That Day
I had a story jarred loose by the good folks at RER. I've started and stopped writing it probably 15 times since I launched this thing. It's time now.

I was early for work that evening, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 1987. High school basketball season was getting cranked up, and I had a bunch of stories I had to write and a game to cover before taking a couple days off for Thanksgiving. It was raining like hell, so I didn't want to get caught in traffic. I was early, but I was still in a hurry.

I was stopped at the entrance by one of my co-workers. He was rushing out as fast as I was rushing in. "Steve needs to see you," he said as he walked past. "Now."

Steve was the boss. This couldn't be good. Wonder whose name I misspelled?

I rounded the corner toward the Sports department, and was met head-on by the boss. "Your dad's been in an accident," he said. "He's at the hospital. Go now."

Even as my body turned around to go back out the door, my mind wasn't quite connecting. But I still have five stories to write, I was thinking. Got an interview to do, a phone call to make at 6 ... the game ... My brain had finally engaged when I got hit full-force by the rain after walking out the door. I jogged to my truck and headed toward the hospital. On the way, I picked up my girlfriend, who was in town for Thanksgiving break. She went to college in Columbia, three hours away. "Come with me," I said. I didn't have to tell her where we were going. She knew it was bad.

I was driving like Dale Earnhardt to the hospital. At least, I thought I was, which was why I was stunned to look down at my speedometer and see I was going 25 mph. It was raining that hard; rain you couldn't see through. At 6 p.m. in November, right after sunset, the rain and the dark combined to make my path nearly invisible.

We got to the hospital. Other family members were already there. I don't even remember who. It was a lot of people. The person who would become my wife -- not the aforementioned girlfriend -- was there, with my sister, her best friend. They were juniors in high school at the time. I looked for people who would be able to answer my questions and started asking. What happened? When? Whose fault? And the question that nobody could answer, How bad?

At 6 p.m. on Nov. 24, 1987, my father was in a coma. He had made a left turn from a parking lot into the path of a vehicle approaching from his left. The other vehicle, a full-size van, hit his Plymouth Reliant at 40 mph -- the speed limit. The van hit his car at the point where the front fender meets the door. My dad was not wearing a seat belt. He had suffered no obvious injuries, other than a couple of minor cuts and bruises.

He had, however, suffered a profound head injury. In the intensive care unit, an electronic monitor measured the swelling on his brain. I intently watched the a number on the device, even though I had no idea what I was watching. I don't remember who my source was on this -- a nurse? a doctor? one of my uncles? -- but somebody said that if the number hit 24, that would be fatal. The number was at 19. Then 20. Then 22. Then 23.

Then, 6.

At 7 p.m. on Nov. 24, 1987, I was 19 years old. My sister was 16. My stepmother had been married to my father for five years. She was only 28, and suddenly thrust into the worst possible nightmare one could imagine.

Of course, I didn't realize that at the time. I think I thought my dad was going to wake up and be better, now that the swelling in his brain had subsided. I didn't know that he wasn't going to begin to wake up until April 1988.

When my dad began showing signs of responding to external stimuli, he had spent more than two months in a head-injury rehabilitation center in Dallas. He was moved there after nearly four months at the hospital in Anytown. Now, the family was standing vigil more than 400 miles from home. We were an organized bunch. An apartment had been rented in the Dallas area so whoever came to visit would have a place to stay. I had a friend in Dallas; she was a person of faith and a strong spirit -- two things I'm not -- and she was a great help to me.

All of us began to redefine "normal." I was going to Dallas whenever I could. My stepmother worked four days and had four days off. On her days-off blocks, she drove to Dallas. My sister somehow managed to get herself to school on a daily basis. I went back to work, getting paid to watch ballgames. I even took another stab at college. I got promoted to a full-time position at work. My sister graduated from high school and started college. I moved out of my parents' house.

Then my dad came home. Christmas 1989. He came home, but it wasn't the momentous occasion we all thought it was going to be two years previous. He was going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He was basically paralyzed on his left side. His short-term memory was non-existent, his long-term memory foggy. He would require 24-hour care for the rest of his life. You could hold a very rudimentary conversation with him, but nothing more.

In the 12-plus years since, little has changed. It's never going to.

I never had a simple relationship with my father -- I couldn't begin to explain it here, although someday I might try. He was 37 on Nov. 24, 1987; your quick math reveals that he was 18 when I was born. He and I kind of grew up together. My sister and I stayed with him after my parents divorced in 1980. For most of my childhood, he didn't understand me and I didn't really understand him. But at 19, I was starting to. We were finally starting to communicate on a common level, and despite our disagreements and the fact that he worked too much and I was rapidly following in his footsteps in that regard, we were starting to get to know each other fairly well.

I had finally forgiven him for getting remarried in 1982, which was a good thing, because my stepmother has been an absolute godsend in this situation. Think "above and beyond," and take that up about 25 levels. She has given up her life entirely for him.

I'll revisit this and fill in some details later. I'll leave you with this: I still owe my dad $20. I had borrowed money for gas on Nov. 21, 1987, to cover a game in Kansas City. Every time I see Andrew Jackson's face in my wallet, I'm reminded of that -- and the fact that I owe my dad so much more.