The Rise of A Phoenix

Chapter Six-Memories, Reminders And A Father's Love

The most vivid memory was of the last time I saw my grandfather Thomas Joseph McFadden Sr. alive. It was after my father's motorcycle crash which was August 1, 2020. He'd come up to fix my parents' porch. He came into the house to say goodbye to me and grab his hat off the top of the dining room china cabinet and he looked at me and said, “My cancer bug's back, but we're McFaddens and we fight like hell.” I had no words, so I hugged him, told him I loved him and told him I would see him soon. I never saw him again alive. September 30, 2020 was the day they put his ashes in the urn.

I'm here, Pap. I need you. Remind me why I made it. I'm lost and I can't carry this on my shoulders right now. I know you're up there looking at me but I need your help. I'm still the same girl I was, I think, just with a little more knowledge, a little more scar tissue on my heart, and a little more steel in my blood. If you're listening, I never stopped missing you. I love you.

The dam broke then and tears fell from my eyes as the door opened and my father crossed the threshold. “I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, B. I have you,” he said as he crossed the floor and sat down in the chair beside the bed.

“ Dad, you don't know how glad I am to see you. It's been absolute hell.”

“I know. Take a breath. You'll be fine. I'm right here and I have you. You can do this. This is the easy part.”

I reflexively clamped my knees shut as repeated muscle spasms rolled through my hips one more time. Wow, That hurts. It's not through with me yet. It's going to be hell tonight. I bit back the urge to scream out loud as the pain racked my hips and spine. “Wow, this

hurts!” I screamed out loud as the pain reached its peak, clamping my left hand on the bed rail as I fought the pain with everything I had.

Everything stopped then, as if time itself had slowed down to a grinding halt and then I exhaled a breath I didn't realize I was holding in.

Well, that was intense. Time to bite the bullet and ask for the painkillers, you bullhead!, I thought to myself as I inhaled a slow breath. Everything felt raw, as though my hip muscles were hamburger meat being beaten with a tenderizing hammer.

“Dad,if it's this bad now, I won't make it through the next six weeks. I know that I'm not as young as I was when I broke it but I still should be able to handle the pain. The fact that I can't scares me a lot.” I reached over the rail and grabbed his hand.

Apparently, eighteen years does make a difference when it comes to how well you tolerate pain. I thought this as the pain went through my body like a rocket. It took my breath away with the speed of it and I gasped. I looked over the rail at my father's face and realized I was probably clamping down on his hand in reflex.

“ Sorry, Dad. I didn't realize I was making you lose feeling in your hand. Well then, here's your hands back.,”

I had my knees bent up towards my chest to take the pressure off my hips and spine and for the most part the unorthodox method seemed to work, and so I giggled at myself for being an i***t and not thinking about it sooner.

It was almost a blessing to get some relief from the pain of the surgery and the fact that my boyfriend was dead.

I looked over at my dad. He looked so brave sitting there. It was like he was trying to give me some of his strength and courage by sitting there and holding me so I was forced to look at him and it worked.

I looked up at him and instantly felt peace. It was like I was on top of the world and I could do anything in that moment. I settled down with that thought in my head and drifted off to sleep holding his hand.

He watched me sleep and marveled at the strength of my spirit and the fortitude in my body. Looking at me now, he had almost forgotten about my precarious birth and existence. He could almost believe that I was able bodied at that moment. It almost brought him to tears. I must have heard his breath hitch because I looked over at him.

“ I never thought I would see this day. My baby girl is a grown woman. I love you B. I always have. I always told you you were going to be beautiful and brilliant every night when I tucked you into bed and here you are. I don't know how I ended up so blessed because you weren't supposed to be here. They wanted us to give you last rites. I didn't tell you that story?”

“ No, but Mom told me parts of it.”

Just then, the door opened and Renee rolled through it in a wheelchair, holding her twins in her arms.

“Hi, I'm Renee. It's because of your daughter that I'm holding my healthy babies, sir. I wanted to tell her thank you and give her my number just in case she needed anything.,” Renee said to my father while handing me a folded piece of paper.

“Where's Tommy? I need to thank him too.,” Renee asked with a smile.

“Renee, he died two nights ago. He had an infection in his colostomy hardware and…I can't…his heart quit.,” I said, my àyvoice breaking.

