"When the bough breaks, The cradle will fall..."

I had my bedroom door shut. Listening to music or watching TV... I'm not positive, but the volume was loud enough that I never heard the thud.

The faint sound of footsteps and the front door slamming made me hit pause and listen at my door. Too confused, already... Why were they rushing?

The front door slammed again and I heard a man's voice. I opened my door and tiptoed to the top of the stairs and listened, my pulse quickening. "...he's on the ground... male, in his late forties... blood all over..." said the stranger's voice, coming from my own living room.

Male? Forties? Dad! I was down the stairs before the man was off the phone. I didn't really recognize him. I think he asked me my address and I told him. I went numb, in shock. The stranger looked so panicked, so scared... what happened to dad that scared this man?

Blood all over... I started towards the front door slowly, just as my mother came through it. She was panicked but managed to conceal the gravity of the situation off her face the second she saw me. I froze as she grabbed my arm, securing me from moving any farther.

"Are they sending an ambulance?" She asked. "Yes," the stranger said. Her grip tightened. I could see strings of Christmas lights littering the front yard through the front door. Dad had begun hanging them on the house today - our day after Thanksgiving tradition.

My mom slowly lead me through the front door with specific instructions to not leave the front porch. "What happened?" I asked, my chest painfully tight. "Where's dad?"

She sat me down and hurried through a quick explanation as she continued to look past me towards the driveway: "Daddy must have fallen off the ladder or the roof while he was hanging the lights."

I went to stand to go see him, but was pulled back down by my mother's firm grasp. "No, you stay here on the porch. You don't want to see him like this. Bailey, you stay right here, do you understand?" I nodded.

I sat there alone in my panic, wondering if my dad was even alive. Because people who are alive make noise... and I couldn't hear him.

The ambulance arrived and the EMTs scurried up the driveway disappearing behind the side of the house where my father's body lay.

Neighbors also began arriving, helping pick up the lights strewn across the front lawn. One of them sat down beside me, and as kind as he could, and tried to comfort me. And my paralyzing fear overcame my more docile attitude as I snapped at him, "Is my dad dead? Why won't anyone let me see him?!" He patted my leg and got up and resumed picking up lights.

He's dead. That's the only explanation... dad fell off the roof and died. This was my circulating thought as the minutes continued to tick by and I sat frozen on my steps. He's gone... he's gone... he's gone.

That's when the screaming started.

I felt such overwhelming relief. Screaming people aren't dead! He's alive! I began to wiggle on my step, anxious for someone to come tell me some news about how he was hurt and what the hell had even happened. But then the screaming got worse.

And it didn't stop.

I had been praying that he would just make a sound... any sound to let me know he was alive over there. But the screams of complete pain and agony pierced my heart leaving me, once again, alone and afraid for my father.

After what felt like an eternity, his screaming stopped. I could make out his voice through the jumble of others. My mother rejoined me on the porch, looking utterly worn and agonized. "They are taking him to the hospital. I don't think I can drive, honey, I'm too shaken up. Can you drive us there?"

"Of course," I replied. I ran in quickly to grab my purse and keys and was back out front just in time to see my father being wheeled to the ambulance on a gurney. I could see him looking around, searching until he found my face.

"I'm not going to die, sweetie," he yelled from the gurney. "Everything will be just fine," he said, right as the EMTs rolled the gurney over a large crack in the driveway, causing my dad to make an "oof" sound. Typical for my father, he laughed when it happened and waved at me until he was inside the ambulance.

My mother and I walked over to the driveway together, heading towards my 88 Saab. I looked down at my feet as I walked toward the car, just in time to avoid stepping in my dad's blood.



My dad suffered many injuries from this fall back in 2006. He broke both of his ankles, dislocated both feet, tore a rotator cuff, crushed his fibia and tibia right at the knee, and suffered a minor head injury. He was in a wheelchair for 7 months, relearned how to walk... he was even home by Christmas. My father fell from the top of our two story home while hanging Christmas lights, something he should have died from - could have died from. And we were blessed enough that he not only made it through every surgery, but was even able to walk again.