I can't say that my father was a perfect person, he had opinions that many consider outdated or offensive, but he was the kind of person who decided to live his life doing the least harm possible and doing the right thing as long as possible, without negatively affecting his life or his family, whenever possible he would help others, but his priority would always be his immediate family.
Thanks to that nature on several occasions he had quite a few problems, the problem that I remember the most, was related to my grandmother, a conservative, stubborn, and quite uncompromising woman, and although she loved him and treated him like one of her favorite children since he chose to stay close to her even after getting married, it can be said that she always hated my mother, because she considered that my mother was not enough for her son, and although he loved his mother, after a couple of incidents, he completely distanced himself from my grandmother, to the point that he did not personally meet her for more than a decade, simply sending messages for holidays and birthdays, and although they reconciled it was only when my grandmother did not have much time left, to be exact their reconciliation happened about 5 months before she died.
I still remember that day as if it were yesterday, being a simple day living with the new member of the family, who was in our care, since no family member could or wanted to take care of her; on that day my father was working a full shift and would not return until the evening, my sister and I were at school, and our mother was taking care of my grandmother and taking care of the house, but around 10 in the morning something terrible happened, my grandmother had what I suppose was respiratory failure, my mother in a state of desperation sought the help of a neighbor with a naruto of her own, with which they managed to take her to the hospital where she stabilized, but when they allowed her to return home, something strange happened they did not make new medications, nor a note to claim more of the medications that kept her in a stable state, perhaps that should have made us realize something, but we were too relieved that everything was okay, to realize that something was very wrong, but we only stopped to think about that event when the tragedy was over.
To make a long story short my grandmother had terminal cancer, and because she was well enough and conscious enough, she was able to choose to hide her condition, because of the patient's right to privacy, no matter how much he asked at the time, the doctors refused to give any information about her true health status, and even if he hadn't withheld her information the person listed as her caregiver was an uncle living across the country who was unable to take care of her anymore due to an accident in which he broke his leg, losing his job, which made it quite difficult for him to take care of himself so his ability to take care of someone else was questionable.
In the end, the lie didn't last long because after a little over a week, the problem repeated itself, and although they managed to get to the hospital again, this time my grandmother was barely alive when she got the hospital, and just a few minutes later the same doctor who always treated her gave the news that she had died, news that devastated my father who seemed to have aged in a matter of minutes, I remember that moment clearly, it was the first time I remember seeing my father cry, the stoic, seemingly indestructible man, who never complained and when faced with problems always looked for a solution, instead of complaining or feeling sorry for himself.
But that day I saw my father cry, the same man who didn't even create problems when a lifelong friend stole 6 months of salary from him, leaving his family in a precarious situation, the same man who worked for years with a foundation and didn't complain when they fired him and stained his name with lies, and although those actions could not make him look weak, he became a very respected person, since he was a calm, serious man with firm beliefs and attitudes who never compromised his values and principles, but based his behavior on a simple verse from the Bible:
"Therefore, my beloved brothers, let every man be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry because the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."
James 1:19
Something that represented his belief that it was bad and even stupid to act when you were very affected by emotions because you can say or do things that you will regret later and that cannot be fixed, that is why when he spoke or acted he did so with a firmness that is difficult to imagine, which left no room for questions or doubts.
But that day that attitude disappeared completely, and the first example of this is how he ran out of work without even telling his supervisor, an action that would have consequences later, but that was only according to other people's stories because that day I was at school with my sister.
And the way we found out the news was a call to the principal's office, made by my mother, who felt that the family needed to be together at that time.
I can still remember being called into the principal's office, as a senior student came into the classroom telling the teacher that I was needed in the principal's office. I was surprised when I found my sister there, but nothing could have prepared me for the news I was about to hear.
I admit it was just surreal to hear the principal I had only seen a couple of times in a year offering condolences saying that a domestic calamity had occurred in my family, that my mother had requested our release, and that she had called us there to send us home.
I still remember my sister's reaction, the shock on her face, how she began to process the news, only to begin denying the news with the forced denial of someone who knows the truth but refuses to accept it, followed by tears and uncontrollable crying, which eventually calmed down.
After that revelation many things were blurred, I barely remember that I didn't cry, I don't want to seem like a bad person, but I barely knew my grandmother and although she was living with us, she was spending time with my mother, my sister, and my father, making up for lost time with her son, repairing the relationship with her daughter-in-law and occasionally telling stories from the past and spending time with her granddaughter, and I simply wasn't interested in getting close to her, because I didn't see the need, besides having lived more than half of my life with her absent from my life and I didn't feel anything in particular towards her, I guess I just saw her as a visitor who was very loved by my family but had nothing to do with me.
