Eh...perhaps its the constant migraines that I have along with the stupid medications I have to take for them but I have revealed in a couple of posts that my parents are dead.

Yes, both of them. No it wasn't murder suicide. Though I'm sure my mom would have liked to have killed my dad on several occasions she didn't.

I am currently 36. My mom died when I was 13, my dad died when I was 28. And for what its worth (and its worth a lot to me) my beloved brother-in-law who helped raise me with my sister after my mom died - died when I was 26. Here's

My mom died after a long-short condition just after turned 13. She died because she had an enormous benign brain tumor which took over her cranium shoving her brain to the side and wrapping itself around her brain stem and penetrating into her spinal column. She died from the second brain tumor she had, or maybe it was still leftovers from the first tumor. When I was just barely four my mom who was maybe 41 or 42, started to have balance problems, more frequent "headaches" and vision problems and probably other things that I at four didn't know and am still not privy too. She caulked up her problems to being tired (she had five kids ranging in age from 17 to 4) and a military goofball husband, she also thought that because she was multiracial - mixed- a mulatto she was doomed to be weak and sickly. Whatever mom.

Anyway, when I was four we used to have family outing nights. Sort of public manners training slash my parents get to enjoy a meal out evenings. We went to a nice restaurant in my hometown all 7 of us. We ate dinner, my parents drink their glass of wine and had a smoke (hey it was the 1975 you could light up in a restaurant). Then we went to leave. My mom held my hand as usual and we talked. my siblings all talked and my dad stopped at the front to pay the tab. While we were waiting for my dad to finish paying, my mom suddenly let go of my hand and said, "Oh no!" and she collapsed to the ground hard. She was out we were panicked - everyone in the restaurant was panicked. I knelt near my mom (mommy then) and kept touching her face as she stared blankly straight ahead without blinking - "Mommy what's wrong? Mommy the floor is dirty you should get up. You always say don't lay on the ground it's dirty Mommy. Get up, Mommy." At the same time my dad and my sister (who was already starting her RN training at the local community college) and my brothers were calling out to my mom too. She just wasn't responding. Then she blinked one eye. My dad scooped my mom up off the floor and cradled her. He ran with her out to our station wagon. My sister grabbed my hand and hurried my brothers out too. We piled in the car. My seat happened to be in the front between my parents. Thought it was dark, I could see that my mom was breathing softly, her mouth was hanging open and drool was coming out and she was blinking every once in a while. She was leaning against me with all her weight and in turn I was leaning against my dad. My sister reached up front and fastened the seatbelt around my mom and I to stop us from leaning against my dad so he could drive. In the car I remember hearing my three brothers sniffling as if they were crying. My dad sounded shaky but in control he kept saying, "Deanna you're gonna be okay. We're going to the hospital right now just hang on 5 minutes sweetheart - just 5 minutes." My sister was crying but trying to comfort my brothers and take my mom's vitals at the same time. Me, I was quietly talking to my mom. "Mommy you must be really sleepy. You always tell me to go to bed when I feel sleepy and not fight it. You tried to fight it huh?" Then I remember she said "Yes, I fought." She said it really slowly and in a very low voice. I stroked her face the rest of the way to the hospital. Being a Navy family my dad had taken us not to the civilian hospital but to the Port Hueneme Naval Base Hospital. They corpsman rushed out and tried to take my mom out of my dad's arms but he refused. He carried her in. We all went in to the hospital and I remember asking my sister "Am I gonna have to get a shot?" Because every time we went there I got immunized. She said no there taking care of Mom. "Is she sleepy? Are they gonna wake her up?" My sister said "yes". And I went to sleep.

Next thing I remember was waking up in the station wagon in our driveway and being carried into the house. I don't remember when my mom came home perhaps just a few days later but I bugged everyone asking where the heck my mom was. Cause well she belonged to me. We spent all our time together and she was my property. When she did come home I remember it was only briefly, she was very tired. She had had a stroke. Her one side of her larynx was paralyzed permanently so her sweet feminine voice now sounded like Oscar the Grouch after he smoked a carton of Lucy Strikes.

While she was at the Naval Hospital, they ran every possibly test the could to figure out what happened. She stroked out because of her smoking. But the stroke was a good thing because if she hadn't had the stroke she won't have had a brain CT which showed a golf ball sized tumor on the outside of the lining of the brain behind her right ear. My sister said the first brain tumor was called a meningioma.

The Naval hospital and my dad had called all over the country to find out what should be done about the brain tumor. They biopsied it found it to be benign but because of where it was they were sure that it was what was causing her headaches, balance issues and other problems. So my dad found the best neurosurgeon at the time and he was at UCLA just 35 minutes from our house. And without me ever knowing exactly what was happened - my mom disappeared from the house one day with a beautiful head a Auburn colored shoulder length hair and next appeared in front of me with her head completely badged ans she had two black eyes - real shiners.

