Sadly, Lisa’s father passed away 5 years before
Kellisa was born. That left my dad, Jeff as the only grandfather Kellisa would
ever know. My dad desperately wanted to be surprised about the sex of our twins
and wanted to wait until their birth. We shared the same feelings, but once the
pregnancy started to go into life and death circumstances, Lisa and I decided
to find out, so we could start calling our little lime sized babies by their names
instead of Baby A and Baby B. Since we were faced with losing one, we wanted to
call her by her name for as long as possible. It’s wasn't the first time we
didn’t honor my dad’s wishes as we told him Lisa was pregnant with Kirsten and
Kellisa.
Shortly
after losing Kirsten, while Kellisa was fighting for her life in the NICU, my
dad started calling Kellisa his Special K. He would kiss his index and middle
finger before gently touching them to some part of exposed skin on Kellisa
while she lay in her incubator. He would talk softly to his Special K. When he
would get updates over the phone, he always used his nickname for Kellisa. For
my dad, Special K stuck, but it didn’t catch on with anyone else and that was
OK.
I believe losing the love of his life, my mom, in March 1998 made our move to Florida the following year extra hard on my dad. Kellisa was barely 6-months-old when we overloaded our Mitsubishi Eclipse and drove to the Sunshine State. I just hope he understood that we were making the best decision for
Kellisa's fragile health. Looking back 18-years
later, I can definitely say it worked out for the best and don't have any doubts.
My
dad even drove down from Chicago to visit us for a week during our first summer in
Florida. He had a great time. We kept him busy by hiking, visiting the
beach, swimming in a spring, and even surprised him with NASCAR tickets to a race at the famous Daytona International
Speedway. His favorite driver, Awesome Bill Elliott was well past his prime,
but led an unlikely 42 laps. I could see my dad was having fun on his vacation and was impressed
with how much time he was spending just holding his Special K. What I didn’t
know was my father was dying inside and he knew it.
