Whenever I thought of flash bulb memories I always thought of a fifties style camera. You know the ones with the large conical light that popped and crackled with every image captured. That camera has always been synonymous in my mind with trauma. One held to the mind’s eye when something horrible occurs to be preserved forever more within the individual, just like a photograph. When I learned about this concept all those years ago in that psychology class, I was young and inexperienced. The teacher had asked if we had any moments like that and I found myself sifting through the filing cabinets of my brain trying to see if any such photographs existed and came up empty. Back then I just shrugged it off as something that could never happen to me. This kind of stuff only happens in textbooks. It wouldn’t be until a few short years later when I would take my first picture.
You expect the day a tragedy strikes to be an odd one. As if something in the air is telling you that something is about to go wrong. But just as how it doesn’t always rain at a funeral tragedy can strike on a clear starry night. I remember waking up that morning in a daze. It all felt so dreamlike. Everything felt perfect and in its place. The house was still and quiet and the light filtering through the windows was soft and dreamy. I had only experienced a day like this twice in my life. One golden afternoon that blazes in my memory at the height of my youth and the day my dad died. Going up the stairs into my living room felt like walking through a memory. The sound of a movie was playing from the television and I found my dad sitting alone on the recliner.
He looked up at me as he had done many times before but something in his movements felt a little off. But that week was especially grueling in the shop so I quickly shook off that thought. I couldn’t help but wonder if I would be like this when I was older. Bogged down by incessant stress. Working long hours to make ends meet only to collapse upon returning home. He was only 43. Too young to be looking this tired and worn out. I always imagined that to be a bleak life and yet here my father was confined to these fetters to provide for us. The stress couldn’t have been good for him. It’s not good for anyone. It was no wonder he wound up developing type two diabetes and congestive heart failure. The body can take only so much before it starts showing signs of cracking.
The thought that I should hang out with my dad bubbled up in my mind as I went about the house. We hadn’t hung out one on one in a while and everyone else was out of the house for the day. We had a habit of every now and again watching anime together, just the two of us. Mom would often shake her head at whatever we were watching because she couldn’t understand it. But we could. That was something I would secretly brag to myself about. That I could watch these types of shows with my dad. A carousel of shows flashed through my mind to see if there was anything worth watching at the moment. But I came up empty. Nothing of interest stood out so I continued on my original track and I put on the kettle and offered him some tea, another thing he and I shared a love of, but he declined.
As I moved to return to my room I once again stopped and thought about going back to sit with him. But I had just gotten a new book the day before and I was itching to crack it open. I mean there is always next time, right? I told my dad I would see him later. He just nodded his head and told me he would see me later. I then holed up in my room until dinner nestled down with that book I can now hardly remember. From there everything proceeded as normal. My mom came back home with dinner. My brother locked himself in his room to do who knew what while my parents and I had dinner while watching a movie as we pretty much did every night, and everything was just as how it should have been. My dad cracking jokes. My mom was rolling her eyes. Everything was just as it should be, everything and everyone were in their place.
It wasn’t until I got up to get ready for bed when the night truly began. I got up as I had done a million times before and began making my way to my room. My dad sat in his recliner as he did a million times more. Then he flopped his head back and began to make snoring sounds. At first both me and my mom thought it was just another one of his jokes. He would always act like he was put out or make some kind of fuss when we went to bed early. I would often laugh at him and tell him that I was leaving whether he wanted me to or not. Soon enough he would fake an outrage and join us in our nightly routine. But he just kept going. When I realized that this wasn’t a prank was when my mother tried to rouse him and he wouldn’t snap out of it. But no matter how my mom shook him or slapped his face he wouldn’t come out of it. It all happened so fast. My heart began to race. A million thoughts began to rush through my mind and it was hard to snag even a single one. A feeling of dread and fear began to creep up my spine at that moment. As if I was sensing something terrible had just happened. On the outside I felt like I was calm and collected if not a little shaken. But on the inside I was a melting pot of emotions from anxiety, to fear, and a little anger was mixed in as well. I went to grab my phone and shook it towards my mom.
“Should I call 911?”
“Yes”
Yes. I felt my heart bottom out. I hoped against hope she would have laughed it off and said she knew how to handle it. I could feel my ears ring and my hands shook as I began to dial. It was unbelievable. I mean, you only ever call 911 in an emergency. Is this what an emergency was like? I remember how calm I sounded on the phone with the operator. How my voice did not shake or stutter once. At that moment I felt like I was a million miles away from my body. Like I was somewhere else watching this scene play out before me.
The operator told me the ambulance was on its way and in the meantime we should administer CPR. My body seemed to move on its own and suddenly I was standing over my dad and helping my mom count compressions. I felt a tingling in my scalp as I helped her count compressions and my body felt like it was going in and out of numbness. As I counted I remember thinking I had never seen someone turn blue before. I had watched movies with scenes such as this but never in my life did I think I would ever see it first hand. I remember thinking how weak my dad looked. This big strong man who seemed to carry the weight of the world looked so fragile and so, so still. I had heard some of the arguments my parents had gotten into over the years about how much my dad worked and how unhealthy it was for him. I had always heard the phrase stress was a killer but I hadn’t really given it much thought until that moment. Before I had seen my dad as unbreakable. A little tired at times, yes but never breakable. In that moment it felt like my entire world was collapsing and remaking itself. It was like I could hear the shutter of that camera in my ear.