I couldn't understand what happened. I didn't understand what brain surgery was or a brain tumor. I just knew my mom was in a building that I had to be snuck into under a blanket. I was told not to touch my mom, not to excited her or speak at all. Just stand there in my pretty dress - where my dad placed me behind the door so the nurses couldn't see but my mom could. I didn't like it. Anyway, she came home after who knows how long - it seemed liked forever to a 4 year old and she had no hair. She couldn't walk without support. She had a huge bandage on the side of her head. She wore this funny afro wig for a while then she gave it up and wore beanies until her hair grew back. But she was home - she told me it was all over and done for good. Only it wasn't.

At first my mom recovered 100%. She was supermom again. Yeah she wobbled a bit but who didn't. Then the wobbling got worse. The headaches came back. She kept going to the eye doctor thinking she needed stronger or weaker glasses. Her speech would slur, and her hands and feet wouldn't do what she wanted. But she refused to go to her personal neurologist because as she later told me, "I was afraid they'd tell me what I already knew."

Finally, after begging and threats by family members and our beloved family doctor, who'd grown very close to my mom since his own mother had died of a brain tumor, convinced her to go and see her neurologist. The news was devastating - a new tumor. Benign, huge, still growing taking up at least 60% of her brain. Prognosis grim. The second brain tumor was again benign (not cancerous) and was believed to be a medulloblastomas.

This time since I was 9 - she told me. Told me everything about the new tumor and as much as I could handle about the previous one. My mom had been dying since I was 4 only I didn't know it. Boo freakin' hoo - no pity necessary I can dig up enough of my own.

Anyway, she had a second major brain surgery. The surgeon was a cocky ass, who after the surgery avoided speaking to her, tried to hide from my dad because he didn't want to admit he was human not superhuman. He finally did meet with my parents - he told them that in his gusto to get the tumor he damaged over non-involved portions of my mom's brain. She probably wouldn't walk again, he had paralyzed the left side of her beautiful face so that it just slide down making it difficult for her to eat, drink or speak. He told my parents that she probably wouldn't live out the reminder of the year. It was July of 1981. Got to love my mom and her stubborn b*tch streak. My granddad say it was his Orange Irish dander that made her fight. Cause she did walk, and she forced herself to live and enjoy living for the next two and half years.

My mom died at my sister's house whilst my sister was pregnant with my mom's first grandchild. She was happy. My sister and I were her caretakers until the day she died because no one else in our family could handle it. We were the ones that together found her dead one morning. My sister broke down, I went and looked for a pulse, fixed my mom's blankets, turned off her oxygen and wondered if she had called out for me to help her in the middle of the night but had chosen to sleep through her calls. We don't think she called for help, she died as peacefully as she could in her sleep listening to her favorite easy listening station on the radio. That was the day I began binge-eating. Eating to stuff the pain I felt but couldn't express. I should have gone outside and shouted at the neighbors for staring at our house or beat up some random little kid riding by on his bike or skateboard. Instead I sat by myself at 5'7 and 130 pounds and began to use food as a substitute for my missing mother.

So that was my mom she died when I was 13. She was only 48. We had planned to get her a deluxe lazyboy lounger to match the one we were going to get my brother-in-law. Instead at Christmas my sister and I sat huddled together hoping she'd stay pregnant and not miscarry.

My dad died inside from the day my mom died until the day he died. He was tormented by so many things he imagined he did wrong, things he really did wrong but had been forgiven for, and for anything else that he could dream up as punishment.

I'll have to tell my dad's story separately because he deserves his own entry.
But I'll say he died wrongly and prematurely in 2000 at a Veteran's Hospital in Long Beach, CA. My dad had been diagnosised by his private physician as having Parkinson's Disease and a pituitary tumor. He also had had quadruple bypass heart surgery and had congestive heart failure. He didn't go into the VA Hospital for any of these problems. He had a bladder/UTI infection from a catheter that was not sterile.

The VA Hospital knew he had a bladder infection and asked for permission to treat him. My sister who had power of attorney in his medical affairs gave them permission to treat my dad for the bladder infection with antibiotics. They did not. Nor did they give my father any of the medications ordered on his charts. Not his medications for his heart, or his Parkinson's, nor did they fee him or give him an IV. They then put 3 fresh medical students in charge of my dad's medical care along with a flaky Intern to oversee them. At no point during his three week stay did they ever treat him with the antibiotics they knew he needed or give him his other medications or any fluids or food. So my dad's bladder infection worsened, he started spiking fevers of 103, 104 105. The hospital would call us in the middle of the night and say "He's running a temp and delirious. What should we do?" Did you give him the antibiotics? Is the delirium because of the fever or because you haven't given him his Parkinson's meds or PTSD meds? "Um, we haven't given him anything yet."

