The Day That Forever Changed My Life

On August 23, 1976, I awoke to a normal day.

I was fifteen years old, living with my family on a farm in white bread northern Indiana. We (school kids) were still in our summer vacation. Back then, it was right after Labor Day when we went back to school (because our rural high school had no air conditioning).

My father was a high school sociology teacher, and he was still on his summer break too (although he worked a second job in a facotry because teachers are never paid enough). That hot summer morning, he left the house early...

... and I never saw him alive again.

He was killed in a car accident. A semi pulled in front of his pickup on the Interstate (coming out of a truck stop) and my dad never had a chance to stop.

He didn't die instantly.

The hospital called the house. My younger brother Howard answered the phone. He was thirteen years old. They told him that his father had been in a major accident and that the family was needed immediately. I'm certain they told him the hospital name too, but all he heard was his dad was badly hurt.

My mother was at work. My grandmother O'Neal— my dad's mom lived right next to us in her own little house on our farm. I awoke to my brother crying and screaming. I walked out of my bedroom and went to the end of the upstairs hall, looked out the upstairs window there, and was just in time to see him running across our garden into my grandmother's house.

So Howard relays the message: Dad was in a wreck.

We lived in Wabash County; my mom worked in the city of Wabash. My dad worked one county to the south, in the city of Marion, in Grant County. So my mother had to determine which hospital he was in. She called the hospitals in both Marion and Wabash... and no one knew anything about dad. I think she might have even called the hospitals here in Madison County, in Anderson, where I currently live. Anderson is where my mother and father were both born, and we've always had relatives here.

Finally, as she is frantically trying to figure out where my father is, the hospital calls back to basically say, "Where are you?!? We said we needed you here an hour ago!"

Dad was in the city of Huntington, one county over to the east. What dad was doing over there that morning, we never did find out. Mom had no way of knowing that's where he was! She was frantic and furious that the hospital had given their original message to a kid instead of talking to an adult.

So we now are all headed to Huntington— mom, grandma, and Howard.... and I didn't want to go. My grandmother had also called my father's older brother— my Uncle Trevor— and he was on his way from Michigan. Since I knew there would be lots of people at the hospital, I wanted to stay home and call my friends.

My grandmother O'Neal told me, "Your father has been hurt! You're going!"

So I went.

We arrived at the hospital after almost an hour drive. We found out that dad had signed a surgery consent form. So he was conscious when they took him in. I was thinking he'd end up with a broken leg or maybe two— nothing super serious.

He went into surgery... and then came out... and then while in recovery, they rushed him back into surgery. Not good at all, but I didn't think anything of it. Dad would be okay. After all: he was my dad.

We waited.

At that point in the 1970s, my family was big into the brand-new CB craze. My Uncle Trevor had a CB radio. We had one too. Since Uncle Trevor was coming from Michigan (either Lansing or Flint, I don't remember which— he lived in both cities over the years), he didn't know where the hospital was. I would go down periodically to our car to send out radio broadcasts trying to pick him up. My job, basically, was to navigate him in.

As I came back up from doing a radio check for my Uncle.... I'll never forget it... I stepped out of the elevator on one of the upper floors of the hospital. And there was this long corridor to the surgery waiting room, past a nurse's station and other rooms. And my little brother saw me as the elevator doors parted... and he ran all the way down that long, long hall, shouting over and over, "Daddy died, Billy! Daddy died! Daddy died!"

Mom came after him. We all hugged, and I started to cry, but then squelched it. I knew even in the shock of those first moments that I needed to be 'strong'.

The reality of dad's death didn't start to sink in until we went the next day to make funeral arrangements... and then really sunk in at the funeral.

In 1976, does it surprise anyone that my Uncle eventually told me (after we'd buried dad in the O'Neal family cemetery days later): "You're the man of the family now"?

I remember thinking, "I’m fifteen years old!" The idea I was suddenly a man was unfathomable to me!

I don't fault my Uncle for what he said; he meant no harm; it was what men said to "young men" back then; but it certainly made for a chilling moment for me. I was like: How can a kid be a kid.... and then WHAMMO!!!... he's suddenly a man? And why again? Because someone died?

It was utterly mind-boggling.

Within six months, the only grandfather I remember– my mother's father– he passed away too. In one year, Mom first lost her husband and then her dad. I was very protective of her after that. I didn't realize for decades, until just last week, that I still seem to have unresolved issues because of that trauma. It's almost like I have a fear of 'abandonment' (even though I was never abandoned.)

Just last week was the 46th Anniversary of the worst day of my life. When I woke up on August 23, 1976, all was right with my world... and then that night, nothing was right with my world.

He was only 36-years-old when we lost him. I'm 61-years-old now. He never knew the man I am.... and I never had the chance to know him as a man. I knew him as Dad. "Fa," actually, was my nickname for him back then– short, of course, for "Father."

In his coffin, there was a heart-shaped pillow beside his head that said Fa. The mortician did the best he could, considering my dad's injuries, but he looked horrible.

There is no real moral here, kids... except, of course, life is fleeting and fragile. Show your loved ones how much you adore them every opportunity you have, every single day if possible.

I write as _Lightning Bolt here on Vocal... but I am William Markly O'Neal II.

My father, the original William Markly O'Neal is gone but not forgotten.

His immortal spirit lives on!

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