My father had gone down to Sioux City, Iowa on the Labor Day long weekend and ended up on Aug, 31 (my birthday) in a head-on car collision, requiring the ‘Jaws of Life’ to pry him free. (The car was a write-off and the doctors were surprised that he survived.) My mother, who was working back in Winnipeg, had to take a leave of absence to go to Sioux City’s hospital to help nurse him back to health. They flew home together about 3 weeks later.
At the time, here in Edmonton, age 26, I was about to start teaching in Edmonton Public and, when I heard of his accident, wanted to go to be with him as well. I asked if I, too, could get a leave, but the school board refused my request, so I had a dilemma on my hands. I felt I should go to be with my parents, but, at home, I had my wife and a six-month-old child, and I was told in no uncertain terms that I would lose the job if I didn’t show up for work on the first day, Tuesday. Basically, I would lose the job I had planned on after teaching 3 years in the country. (We would also have no income since my wife was at home with our child.)
I thought long and hard about this dilemma. What would you have done?
(newspaper photo of the accident from the Sioux City Journal, Monday, Sept. 1, 1975)
In the end, after much deliberation and consultation with my wife and mother, I reported to work on Tuesday, reluctantly deciding that my mother’s being there for my father would have to be ‘enough’.
As for my Dad, he made an amazing recovery, though he had stomach problems and claustrophobia for some time after. My parents came to visit at the end of the month to attend my sister-in-law’s wedding and they both danced together at the banquet! But for another year or more, my father kept picking glass particles out of his eyes from the near-fatal accident.
(Recalled to life: Delmar Vernon Davies, by Christmas that year, wearing my cap and muffs)
What was equally amazing, he appreciated his second chance at life, becoming a non-tippler, a doting grandfather, and a much better person. The character change was like night and day; his ego vanished and he began to look out for others all the time. The rest of the story: the accident happened when he was 49 and he lived to be 72, being able to see both of our kids graduate.