum it up into three… I MISS HIM. I don’t know if there is anything I can do about that maybe there is and maybe there isn’t. I have my good moment’s every day, but they are always overpowered by the bad ones. People say that it gets better but I am having a hard time believing this. I didn’t cry for a long time after he died, but a year later and I am falling to pieces. But another thing that I do know is that I am living for him right now until I can find it in myself to live for me. I don’t have the motivation anymore to live for me. But if I live through my dad, then I have all of the motivation there is in the world. When he was sick the only reason he got up every day and put up with it was for his family, and I am his family so I can do the same for him. I have realized that it is going to be a never ending staircase for the rest of my life. And there will be the bigger steps as well as the smaller steps, and sooner or later they are all going to even out, well at least I am hoping so.