About Dana
My Stepmom and I
By Brian Rolland
“My dad looks the worse I have ever seen,” I say in my mind. “Dad what’s going on?” He takes me out to the porch, “She’s gone”, he says.
It is the week of May 12 and my life couldn’t be going better. School is out in a month, my birthday is in 3 days, and my family is doing fine. But on Monday, May 19, 2003 my world was turned upside down.
It started out as a typical Monday. You can’t get out of bed but you know you have to. So I get up and get ready and my mom takes me to school.
So later on that day at school I look up at the clock after a great lunch with all my friends and the clock reads 1:02pm. For some weird reason I get this funny feeling in my stomach, but not really caring I get up and get ready for my next class.
Lets fast forward a bit. At 3:20pm I rush out of the building with a great feeling knowing I have no homework and I get to see my dad and stepmom tonight.
When I get home to see my dad and my grandma I am very confused. I think “Where is Dana?” My dad looks terrible. It looks like he hasn’t slept in days. So my dad and grandma take me and my brother out onto the deck. “She’s gone”, my dad starts to cry and I say, “Dad what are you talking about?” and at that moment I understand my stepmom, Dana, died of cancer today. Tears gather up in my eyes and my dad starts to explain. “It started late last night. Dana was feeling terrible so we went on into the hospital. I didn’t want to call you guys because I didn’t want you two lingering on about it at school. I was by her side the whole time. We tried everything all the things we could do but nothing was working. Finally we just let it go, there was nothing we could do. So the doctors let myself and Dana talk alone. We talked about a lot of stuff, we talked about you two and everything else. I was holding her hand and I told her I loved her and then the next moment I see her eyes close and I knew she was gone. Dana died at 1:02pm.” In my mind I didn’t know how to respond. I was thinking when I had that weird feeling in my stomach, my stepmom was taking her last breath. I think I will never hear Dana’s sweet voice ever again. “Dad I am so sorry”, I say. He grabs my brother and I and we hug for what seems like an eternity. But then my dad starts bringing the good memories of Dana up, and then we just talk about the good times.
The next couple of days were some of the hardest in my life. I then took the next 3 days off. All of my relatives and Dana’s relatives showed up at our church service for Dana.
The hardest thing about this all was to see my dad the way he was. It was so hard seeing him hurting so much. I comforted him as much as I could but for the next 4 months it would be terribly hard on my dad, it is still hard on my today but it is getting better. To this day everyone in my family wishes Dana was still here.
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