Ultimate Tragedy

Ultimate Tragedy

Doreen Pchajek

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Doreen Pchajek

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

E-book Layout and Cover design by Marianne Curtis

Printed by CreateSpace

ISBN-10: 1508586160

ISBN-13: 978-1508586166

Smashwords

ISBN - 9781311463845

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One - The Day That Changed my Life

Chapter Two - Saying Goodbye

Chapter Three - Stacey's Funeral

Chapter Four - My Stay at the Health Sciences Centre

Chapter Five - My Stay at Bethesda

Chapter Six - Home from the Hospital

Chapter Seven - Compassionate Friends

Chapter Eight - Gilbert's Syndrome

Chapter Nine - My Dad

Chapter Ten - Just Friends

Chapter Eleven - A Very Special Letter

Chapter Twelve - A Year of Painful Firsts

Chapter Thirteen - Irreconcilable Differences

Chapter Fourteen - The Year 1999

Chapter Fifteen - The Year 2000

Chapter Sixteen - The Year 2001

Chapter Seventeen - The Year 2002

Chapter Eighteen - The Year 2003

Chapter Nineteen - The Year 2004

Chapter Twenty - Here and Now

Chapter Twenty-one - For the Bereaved Parent

Chapter Twenty-two - How to Help a Grieving Parent

Chapter Twenty-three - Second Edition Update

About the Author

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the loving memory of my daughter, Stacey, who had always praised my writing skills and encouraged me to write a book.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Marianne Curtis for everything she did to help make this second edition possible. I absolutely love how she redesigned the cover so that Stacey is the first thing you see when you look at the book. Marianne has done a lot to help promote my book, including putting it on Amazon. I appreciate the fact that she saw the need for this story to get out there and took the initiative to make that happen.

Authors Note

I’ve been procrastinating about writing this book for five long years. So much has happened in these past five years that it’s hard to know where to begin. Although I am surrounded by people who love me dearly, I now feel very much alone most of the time. That is one of the biggest reasons why I decided to write this book. I want others who have experienced the ‘Ultimate Tragedy’ to know that they are not alone. It’s true that nobody else can possibly know what another person is feeling, but those of us who’ve experienced the ‘Ultimate Tragedy’ share an unspoken connection. We feel that we can relate better to someone who has experienced something similar to us.

I have titled this book the Ultimate Tragedy because I believe that there is no greater tragedy that one could experience but the loss of a child. Nothing could ever compare to the complicity of emotions and the pain involved with losing a child. If you have experienced the loss of a child, you will know what I’m talking about and hopefully this book will help you to realize that you are not alone and maybe some of my experiences will help you try to move on. Even if you have not experienced this yourself, reading this book will help you to understand what other people who have experienced it go through as they try to move on with this devastating void in their lives.

It has taken me a long time to get to where I am today. I will never "get over it" and I will never bring closure to it. In my training as a nurse, I had learned about the grieving process so I should’ve been prepared…wrong! Nothing could ever prepare someone for this. Please don’t ever tell someone going through this that they need to get over it or that they need to bring closure to it. We will never get over it and as for the word closure.I hate that word! We don’t want that part of our life to end or be finished. That child was and always will be a part of our lives and we cannot close the door and get over it. Some people who were very well meaning would tell me that I needed to get over it and move on with my life. Professionals tended to use the word closure. To me, hearing someone say that I needed to bring closure to it, was no different than someone saying get over it. All good intentions aside, this is not helpful.

This book is based on what I have gone through in the past six years and none of it is made up. It should leave you with a greater understanding on the subject and hopefully that knowledge will enable you or someone you know to live a life that’s not in darkness.

Chapter One - The Day that Changed my Life

My life, as I knew it, changed forever on the morning of May 27, 1998. The day started out much like any other day. We were totally unaware of the tragedy that awaited us. In fact, if somebody would’ve told me what was going to happen I’m certain that I would’ve thought they were nuts. Those kinds of things happen to other people, not to us. In retrospect, now I can see that there were signs. Little warning signs that for whatever reason I didn’t see at the time.

My husband Bob and I were getting ready for work. Bob had been a flooring installer for the past 20 years. It was in January of 1998 that he and a partner with whom he had worked for a number of years decided to open their own floor store. His partner, Debbie looked after the sales while Bob took care of the installations. I had recently done the RN Refresher course and returned to work in February of 1998 after being off work since February of 1991 when I was involved in a motor vehicle accident. Although my injuries were not that serious, I was not healing like I should have been and was subsequently diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ Fibromyalgia. It was a long, hard struggle but I was determined to be able to return to nursing. I think that I also thought it was an important lesson to teach my kids about not giving up and setting goals. I had always done nursing in a hospital before, but now I was doing Homecare and I was thoroughly enjoying it.

