Ten years gone

I wrote the following right after my dad and stepmom died in a car accident, November 26, 1999. It was written on one of my very old journals, so in honor of my dad's memory, I wanted to repost it here. I'm doing this not for sympathy, but because it's been ten years, and I think it's time for the story to be heard again. Ten years. Seems like just yesterday, and the pain isn't much less. My dad wasn't a wonderful guy; he had so, so, many issues, but I still miss him. I miss that we had just started reconciling, and there was still so much we needed to say. I hate it that he never even really knew my younger sister Rachel at all, such an awesome person and looking so much like him. I miss that he never knew my kids, including Ethan, who is his spitting image. I miss that ever since that time, the remaining Zamrazil side of my family has all but forgotten about my sisters and I. I wish the accident hadn't happened on Thanksgiving weekend. Every year, it's my most foremost thought. I miss you, Daddy. I wish we could have gotten to know each other better.

Written the First Week in December, 1999 (after returning home)

On Friday, November 26, my dad and stepmom were killed in a car accident in Florida. My father, who had epilepsy, was driving home from my grandma's house at about 11:30 pm and had a seizure while driving. Apparently, he hit the gas hard (when he had a seizure, he always leaned all his body weight to one side) and was accellerating to about 60 miles per hour, travelling half on the road and half on the grass, knocking over two street signs, before entering the intersection at Rt. 436. It truly is a blessing that no one else was hit, because 436 is one of the busiest streets in the Orlando area. Anyway, he approached the intersection going about 60 mph, hit an incline in the intersection, and went airborne. His car hit the median and flipped over, then bounced back right-way up and landed on the other side of the street, and then landed head first in about a 10 foot ditch (basically like a sand bar - Florda's dirt) on the side of the road. His back of his car, with the momentum, continued to flip over, and the car came to a stop upside down, against the incline of the ditch. My stepmom Pat died instantly because her neck was broken when the car came to a stop. It might have been broken by "blunt force trauma" to her neck from some tables that came forward from the back seat, or it could have been from the impact itself. My dad's airbag went off, but even airbags and seatbelts (which they were both wearing) were useless when the car came to a complete stop from 60 mph, and the car was heavy because they were all packed up with stuff for the flea market that they did every Saturday. Even though my dad's body was stopped by the airbag and seatbelts, the inside of his body "kept going" at the same speed, and his aorta burst. He died about 10 seconds later. (This is all from the police report and medical examiner.)

I know that Pat didn't suffer, except for those moments when she was sure to see the impact coming, and my dad would have suffered except that he was in a full seizure likely, so we know he likely wasn't aware of anything going on around him. These are very comforting to know. Also, we know that they are now in the presence of God, face to face. My daddy no longer has any seizures or any worries. This gives the family a lot of peace, but it is still very hard, very shocking. Unlike old age or an illness, we didn't get to say goodbye. I just got a phone call early Saturday morning saying that my dad and Pat were killed the night before.

My sister and I are the only apparent heirs, with the exception of our long-lost half sister that we are trying to find*, so it has been a very busy time. We cleaned out his apartment (so much accumulation... my dad was a pack rat) and began settling his affairs as well as planned a funeral (two, really). We really haven't even had time to grieve. But it is beginning now, and it is starting to hit really hard. Please pray for us.

One thing that was really interesting is that a friend of Pat's, Kaye, had been sending her weekly poems and letters for the past four years. We received another poem from her in the mail on Tuesday, postmarked that weekend. She hadn't yet heard about the accident. This is what the poem said:
Creator God, Lord of all Life
Teach me to cherish every moment of my life
To recognize the blessing and the gift of the present,
Instead of racing through my days on the way to the future.
To realize that on this day...
in this hour...
at this moment...
I am in the presence of the King.
(B.J. Hoff, "Faces in the Crowd")

I read this poem at the memorial service on Friday, along with some comments. Actually, I sobbed this story. Right now, Daddy and Pat are in the presence of the King. We all all, through the Holy Spirit, but right now they are joyously face to face.

The biggest lesson I have come away with this past couple weeks is this: My father had kept every reciept, every paper, every THING he had ever gotten his entire life. He kept it all. Cherished souvenirs, newspapers, free promotional, unopened t-shirts even... Within the course of a few seconds, none of that mattered. With the exception of some pictures, food, and flea market products that went to charity, my dad's favorite cat (which my sister took home**) and a few pieces of furniture, it was all in the trash. "Things" do not matter. Everything is worthless except the relationships you have with family and friends and your relationship with Jesus Christ.

* My sister, Rachel, was eventually located. It took a few years, and even private investigator searches had turned very little up. We were not able to settle my dad's estate until Rachel was found. (So the result was, that as the estate executor -or legal equivilent, since there was no will- I had to daily deal with massive amounts of paperwork and mail for my dad's affairs for several years. Please, for your family. Get a will drawn up.) When we did finally connect, it was a random event -- she felt like trying to call and talk to my dad to give "one more shot" at a reconciliation. She found my number, called me at work, and found out what had happened.

** The cat didn't last long in my sister's care. She had turned mostly feral in the course of living in my dad's apartment, along with multiple untrained cats. It was a very sad situation.