Kimberly Reid

So I get a phone call from my mom.

and she tells me that my father is about to get on an emergency life flight from our home in Montana to go to Denver to get an emergency liver transplant.

My mom is kind of perennially optimistic, and she's telling me, don't worry, it's gonna be okay, we're gonna pull through this, it's gonna be all right.

But I know something is really wrong.

So I get the next flight I can to go from where I'm living here in New York, hoping that I get there before my father dies.

And I'm really glad I got that flight as fast as I did because

I was able to spend a couple hours with my father before he passed away.

And before I know it, I'm at this side of his hospital bed with my mom, and we're sobbing because he's passed.

My dad was a strong, silent type.

He was...

He grew up on a farm, and he was one of two town eye doctors.

So he could fix anything.

He could fix tractors or eyes, no matter what.

And he was always doing it behind the scenes.

He never wanted to take credit for it.

It was apparent that my mom and I and my two brothers were gonna have to be fixing things ourself this time around.

And the first thing my mom did was to call my two brothers.

One's a year older, one is a year younger.

And it was gonna be really comforting to see my younger brother.

We were really close.