Cory, our eldest son (age 18) was sleeping in that morning. He had just come back home at the end of April after spending his first year in residence at university. The university is only a forty-five minute drive from our home, but we thought it would be easier for him if he didn’t have to travel back and forth. As it turned out, that was a big mistake on our part. Cory had a very chaotic and confusing first year adjusting to university life. He had always done very well in high school, graduating with honors. He was very level-headed and knew that he wanted a degree in computer science. I never would’ve thought that his first year would turn out the way it did. He was feeling somewhat depressed over how the year had gone and he didn’t yet have a job for the summer, which was why he was sleeping in that morning.

Joey, age 14 was getting ready for school. He was in grade nine, his first year in high school. He had always excelled in school and loved sports. He was small for his age and was diagnosed with a growth disorder. According to the growth plates that were done, he was about two and a half years behind in his growth. His small size was deceiving though, because he was strong and fast. He played hockey, soccer and football and he was very good in all sports.

Stacey, age 13 was in grade eight, her last year in elementary school. She was getting ready to go on a three day camping trip with the school, which she was very excited about. She had fundraised to pay for the cost of the trip and she just needed a little spending money. I think she had about $3.00 of her own for spending money but I wanted to give her a little bit more as I recall counting out my change. I can also recall my mom giving Stacey some of her spare change. My mom and dad’s house was attached to ours by a breezeway and we were very close to each other…both physically and emotionally. We moved out of Winnipeg to live in the country in 1989 and my mom and dad moved out here too. Bob built them a small house and attached it to ours with a breezeway. This would enable my dad to retire without having to worry about rent or mortgage payments. It worked out really well for both them and us. They were here for us whenever we needed them and we were there for them whenever they needed us. We all shared a very special bond and the closeness that my kids shared with their grandparents was insurmountable.

Bob left for work about 8:00am and five minutes later, Stacey started loading all of her camping gear in the family’s Ford Aerostar. Normally the kids took the school bus, but since Stacey had all of her camping gear I was going to drop them off on my way to work. By 8:15am we were ready to go. I expected the usual argument when we got out to the van over whose turn it was to ride in the front seat. Instead, Stacey looked at Joey and cheerfully said, You can sit in the front Joey.

I pulled out of the driveway and started driving down our road when I got a really weird feeling. I can’t really explain it but for some reason I pulled over and stopped. I turned around and started staring at Stacey.

She said, What Mom…what are you looking at?

I said, Just looking at you Stace…I’m going to miss you when you are gone.

She smiled and said, I know Mom, I’m going to miss you too. I meant that I was going to miss her while she was away at camp. If I had only known!

I started driving again and remarked that I didn’t think it would be warm enough for them to go swimming. Stacey said that she hoped it didn’t rain the whole time because she wanted to be able to wear the new bathing suit that she had bought herself. Then we were at the intersection. The same intersection that I had crossed thousands of times before without incident. I had to cross the TransCanada, which is a divided highway. I stopped at the stop sign and proceeded to the middle of the intersection when it was safe to do so. There is a yield sign in the middle of the intersection and I stopped and looked towards the oncoming traffic but did not see anything coming. If I had only got there a few seconds later…or waited a few seconds more. I would have spotted the truck in my blind spot. As I moved ahead so did it, so it stayed in my blind spot. I didn’t see it until a second or two before the crash.

Horrific sounds. That’s the first thing I remember when I came to briefly. There were voices and banging sounds. The voices were the people that were there trying to rescue us and the banging was them trying to get us out of the vehicle. I wasn’t conscious enough to see anything but I remember being totally confused and bewildered.

Apparently, the driver of the truck that we collided with thought that he should try to get us out of the vehicle. The only one he was able to get out was Joey. I don’t know what he was thinking when he laid Joey in the watery ditch but I assume he was just trying to get him a safe distance from the vehicle. The next passer-by who stopped to lend assistance was a 17 year old girl who had recently taken a first aid course. She saw Joey in the ditch with water in and she didn’t want to move him anymore than he had already been moved so she knelt in front of him and held his head out of the water.

Stacey and I were removed from the vehicle using the Jaws of Life. I think that I heard my parent’s voices there while they were getting us into the ambulance. The