Warsaw Mommy Blog

March 14th, 2006; Warsaw, Poland:

I was about 2 months pregnant with Max, experiencing all the fun of all-day morning sickness and being exhausted by 8:00 PM. Piotr and I were one month and eight days away from our wedding, and I must have been one of the only brides I have ever known who really did not care about losing weight before the wedding. Walking down the aisle whilst knocked up gives you an automatic pass on the whole ‘I must look painfully thin in my wedding dress’ thing.

March 14th, 2006; Etobicoke, Canada:

In a weird kind of reverse situation, my Dad was going to the gym daily as he was eager to lose weight and look good in my wedding photos. On March 14th, he felt unwell after his workout and his trainer took him out to get some air, as they both assumed he just over-exerted himself on the treadmill. Sure enough, he recovered quickly and drove back home within 15 minutes. This much is known for sure, but beyond this point, nobody can be too certain what happened. What we do know is that my Dad called 911, but was unable to speak. By the time the paramedics arrived just minutes later, he was dead of a massive heart attack.

This wasn’t the first heart attack my Dad had suffered: it was his third. Truthfully, we all knew his heart would get him in the end, but none of us thought it would happen so soon. He would have turned 65 exactly one week later, on March 21st. That day in 2006, instead of celebrating my Dad’s life, we buried him. March 21st will forever be a confusing day in my head and my heart: my Dad’s birthday, the first day of spring, the day of my Dad’s funeral, my first trimester, so close to getting married. Beginnings and endings, and birth and death, and renewal and saying goodbye, all mixed up.

It was my brother Neil who had the gut-wrenching task of calling me here in Poland at 11 PM; Piotr answered the phone and told Neil that the pregnant woman was sleeping. Neil was apologetic but insisted that I be woken up – anyone who has ever been shaken awake at night and told some version of, “It’s your brother on the phone. He has to talk to you,” knows that the news waiting on the other end of that phone line is not good. It never is.

This was on Tuesday night. By the time we flew to Canada on Friday morning, Piotr and I had bought two plane tickets, packed, tied up loose ends at work and I had been to my doctor to tell her about what had happened. She was very concerned about me flying in my first trimester and even more so about the amount of stress the baby and I were under. But there was nothing for it: I got on the plane.

At the funeral, I spoke about my Dad and about my two huge regrets. One: that he was not going to walk me down the aisle at my wedding the next month. Two: that my child would never know their grandfather.

Yesterday marked four years since me stumbling out of bed to take my brother’s phone call; in terms of my regrets, the fact that my Dad did not walk me down the aisle and was not at my wedding is sad but I do not think about it very often. However Regret #2 is huge, still. I often look at Max and Alex and wish that my Dad was still here. He’d have delighted in this blog and in photos of the boys, he’d have sent baseball hats and shirts and care packages of sweets and games. He’d have insisted on us coming to Canada in the summer so he could take them to the cottage for swimming and sailing and boating. He’d have loved cooking for them and tucking them in at night and helping them roast marshmallows and mussing up their hair and putting sun block on their noses. And my boys would have loved their grandfather: his laugh, his teasing, his huge hugs. I wish they could have known him.

All I can do is show the boys his photo and talk about him. Since that is all I can do, I do it. But it’s just not the same.