“Oh, my God. Brittany, I'm so sorry. I know how you feel. I lost my husband right after I found out that I was pregnant with my twins. It's hard, but you're stronger than this. You just need to take the time to heal and grieve your loss. Lean on your family and the people around you who love and care about you, including me. You've got a strong attitude, a beautiful heart, and the mindset of a warrior. Remember that.,” Renee said this while wrapping her arms around me in a hug.

“I can't erase the memory of hearing the Code Blue alarm ring,

watching the resuscitation team perform CPR on him even though they probably knew their efforts were going to be in vain,and hearing the flatline of the heart monitor. He was only 32.

He had way too much life left to live, Renee. My heart hurts and can't wrap my brain around the fact he's gone.” I said this with tears in my eyes and I laid my head on Renee's shoulder.

“Oh, sweetheart, I know. It's gonna be okay. Shh, I've got you now. Cry it out. I'm not going anywhere.”

With that phrase, it seemed, Renee had broken the dam I had inside my body and I cried hard, drenching Renee's scrub shirt with my tears. My chest heaved as I tried to inhale a breath, and my lungs felt raw. I cried forever, it seemed, and it hurt to breathe. I just wanted to reverse time to when I was whole and complete, because I felt like I was neither of those things.

I couldn't stop crying and every time I tried, I thought about that last moment, holding his clenched fist as though I was trying to bring him back to life, and how rigid his body was.

I cried harder when I remembered that bodies in the early stages of rigor mortis don't bend and that was why I couldn't hold his hand properly. I still remembered the feeling of the warmth leaving his clenched fist as I sat there holding it, and it made me angry.

It made me angry because I was powerless to fight it and I could do nothing but let him go peacefully even though it broke my heart to do it. And I did. I thought of him up there in Heaven with a set of perfect angel's wings and it made me smile.

Say hi to Aunt Loretta and Uncle Bob for me, baby. Hope that you find everything you want up there because you didn't down here. May you be whole and complete again, and be everything you couldn't be on Earth. See you when I get there, babe. Love you always and forever, Hemingway.

I said this before I kissed two fingers and pointed them up to the ceiling as though I was sending the kisses towards Heaven.I dried my eyes using my scrub shirt in lieu of actual tissue. I exhaled a shaky breath before asking Renee if she had named her twins. Renee said,

“I'm naming the boy Darius Michael after my husband. I just need a name for the girl and I was wondering if I could use a variation on your name for hers. Not Brittany Alexus but Brianna Alexi.”

“A beautiful name for a beautiful baby girl. It's an honor I'm not really deserving of because you did everything. I just made sure you stayed OK when you did it.”

“You're way too modest, Brittany, way too modest. My husband would have loved to meet you. It's a shame the cancer took him first. He was a fighter though, even at the end. The cancer doctors caught it too late. Six months from start to finish.,” Renee's voice broke as she finished speaking, and she looked up with tears in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Renee. I can't imagine the pain you're feeling. I'm not even going to try. Cancer is a tough road and to have him not survive makes it all that much more difficult. I know that because my mom is a cancer survivor. Stage 2A breast cancer. Her last chemo treatment was my 18th birthday. I will never forget that phone call because I was angry with her because I thought she blew me off and forgot about me and then she told me she had cancer.”

As I finished speaking, I absently glanced at the hospital bracelet I still had on my right wrist.

Jailbroken, that's me. Freaking prisoner of my own body and its deformed anatomy and physiology. I got lucky I didn't screw up delivering Renee's babies because my body decided to sabotage me and go completely spastic from the hips down because if they had locked up on me, I wouldn't have been able to catch the head. You have to be kneeling to get a clear shot because the shoulders follow gravity and they usually come out right after the head does unless they're too broad to fit the four inch opening and they get stuck. Oh Lord, did I get lucky.

I must have been speaking out loud because I heard Renee whisper,

“No, honey, luck had nothing to do with it. You and God's grace did.”

I wanted to contradict Renee, but thought better of it and held my tongue. The reason for the contradiction was that I believed that God gave me the challenges I had because of the fact he was testing me to see how much I could handle before I broke. I was at the breaking point, it seemed. Tipping of the scales would only require a hair trigger one way or the other.