My Father's Death: A Short Story

It is astonishing how many things we take for granted. We make plans for the day, and don 't think twice about how those plans can be taken away in the blink of an eye. I never thought much about it myself, until I was faced with the shock, and undeniable truth of my father’s death. I don 't think anyone really contemplates about tragedy until they are actually faced with shocking news.

My parents had been divorced for quite a few years by the time my oldest sister’s sixteenth birthday rolled around. It was a beautiful spring day in May 2007, my three older sisters and I were sitting at the park with my dad enjoying my sister’s birthday with him before he was supposed to leave to head back to his home in Nebraska. We spent the afternoon laughing

My mom began to describe what happened; she had received a phone call stating that he had been in a car accident along with my stepmother, her father, and her three children. They had been on a trip to go see some land that we possessed in Montana. It was just a short trip and they should have been home within just a couple of days. Tears began to stream down my cheeks and I came to recognize and understand what was going on. My grandpa pulled me onto his lap and held me as my mom continued with the horrific story. She told us that they had stopped to get some gas and needed to check their tire pressure. My dad had checked all of the tires excluding the far front tire, the air hose wouldn’t range that far and he did not have the time and did not want to go through the hassle of moving the truck just to check it. So they left and were now headed back home. They had gone a few miles down the highway when they came to a big downward hill. As they were going down the far front tire, the same tire he refused to check, blew out. This caused the truck to roll three and a half times, landing them all overturned in the middle of the road. It had only been minutes