My family moved to a new house when I was 10 years old. The “rumpus” room was downstairs, and the bedrooms, kitchen and living room were on the top floor. My mother never did like this house, but my dad had purchased it on a V.A. loan, and it was bigger than our old house, and in a newer neighborhood. We had been living there for 4 years when all of our lives were traumatically and permanently altered.

It was an ordinary day after school. I was downstairs watching Bugs Bunny and putting hot rollers in my hair, and my older brother and sister were upstairs watching Lost In Space. I always hated Lost In Space, and preferred the sophisticated humor of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

My dad had come home early that day from our liquor store. He had told my mother that he was tired, and wanted to come home and take a nap. She would stay at the store until the night man came to work the evening shift and close the store. The store wasn’t working out the way that my dad had hoped. In fact, he was planning on selling the store, and had a business meeting later in the afternoon to discuss going back to work for a brewing company that he favored.

I had heard him come home from downstairs. He had gone straight to his bedroom to lie down for an hour. At about 3:30 PM, I heard his alarm clock buzzing. I didn’t really think much about it, and continued rolling my hair. After a few more minutes, I noticed that the alarm clock was still buzzing, and I felt a touch of anxiety. I walked up the stairs and into the living room where my brother and sister were still sitting.

“Dad’s alarm clock has been going off for about ten minutes. Should we go and wake him up?” I said.

“He’s tired, better let him rest.” Said my sister Mary.

I went back downstairs, but felt unsettled. I could still hear that alarm clock screaming at me. “Danger Will Robinson, danger!” Was that Lost In Space, or fear welling up inside of me?

Once again, I climbed the stairs with the ugly green carpeting to talk to my brother and sister.

“The alarm clock is still going off, and I’m worried.” I tell them. They agreed that this was weird, so the 3 of us went to his bedroom to check things out

The door was locked, which we all found strange, since our parents rarely locked their bedroom door. We started knocking, softly at first, but then more frantically. “Dad? Dad?” We all called out to him. We remembered that they had a private phone line in their room, so we called the number and let it ring, hoping that we would wake him up. No answer.

Lost, we called our older sister Chris. She was 26 years old, and would know what to do. After some anxious waiting, she finally arrived at the house with the bedroom door key. She had to stop at the store first to get the key from our mom. I don’t think that our mom was alarmed at that point. She just gave the key to our sister, not suspecting that a crisis was enveloping her family.

We all huddled around the bedroom door. Chris stuck the key into the lock, and opened it. There lay dad, rolled over on his stomach (he always slept on his back). He was splotchy and blue.

All at once it was pandemonium. “Call an ambulance”, someone yelled. “Do CPR”, my brother Jim cried to my sister Mary, as if a 17-year-old girl would be able to step in and save him. We were all standing half in, half out of the bedroom, in some kind of delirious shock.

I asked my sister Chris if I could go outside. I had to get out of there as fast as I could. I ran out of the house, tearing hot rollers out of my hair as I flew down the street. As I was about to round the corner, I heard the familiar despair of sirens from fire engines, and I ran passed them as they moved toward the house that my mother had always hated.

I ended up at a friend’s house, and from her bedroom window I could see my driveway. I could see a gurney with a figure on it being brought down the cement stairs that led to my long driveway. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be there, but I couldn’t bear it. My entire being had told me to get out as fast as I could. It was an act of self-preservation, a flight or fight response.

A little time passed, and I remember my friend’s mother coming into the room. She said the words that I knew that I was going to hear. I had known it from the minute that I had heard that alarm clock beckoning. “I’m sorry honey, you’re father has died.”

My dad was dead from a massive coronary thrombosis at 54-years-old. He died instantly. No CPR, or a team of surgeons standing by could have saved him, but that would never ease the suffering of one 14-year-old girl.