In the end, I ended up feeling guilty for not feeling sad, about the death of someone so loved by my family, because during his funeral my father was emotionally destroyed, moving like a zombie, while my mother and sister sobbed intermittently, needing several breaths to calm me down, but I simply didn't feel the need to cry, maybe that makes me a bad person, but I simply didn't feel anything, I even tried to force myself to cry but I wasn't able to do it, for what was supposed to be a tragedy.
But the worst would not have happened, because only a few days after the funeral, my grandmother's children, who were either missing or too busy to take care of their mother or attend her funeral, finally decided it was a good idea to show up, but not to give condolences or keep the family together in a hard time for most of them, the truth is that the idiots were here looking for their late mother's possessions, bothering our little family in search of grandmother's "relics" since we are the ones she lived with and most of her things are still in our hands.
They were just taking care of her to get the inheritance, and now that she's dead they don't want to let us see what our mother left us.
Those were the words with which a group of ingrates made up of children and grandchildren showed up, they only made an appearance to show what kind of people they were and to demand documentation and the earthly possessions of someone they supposedly loved and who had only died a few days ago, that situation irreparably broke my father's relationship with his siblings and our relationship with the rest of his father's family, and in the end my father, tired of everything, handed them everything in silence without fighting, without shouting or arguing, but when he left it was in silence and calm just like the same day he handed over everything that belonged to his mother.
But just a few years later tragedy would strike our little family again, because one day during the holidays, after I had graduated, I was working with my father on repairs for the house, in every sense it was a completely normal day, but the night of that day would change everything because in the middle of the night my father began to feel ill, his body was cold, he had difficulty breathing, his heart was beating too slow, something that got worse with each passing second, at a time when there were no public vehicles or anyone capable of driving and taking us to the hospital and the ambulances took too long, at that moment the situation seemed desperate, it seemed that my father would die right in front of my eyes without me being able to do anything.
Then my mother came up with an idea that would change everything, or maybe she didn't want her children to see their father die, but at that moment she sent me and my sister to a 24-hour coffee shop, a place where the police officers who patrolled during the night used to stay during the holidays, so they could quickly respond to the typical holiday fights.
Fortunately for us, they were there and not responding to an emergency, which allowed us to ask them for help in taking our father or mother to the nearest hospital, although we did not know it at the time, our actions only delayed the tragedy that would eventually come but could have been avoided.
Well, after a few weeks of uncertainty and prayers, my father died hours after leaving an operating room, an operation that was supposed to solve his problem, but it didn't, and shortly after his heart failed at 10 at night, and we found out about all this while we were at home through a call from my mother, and this time I did cry, which is a euphemism for saying that I collapsed, being unable to get up properly to go to the hospital, and my sister, in a state of denial, couldn't have been in better condition.
The next thing that happened, happened in a blur, unlike with my grandmother when I could remember exactly how it all happened, this time it all happened too fast, one moment I was collapsed and taken to the hospital with help, and the next I was collapsing at a funeral while crying and regretting everything I didn't tell her, the advice I didn't listen to and the time I didn't value, in the end, it all felt like a single day where I barely slept, but by the time I was back to myself, it had been 3 days which felt like less than a day.
After this, I had to find out what was happening around me through the voices of other people, the most notable thing was finding out that many relatives I barely knew were asking for a copy of my father's death certificate to request leave from work to attend the funeral, but after the fiasco that happened with my grandmother the trust was broken and my mother chose to remain silent pretending not to have the papers, because if they were capable of doing something so horrible to their mother what wouldn't they do to a brother they hadn't seen in years.
And of so many friends that my father thought he had, very few remain, just being superficial, one had a large amount of money and tools that he had at his workplace before blocking our numbers, another to whom he lent money to buy a motorcycle decided to renege on the debt because my father was no longer alive to collect from him and the legal process would be more expensive than we could pay because the loan was a personal agreement and the last unfortunate woman decided to steal what was left of my father's business, offering a pittance as supposed compensation, which does not even compensate 10% of the initial investment that my father made years ago.
It was obvious that no one in our family was happy with so many crawling animals taking advantage of this misfortune that befell our family. At that time, we suffered for months trying to fix the situation and although we recovered many things, the truth is that we were unable to do anything with the others. That left me full of anger and wanting to make everyone who ever played with my father's kindness or took advantage of his death pay.
But the worst was yet to come, almost two months after the tragedy when we were finishing the paperwork for the life insurance, I found something very out of place, some small lines where it was reported that my father had the typical heart problems of his family, but additionally he also had a heart problem that made it unfeasible to apply general anesthesia because it could cause his heart to stop, that note was almost a year old at that time, something curious because the person who performed his operation did not mention any problem with any type of medication and much less a problem with the anesthesia.
As soon as I realized this, I began to notice other irregularities in my father's death, which revealed that his death could have been avoided and that his wife's death was not caused by simple negligence or a lack of information, someone had caused it...
TO BE CONTINUED…...