It had been two and a half weeks since they had been authorized to treat my father. And they sat there and just watched him. So the next day my sister went to see my dad again. It was a Saturday. He was panting, sweating, his heart was racing, he was severely bloated yet showed signs of dehydration, his temperature was 105 and he was out of it. They would put a cup of water on a table across the room - when he was suppose to have an IV and a feeding tube. My sister because she is a nurse walks up to the nurse's station and grabs my dad's chart. She reads it all - they did nothing - gave him no medications, no IV, no food, nothing. They took blood and watched as his vitals went south. And there in my dad's chart were all the medical releases for treatment that she had signed and had notarized. All stamped that the hospital had received them the same day she had them notarized. But they did nothing. My sister took my dad's chart and should in the nurse's station and photocopied the entire damn thing. Then and only then did the nurse's realize that she wasn't an employee. Too late. My sister picked up the phone and called my cousin who at the time was like Chief of Cardiac Medicine at UCLA Medical Center and begs for help. My cousin agrees says bring the file, well get my dad out in the morning. My sister goes back to my dad - who she told me looked absolutely frightened. She told him not to worry "that we were going to get him out of this HELL HOLE before they could kill him. That we wouldn't let anything happen to him. He's not done yet." He nodded that he understood. My dad's girlfriend showed up then and my sister asked her to stay with my dad all night to make sure that he wasn't alone. She promised.

My sister left and drove to my cousins house. Showed him the entire file. He was pissed and shocked and anything else you could think of. He immediately starting making calls to move my dad to UCLA immediately and to have the VA investigated for failure to treat my dad. My sister left my cousin's feeling somewhat relieved and hopeful.

She called me Sunday evening and we talked about what had happened. I said that I wanted to try to come down and see my dad but that between work and school - it would be tough without a car. But I'd find a way. Finally, my sister and I managed to have a lighthearted moment because we discussed how my dad was always "doom and gloom" and use to say "Oh I would make it to the year 2000." And here it is September of the year 2000 and he's still kicking and we're not letting go. Then we hung up.

A few minutes later my phone rang again it was 10:40pm - in my family you don't call after 9pm unless its emergency. I answered it was my sister, "Dad is dead."

What? Stop joking.

"The VA just called they accidentally gave him the wrong medication and stopped his heart and couldn't restart it. He's dead."

"No. Poor dad. Ah...he must have been so terrified."

"Yeah, I cannot believe those f*ckers killed him. They made him suffer then they gave him the wrong treatment and killed him. Hey, they said they called you and spoke with you or left a message for you to call them. Obviously don't bother - they won, they killed him."

"Ok. Do the boys know?"

"Yes I told them, they're in shock. Andrew's crying and cursing at the VA. And Jeff just looks dazed. sh*t what are we gonna do? We don't have any parents left?"

"I don't know. You're the older sister your suppose to tell me what to do. But I suppose now we're orphans. Freaking orphans. And you're a widow single mom orphan - worse perhaps."

"Yeah. I'm gonna call Gary and Larry ( two of our three brothers) and let them know. I don't think this is going to go well at all."

"Yeah. Not well. I feel alone, I feel bad for dad- he didn't deserve this."

According to the VA autopsy which my sister and cousin had to demand - my dad died of a major urosepsis complicated by the administering of an improper medication which stopped his heart. The LA Coroner was made aware by my cousin that we wanted a full inquiry regarding my dad's treatment from the moment his was admitted into the VA Hospital to the moment he died.

He died September 2000 the VA never turned over their autopsy report or my dad's medical records to the LA County Coroner. So there's no official death certificate, which is a no-no. We contacted the VA ourselves, they said we would need a court order to have that info turned over to the LACC. Called the LACC who said bullsh*t - they are required to file the report for death certificate etc. To date that VA Hospital never has filed the autopsy report or turned over my dad's medical file. They now came those documents are either lost or misfiled.

He was only 62 when he died.

Before my dad died I was already seeing a Psychotherapist to deal with grief issues from my mother's death and from my brother-in-law's sudden death, and so I just continued for three more years to help deal with my dad's death.

Her conclusion - you have every right to be angry. But at some point everyone's parents die. It's not some rarity. - She was absolutely right. Everyone dies. It hard to deal with but you do. So I say I'm an adult orphan. BFD. Unfortunately some day everyone will be...

Here' s the thing I know I am not alone, many people have lost one or both parents at a relatively young age. But either you talk about or you don't and you do it for personal reasons. You cannot shame someone into talking about their loss nor should you and you shouldn't discourage someone from sharing what they've been through because the idea of your own parents dying seems unfaceable. At some point, you may have to face it better to know that their are people who made it through on the other side than feel alone in the process.

I don't have many pictures of my parents or of myself as a child because we (my siblings and I ) are trying to keep all of our family pictures together. In the photo albums in chronological order how my mom then my dad placed them. They had made individual photo albums for each of us and after many years we all have numerous photo albums of us alone and with each and with our parents. We keep them together safeguarded so that everyone can see everyone's history - no one person monopolizes a memory. But before my dad finished his last photo album dedicated to my mom he let me pick one picture of them together for a personal keepsake. So I could show people "Yeah I have parents and they're attractive and they were happy once."

This is the one picture I have of them together - its from a Navy Officers Ball in the 70s and my mom is wearing the Afro wig.