By the time Bryan Hullihen was settled
into his new school and making his way through the fourth grade Christmas had
arrived. This was to be young Bryan Hullihen's first
Christmas following his parents’ divorce and his mother did everything she
could to make it a great one for him and his sister. Bryan remembers how he and
his sister were so happy on that particular Christmas morning as they opened
all of their gifts to realize they were given every single thing they asked
for. The fact that their mother still was not earning a lot of money but
somehow figured out how to provide for her children in such an extravagant way is testament
to the love and support that Bryan and his sister knew as kids. Around 8:00 in
the morning that Christmas the phone rang and Bryan knew in an instant
something was wrong. His mother rushed into one of the bedrooms where she could
be heard crying hysterically through the entire house. After several minutes
Christine emerged calling Bryan and his sister Heather to join her in the
living room. She began, "Everything is going to be okay but there has been
an accident involving your father." The divorce had been particularly
hard on Bryan's father where his drinking escalated as did the hours he worked
to assuage the grief he felt from the loss of his family. His father attended a
work party where, after not sleeping for over 24 hours, he consumed alcohol and
attempted to drive home. Falling asleep at the wheel he drifted off the road
and crashed causing him to be ejected from the vehicle. These details were
spared from the young Bryan Hullihen that morning as they headed to the hospital to spend Christmas as
a family in the Intensive Care Unit.
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Private Author for Bryan Hullihen
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