Returning Home

Write about returning home.

The only story about returning home I can really think of is the one time I wasn't really excited to go home, it was September 2, 2014.

It all started with a phone call. My best friend called me at work. I had left my phone in the car, figured it was okay in there until lunch since no one called me at work anywhere. My desk phone rang and it was my bestie calling me at work. That never happened so I knew something was up. She was calling to tell me mom had collapsed at church. There weren't a lot of details, and this had happened before so we weren't too worried. I just told her to keep me posted and let me know when there were more details. That was in the morning-ish.

At lunchtime I got the second call, the one with more details. I remember I held it together okay until I got off the phone. There were words like "cardiac event" and "regulating her blood pressure and her body temperature" Scary things like the fact that they had to shock her heart back into rhythm multiple times.

While I totally lost it in the hallway, Dr. Hedemark was in the break room, trying to figure out how to get me home. He booked a flight and all my coworkers pitched in and purchased me a ticket home. Dr Hedemark knew how important it was for me to be there. He and the other staff somehow got me on a plane and heading home to be with my mom and family not three hours after talking to my best friend at lunch. Not only did they get me a flight but they had someone take me home to get my stuff, take my car home, and get me to the airport. They all made sure I had pocket money for a meal and everything I needed.

I got to the hospital that evening. Mom's condition hadn't changed much. They ended up classifying what she had as a "sudden cardiac event" and after several days and much testing it was determined that her brain had suffered irreversible damage and even if she were to come back, it wouldn't be her. Our family made the decision that she would have wanted, and that was to remove her from life support. Myself and my best friend stayed with her until she took her last breath. That was a hard, hard time for me.

In the midst of that, I knew that had it not been for my work family, I wouldn't have made it home in time for many of the decisions that had to be made.

This was a bright spot in the darkness of the moment I was dealing with. To this day, this moment touches me so much that I tear up. My work family means so much to me because I know they are more then just coworkers. They have come around me in my time of need and helped me get home to be with my mommy when I needed to be with her most. They helped me get home to hold her hand as she took her last breath. For that I am eternally grateful.