I Wasn't Ready For This....

Today I receive my dads autopsy report. I shouldn't have read it, but that realization came too little to late. I had no idea the report would be so graphic, and until now, I knew little of the details of how my dad really died. I knew that the car hit the brick pillar and that by the time the authorities reached the scene it was engulfed in flames. I knew he died of smoke inhalation. That's all.

This is the real story *Warning, this paragraph is graphic*:

When they finally got the flames put out and were able to approach my dads car, he was obviously dead and very badly burned. Due to the impact of the crash, both of his legs were severed at mid thigh and although he was severely injured, he was very much alive and very well could have lived had he been found earlier, had the car not burned. His upper body was completely contracted, in a pugilistic pose. This term arises from the similarity of the posture to that of a boxer in the ring; the arms are raised up in a defensive position and the hands are tightened into fists. As a body burns, the muscles contract and the flexor muscles, being stronger, overpower the extensor muscles, thus giving rise to the pugilistic position of the body. This only happens if a person is alive but unconscious before they are burned. Eventually, he lost consciousness due to blood lose after his legs were severed and from smoke inhalation. All of my dads anterior (frontal) skin had burned away, exposing the underlying musculature and soft tissue. His intestines and abdominal visceria (stomach) were protruding and were gaping and exposed.

The autopsy report was definitely hard to read. I learned way more about the way my father died than I think I ever really wanted or needed to know. I really wanted to preserve the thought that he was knocked unconscious by the accident and wasn't in any pain...that he didn't fight to try to get himself out of the car...that his last minutes on earth were peaceful and not filled with terror, knowing he was about to die. I wanted to believe that his last thoughts might have been about what he was doing tomorrow, or about his plans for the rest of the summer, or maybe even about my siblings and I. That he never knew what hit him, and he died with a smile on his face. But that is not the case. And these realizations are going to be very hard to live with, but I am going to keep them to myself. My siblings don't need to share in this new and insurmountable grief. Nothing good can come of them knowing these truths.

I wish I didn't even know....