The 2 Year Anniversary

Here is the link to watch the full remembrance of the two-year King Sooper’s Shooting anniversary:

eTown Live Streaming

In a span of 2 years, I lost three major characters in my life. I lost each of them suddenly, in an instance. Whether you live in awareness of this or not, you are partially defined by the people who make up your life, who you surround yourself with. Who you speak to regularly, who you share your life with, and who you count on to be there are all key components in the every day story you live called life. When they are suddenly ripped from you, you begin to wonder who you are anymore. 

Anyone that knows me knows I get stage fright just by walking across the street. It stresses me to walk across a crosswalk in front of all the cars braked and waiting for the light to turn green. But some days I can dance across the crosswalk out of pure joy and childlike happiness in front of the traffic and care less, and those are the days I feel alive. 

On this particular day, I decided to be vulnerable and speak from my heart, and I’m proud I did. I believe in what I said here and I want to share it. I work on living by these truths every day, and the loss of my Mom, my Dad, and Lily have left me wanting to live this way. Their lives deserve to mean something for us left here.

I called the nurse that was with my Dad in his final moments on the 2 year anniversary of my Mom’s tragic death just a couple of hours before I got on the stage to remember her and the 9 other families, without knowing what I was going to actually say. I figured it would come to me, but knew there was a risk that the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of speaking in front of people, would override the ability to speak from my heart and I would get on the stage just to look at the crowd, shudder, and get right back off of it. I thought maybe after I faced this conversation, I would know. The phone rang twice before a sweet voice answered with a quiet, “Hello?” 

I shakily began with, “Hi there…I’m sorry to bother you, my name is Olivia… I received a voicemail from this number back in December, and I -“, before I could finish, she interrupted me with a gasp, “Oh my goodness, you’re Mr. John Mackenzie’s daughter, aren’t you? How are you, honey?” 

I broke into tears and she met me with hers. I truly was curious if my Dad had any last words for me or for my brother…

He didn’t because he didn’t know he was going to die. My Dad was almost arrogantly tough, and he was sucking up the pain he was feeling in his chest, brushing it off.

“We were going through his left arm trying to open up the artery that was blocked, and the doctor was at his head working on that…” she explained.  “One thing that stuck out to me,” the nurse broke our shared sadness with, “Was how your Dad, in the middle of us working on him, asked, “How’s it going up there, Doc?” – I thought it was funny the way he asked,” she said almost curiously, like she had actually been thinking about it for a while. I laughed in response, picturing my obnoxiously confident Dad, piping up in the middle of his emergency procedure and poking at the doctor who was trying to save his life. I could easily hear his animated self asking that. My heart glowed a bit picturing it.

“A few moments later, his heart rate began to drop, and we did CPR on him for what felt like… forever…” her voice got quieter as she remembered. 

I asked her, “He really didn’t know he was going to die, did he?” There was a pause and a sigh. “No ma’am… he didn’t.. he didn’t know he was going to die at all,” she said sadly. 

This nurse was so kind. She is so kind. She explained to me how she had a few sleepless nights. It bothered her that someone like my Dad could drive 20 minutes to the ER and walk in upright, tell the front desk he was experiencing chest pain, and remain alert to converse with their cath-lab team. “He was talking to us just like you and I are talking right now,” she explained to me. He was with us all the way up until his last heartbeat. 

Him dying that way bothered her. “I’ve been doing this a long time; I’ve seen a lot of kids… sick people. But when it’s so sudden like that, when they’re talking to you one moment, and they go so fast, it bothers you,” she said. I was empathizing to a small extent, as only a little over a week ago, I had experienced the unlikely event of a patient dying in front of me so quickly and so suddenly, wondering if we had done everything right. This nurse had spent a couple of sleepless nights wondering how she could have saved my Dad and if there was anything she could have done differently. 

“Afterwards, our entire cath-lab team began searching. We went on Facebook and through his phone, trying to find out who to contact, and when we found out about your Mom… our hearts completely broke. We were very emotional. We think of you and your brother. We think of your Dad and your Mom all of the time. We are here for you. If you ever need anything, you can call us, day or night.” To hear this coming from a nurse when I work 40 hours a week with nurses, techs & doctors, I feared my Dad was treated as just another patient; hearing this from her provided so much relief. I was relieved he left this Earth surrounded by such a caring group of people.

“We aren’t allowed to go back and look at his scans unless it’s for teaching purposes, but I have itched to go back and look to see if there were any signs of Takots Ubo,” she said. “Takots… what?” I asked, confused. She spelled it out for me. “It’s a Japanese term. I wanted to go back and see if that’s what your Dad had; you can see in the scans if the heart attack was caused by recent periods of intense emotional stress… If it was heartbreak… I can’t say for sure, but my gut tells me that’s what this was.” I again felt relieved hearing her say this. Relieved someone besides myself had the same gut feeling as me. Both of my parents being smokers could easily explain away cause for a heart attack, but immediately upon entering my Dad’s house,  my gut told me he died of a broken heart. I thanked this nurse who left me reiterating that I could call her and their cath-lab team day or night; they were there for us. I felt so much love.

Hanging up with her, I reflected on how my Dad had no idea he was going to die at that moment, how my Mom didn’t know she wouldn’t return from the grocery store when she went out for a simple Instacart run, and how sweet Lily didn’t know she would click into her skis for the last time on that mountain. And what they all left me with was the realization that one day, I will leave too. I want to leave knowing I did my best to love the world around me and to take the opportunities I’m given to inspire others to do the same. The fear of being on a stage was holding me hostage, but remembering their lives and what matters truly, pushed me through those fears to the other side of love and inspiration; here was the opportunity, go for it! 

So, here I am once again, surrendering to vulnerability and sharing what I believe in. I believe we have a choice. A choice to be a victim or a warrior. To be defeated or to fight your hardest. You are going to leave this Earth one day too, and you most likely will not know which moment that will be; my family did not.

I hope this story helps you fight your hardest to push through your fears and your perceived limitations. To live your fullest and most genuine life. 

I hope this does remind you to remember what matters, to live by what matters, and love every minute of it, until your last. Your day is coming, every single day. 

And to everyone we lost, to my Mom, My Dad, and to Lily, thank you for reminding me, for guiding me, and for being with me. I love you…

Olivia