11:57 pm.

This post was written by Kellan. It's a memoir, an assignment given to him for his English class this year. Posting with his permission. (I'm a proud mommy!)

11:57 pm

By, Kellan Thibodaux

It was the night before Thanksgiving when everything changed. My mom had let my little sister and I stay up late and we were watching TV when I paused the DVR to check the time. It was 11:57 pm. “Hey! Why’d you pause it?!” my sister Emmi belched out. “Checking the time.” I replied boredly. Then from the other side of the house, we heard loud whispers; panting. We walked with unease towards our parents’ bedroom to see our mother pushing repeatedly on our father’s chest, as he laid unconscious on the bed. 

“Mom? What’s wrong?” I said with tears rolling down my face. She turned and saw us and yelled, “Go sit on the porch with some toilet paper!” We ran to the bathroom and grabbed a roll of toilet paper to dry our tears with and sat on the porch waiting for our Pastors and an ambulance.

A few minutes later our pastor’s mom (whom we didn’t know at all) showed up and took us to her house and tried to distract us with basic conversation like “Sooooo, how’s school?” and “Sooooo, what’s your favorite color?”. My sister and I snuck glances at each other silently saying ‘Why is she trying to distract us? It isn’t going to work!’. Then she tried to distract us further by playing a Jackie Chan movie which we watched for all of two minutes before my Pastor’s wife Mrs. Cyndee saved us by walking in the front door to take us to the hospital to be with our mom.

At the hospital, we waited inside a small waiting room that held only two tables with magazines, a box of tissues, a potted plant and a few chairs. We sat impatiently while the doctor shared the news down the hall from the waiting room with my mother, Pastor Nathan and Mrs. Cyndee.  My sister and I decided to peek out the door to see what was going on but nothing was happening and we couldn’t hear anything so we went back in and shut the door to keep waiting.

Finally, they came back into the room. My mom sat down and said “Kids… I have something to tell you.” When she said that I looked backwards and Mrs. Cyndee was covering her face with both hands. I couldn’t tell if her reaction meant my dad was okay or not. I turned back to my mom and she said “Your dad… he’s gone.” I cried on and off while my sister cried hysterically and mom held us both in her arms.

The next few days were mostly a blur. I still can’t remember much of anything. I don’t remember Thanksgiving day which was the day after or even my sister’s eighth birthday which was the day after that. It’s a total memory fog.

This Thanksgiving will be four years without my dad. My fourteenth birthday is less than a month away. I’ve had to learn some essential things like riding a bike, mowing the lawn, and checking the oil on the car without him here to teach me. Sometimes it’s hard for me to talk to my mom instead of my dad about personal things as I’ve grown up the last few years.

Since I lost my dad, a lot has changed. Once in a while I cry myself to sleep at night and it’s still difficult for me to say the words “My dad died”. But I’ve come a long way in my grief and I’m so thankful I had such a great dad for the 10 years I had him. He was amazing. He loved me, my sister and my mom with everything he had in him. He was talented in so many ways. He was handsome, funny, smart, caring and giving. As I grow older, I find many of these pieces of him in me. And that makes me really happy.