The day

I was only 11 years old at the time it happened. It didn’t occur to me that anything would happen. It just happened out of the blue. I didn’t know there was anything wrong. But unfortunately my father, David Rumelhart died on July 22, 1995.
What I thought it would be like any other day while waiting for the bus to take me to school. To pass the time, we would play with our animals, a white boy dog that we always referred to as Dog, a black girl dog who we called Star and a Siamese cat who I named Sassy off of Homeward Bound.
When I had arrived home that afternoon, I didn’t see my Dad anywhere. He was usually somewhere in the yard doing something for my Mom, Pam Rumelhart or just waiting for me to arrive home.
When I heard the devastating news, I didn’t know what she meant. I was really confused. It wasn’t making any sense. I kept saying to myself that I only saw him this morning and it couldn’t be possible.
There were so many people around the day of his funeral to completely understand the whole situation. I hardly remember his funeral. All I can really remember was the casket at the front of the church and various people sitting in the church.
It was soon after that that my mother decided to move into town. She couldn’t really continue to keep the farm up and work all at the same time, so she had to give it up.
Losing a parent at an early age is never an easy thing to cope with. Especially someone you hardly knew. It’s never something I wish upon anyone else. And now, it’s rarely a subject I talk about. And hardly ever mentioned was how he died. I only found out a couple of years earlier that he had colon cancer.