on_thecouch | 29.3. Holiday Season
29.3. How do you feel during the holiday season?
I used to love Christmas. I was one of those irritating people who would wear a Santa hat to work (when not on a run) and stick tinsel to my work mates’ lockers whilst playing Christmas carols over the intercom ad nauseum. I loved Christmas trees, making Christmas cookies, shopping, wrapping presents, snow, singing carols… you name it. I lost all that last year and I don’t know if it’s possible to ever get it back.
December fifteenth 2007, just ten days before Christmas last year, my Dad was killed in an horrific car accident. We were driving back from Boston; I had been staying with my parents for a few days for my grandmother’s birthday. Dad was driving me home so I wouldn’t be tired for my double shift at work the next day. It was raining heavily and a thick sleet was setting in. Dad was taking it easy, but you can never account for other people. It was a drunk driver. Had a few too many at a work Christmas party and stupidly decided she was okay to drive the three miles home. We were just on the outskirts of the city when it happened… almost home. The woman lost control of her car in the wet, veered through a red light and centre-punched Dad’s car in the driver’s side, slamming us directly into a lamp post.
I don’t remember anything of the accident. I just remember waking up after it trapped in a mangle of smoky, crushed metal. My leg was trapped under the dashboard and I could feel nothing but a searing pain right through my body. I had hit my head on the dashboard, and could hardly see straight, but Dad was slumped over the steering wheel with his side of the car ground up against his broken body. He was covered in blood… unmoving. His head had hit the windscreen on impact. He died instantly.
These were all facts I only discovered days, even weeks after the accident. At the time, all I wanted was for him to wake up. It’s patchy, but I remember screaming at him to wake up and trying to feel for a pulse at his throat. I couldn’t reach, though. I could only reach the tips of his fingers that were hanging down the side of the seat. I must have crushed them from the force I gripped them. I tried to get myself free to help him, but I was stuck and red hot pain was pulsing through me. The last thing I remember was my pinkie finger brushing against the thick band of his wedding ring before there is just a gaping black hole in my memory.
I was unconscious when the ambulance got there, apparently still holding my father’s hand when they cut me from the wreck. I remember waking up with my hand in Mum’s and watching as she somehow tried to find the strength to tell me Dad was dead. I didn’t accept it at first. For days I wouldn’t let anyone talk about the accident or my father in the past tense. I spent three weeks in hospital with my leg in traction, fighting a crushed knee, broken ribs, a concussion… and the loss of my Dad. Christmas came and went in an oblivion of pain medication and tears. Christmas Day, I didn’t even realise its significance. I was too injured to even go to his funeral.
That was a year ago on Monday. I can’t feel Christmas at all this year. My Mum doesn’t want to celebrate it, choosing instead to go stay with my Aunty in Australia. I don’t want to celebrate it either. I could have gone with her but I put my hand up for work instead. I’m working seven days straight that week. In the back of an ambulance or in a hospital ER, there is very little reminder of Christmas. There are a lot of reminders of car crashes, injured people, dying people… but at least I can try to save them. I didn’t have that chance with my Dad. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. Christmas will just never be what it used to be. For me, there just is nothing happy about this time of year.
Word Count | 714
I used to love Christmas. I was one of those irritating people who would wear a Santa hat to work (when not on a run) and stick tinsel to my work mates’ lockers whilst playing Christmas carols over the intercom ad nauseum. I loved Christmas trees, making Christmas cookies, shopping, wrapping presents, snow, singing carols… you name it. I lost all that last year and I don’t know if it’s possible to ever get it back.
December fifteenth 2007, just ten days before Christmas last year, my Dad was killed in an horrific car accident. We were driving back from Boston; I had been staying with my parents for a few days for my grandmother’s birthday. Dad was driving me home so I wouldn’t be tired for my double shift at work the next day. It was raining heavily and a thick sleet was setting in. Dad was taking it easy, but you can never account for other people. It was a drunk driver. Had a few too many at a work Christmas party and stupidly decided she was okay to drive the three miles home. We were just on the outskirts of the city when it happened… almost home. The woman lost control of her car in the wet, veered through a red light and centre-punched Dad’s car in the driver’s side, slamming us directly into a lamp post.
I don’t remember anything of the accident. I just remember waking up after it trapped in a mangle of smoky, crushed metal. My leg was trapped under the dashboard and I could feel nothing but a searing pain right through my body. I had hit my head on the dashboard, and could hardly see straight, but Dad was slumped over the steering wheel with his side of the car ground up against his broken body. He was covered in blood… unmoving. His head had hit the windscreen on impact. He died instantly.
These were all facts I only discovered days, even weeks after the accident. At the time, all I wanted was for him to wake up. It’s patchy, but I remember screaming at him to wake up and trying to feel for a pulse at his throat. I couldn’t reach, though. I could only reach the tips of his fingers that were hanging down the side of the seat. I must have crushed them from the force I gripped them. I tried to get myself free to help him, but I was stuck and red hot pain was pulsing through me. The last thing I remember was my pinkie finger brushing against the thick band of his wedding ring before there is just a gaping black hole in my memory.
I was unconscious when the ambulance got there, apparently still holding my father’s hand when they cut me from the wreck. I remember waking up with my hand in Mum’s and watching as she somehow tried to find the strength to tell me Dad was dead. I didn’t accept it at first. For days I wouldn’t let anyone talk about the accident or my father in the past tense. I spent three weeks in hospital with my leg in traction, fighting a crushed knee, broken ribs, a concussion… and the loss of my Dad. Christmas came and went in an oblivion of pain medication and tears. Christmas Day, I didn’t even realise its significance. I was too injured to even go to his funeral.
That was a year ago on Monday. I can’t feel Christmas at all this year. My Mum doesn’t want to celebrate it, choosing instead to go stay with my Aunty in Australia. I don’t want to celebrate it either. I could have gone with her but I put my hand up for work instead. I’m working seven days straight that week. In the back of an ambulance or in a hospital ER, there is very little reminder of Christmas. There are a lot of reminders of car crashes, injured people, dying people… but at least I can try to save them. I didn’t have that chance with my Dad. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. Christmas will just never be what it used to be. For me, there just is nothing happy about this time of year.
Word Count | 714