Click, Click, Pop. Forever searing this image into my mind.
It felt like years before a knock sounded at the door. In reality it must have been all but five minutes. That’s the thing about emergencies, they warp your sense of time. One second can stretch on for a millenia. Meanwhile five minutes feel like a blink. Once the first responders got there and began working on my dad, my mom retreated to the dining room. Just out of sight but still where paramedics could ask her questions. It was a flurry of motion and I found that I spent a majority of it in the kitchen. Nobody was there and it felt safe. I felt like my world and everything I knew was collapsing.
I found myself thinking about what I was going to do now. I was so afraid. Afraid for my dad. Afraid for my mom. Afraid for me. I felt like a child again in that moment wanting her dad to hold her and tell her everything would be ok. I hoped everything would be alright. They would just take my dad and by tomorrow we could visit him in the hospital. All would be well. I just had to make it to tomorrow.
In that moment I knew that me and my brother could only do so much for my mother. My brother had kept himself away from this chaos for a long while. It wasn’t until the paramedics arrived that I remember seeing him in the kitchen. He had such a blank look on his face as he watched my dad being worked on by the medics. Something I wasn’t strong enough to do. I could see in that moment that both of us were almost thrust back into a childlike state. Neither of us knew what to do at that moment.
I needed someone who could stay with her and give her strength where I would not have been able to. So I slipped into my brother’s room and called my grandmother. My hands shook lightly as I dialed her number. It took a few moments for the call to connect but every second felt like an entire year. I remember I didn’t even bother with pleasantries the moment she picked up. Words came tumbling out of my mouth trying to explain the situation while also keeping some level of calm. I could hear the chatter of the tv in the background that she always kept a bit too loud. The line went quiet for a moment as she took it all in before she just said simply “I am on my way”.
By the time my grandmother finally arrived the paramedics were wrapping up their work and my mom got ready to go with them. It felt like snapshots passing before my eyes. One minute they were working on my dad.
Click. The next they were carrying him down the stairs.
Click. Finally my mom was out the door with them to join my dad.
Click, click.
They never really tell you how quiet and still it gets after an emergency. When you are standing in the aftermath surveying the damage. Like how the couch was broken when mom shoved it away to help the paramedics get down the stairs. Or the cups and plates left about from our forgotten dinner. I don’t remember how long I just stood taking it all in. In my head I could hear that invisible camera clicking away at my misery.
When I finally came back to myself I began cleaning up the living room and doing my bed time routine. I needed normalcy at that moment. Something to tether me to reality so I wouldn’t break. I expected myself to be a trembling mess in the wake of all that happened but I was eerily still. My hands were sure and focused and I moved around the house with a confidence I have always had.
In my head I didn’t want to break down. I couldn’t. I settled into my bed and tried to rationalize my way through it all. I kept telling myself that my dad would be fine. He would just spend the night in the hospital, my mom of course would be annoyed, and tomorrow I would go visit him and all would be well. It had to be. Soon this would all just be a dream that I could laugh at with my family one day. Especially my dad. He would never live it down. I tried to forget what just transpired by watching a movie. Perhaps a bit of a distraction would take a bit of the edge off. But not even half way through did I hear the jingling of keys in the door.
It hadn’t even been an hour yet. But here she was back home. A foreboding hit me like a freight train. But in my mind I was trying to come up with a million explanations. Maybe the doctors sent her home to get some rest. Maybe dad didn’t want her there at the moment. Maybe she came back to get me and my brother. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I held my breath as I walked up the stairs, my heart racing a million miles a minute. When I joined her in the living room she grabbed me and my brother and just held us as she apologized. No tears, no shaky breath as she held it together, no collapsing. My mind just went blank. It was like my head had been empty of all thoughts. Control. Delete. They slowly came back but trying to put together a response to this bombshell was a herculean trial at best. I looked over at my brother but just like before his face was a stone cold mask. I had the fleeting wonder of if he would even cry at all.
Growing up I had never understood why in movies when a character in a movie received bad news they always assumed it was a joke. They heard earth shattering news and yet all they could do was ask if it was a joke? It wasn’t until that moment when I finally understood what was going through their heads. Your mind is too numb to even begin to wrap your head around what was just said. You want so badly for this all to be a dream, a trick, a farce, anything for this waking nightmare to be over. To go back to yesterday when everything was fine and nothing could hurt you. At that moment I wanted her to be joking. At any moment she would push us away and say “just kidding he’ll be fine”. I wanted her to say that so badly. I would forgive her for it. Just say it was all a joke. But she just held us tight. I didn’t cry at that moment. No. The tears would come later. Same as the rest of the family. At that moment I just wanted to remember how to breathe again.
Click.
Emily McKinnon is an undergrad at Kennesaw State University and has been writing ever since she took a pencil into her hand. She has always had a soft spot for fairytales, especially those with a macabre twist. Perhaps this is why stories like Alice in Wonderland inspire her so much.