Iris Nakano

I’m currently 14 years old, though I was 13 when my dad passed away. On the 17th of January 2010, my dad died (at the age of 52), from a brain hemorrhage. 12th of January 2010: It was a normal day, and in the afternoon my dad was playing tennis on the drive way with my younger brother. They came inside and my dad decided to take a shower, so he did. A few minutes later I heard something banging on a wall. I thought it was my dog, but he was barking so obviously not. My mum and I figured out the noise was coming from my parent’s bathroom. I was too afraid to go in and look. My mum went in and checked on my dad, he was collapsed on the bathroom floor feeling extremely dizzy. I didn’t think it was too serious until my mum told me to get the phone and call the ambulance. At this point I was extremely upset and crying, so I gave the phone to my mother. She called the ambulance and they said they’d be there as soon as possible. My dad had passed out a few times by the time the ambulance got there. They checked him and asked him how he felt, all I could hear was my dad saying; I feel cold, I can’t feel my legs. I really started crying after that (My younger brother was in the house, but I don’t really remember where he was. My older sister and her boyfriend came home while the ambulance was at our house and had no idea what had happened). So the ambulance got the stretcher out and got my dad up and walked him to the stretcher. As he walked past me, he saw me crying and he told me “don’t cry kana”. Those were the last words he said to me, and they just had to be those words. At about 1am the next day my mum called us and told us my dad was unconcious and was having a CT scan. The next 3 days went by slowly at the ICU (The whole time my dad was unconcious). My poor younger brother got soo upset at the hospital that he stayed at his friends house the whole time. My sister was there at the ICU but always with her boyfriend. On the fourth day my god parents, my mum, my older sister, my auntie (who flew to Australia from Japan), and I had to hear the depressing news that the doctor had to stop life support.
Even after the life support was turned off, my dad stayed strong. His heartbeat was fine and even thought I was extremely upset and crying, I felt hope. My sister, mum, and I stayed at the hospital over night with my father. His heartbeat stayed stable the whole time. The next morning, my mum called my brother to tell her how my dad was doing. That morning, the 17th of January 2010, I was so certain that my dad would finally wake up from his unconciousness. So for the whole day I was happier than the past 4 days at the hospital. By afternoon, my sister and I were starving. So my mum told me and my sister to go and get some food. I said to my mum,”Whatever happens, I want to be there! Please, if anything changes, I want to be there.” So anyway, my god father took my sister and I out for a drive to get food. While we were driving I got a call from my god mother saying I should come straight back to the hospital, she wouldn’t tell me why. So once we got back to the hospital me and my sister ran to the ICU and as we ran into the room where my dad was staying… The moniter was off, and at that moment, I knew my father was gone forever.
The hardest thing I cope with now, is all the memories at the hospital, and especially the last words my dad gave me. It’s been a tough year, and I thought by now I’d be over the pain… but it’s still with me.
I’m sorry for such a long story, but I just had to get it all out of my system and onto the page…