The Enriching...

Now that everything was done and over with, I had to go back to school. Thanksgiving break passed and I have finals approaching very fast. The last few weeks of school were a blur to me. Nothing was making sense and I had no one to really go to down at school. I remember spending countless nights on the sixth floor study lounge just staring at my laptop. It was still hard to comprehend on what had happened still. It almost didn't seem real. When the time got closer to taking finals I had to go speak with my History Professor. I was struggling in the class because in the class we had a weekly assignment of reading around 100 pages and answering around 50 questions about the book, not to mention the tests in the class were very difficult. When I spoke with him I explained everything that was happening to me, in my first semester at Ball State. I asked if there was anything I could do for extra credit or anything at all to help me pass the class. He gave me his condolences and then told me that if I failed then I could just retake the class... After leaving his office I felt so angry, so frustrated that someone could be so heartless. He knew I did all of my homework and worked so hard in that class but he didn't even take it into consideration. I then realized you can't expect any help from anyone.

Finally, finals week came. I have never been so stressed out in my entire life; I just wanted to get everything over with and go home. I remember it being really cold because it was the beginning of December. I got all my finals done except my History Final. I spent 3 nights before this pulling all nighters just studying for my finals. I remember when I was sitting at my desk I pulled my cell phone out and text my dad. I texted him, "Wish me luck dad", then took my test...

After all my finals were done I went straight home to spend a 3 week winter vacation with my family. I needed this break so bad. I remember telling myself over and over again, if I could get through this semester, then I can get through just about anything. I remember not doing anything for the whole vacation; it was so nice to just sit around and space out. When Christmas approached I didn't know how I was going to handle it. Usually we spend one day with my Dad and then one day with my Mom. I remember waking up Christmas day and just feeling blah. It sucked so bad knowing that I wouldn't be driving over to my Dad's to spend the day with him. After opening some presents and spending time with family, me and my siblings drove over to my brother's house to spend time with them. When sitting in the room I noticed something I have never noticed before. I noticed that we, my siblings, were filling the roles that my dad used to fill. We were becoming adults, becoming the aunts and uncles, moms and dads... I then realized that we were making memories for our nieces and nephews. I smiled just at the thought of it... Everything was going to be alright.

The Aftermath...

After the very stressful night the family and I now had so much to do. So many things that needed to be done in the next couple days. This was the first time I had to be a part of the whole funeral process. We had to go to the funeral home and arrange all of his things. We knew that my father wanted to be cremated and didn't want us to spend a bunch of money on him after he passed away. 


After all that was done I decided that I was going to make a little slideshow collage for him at his funeral. At first I didn't know how long it was going to take to get it done. I started off by scanning pictures onto my laptop and just putting things together. Then I started to add some videos in as well. Then for the finishing touch I added some of his favorite songs. I ended up staying up all night putting this slideshow together.


It was emotional putting everything together because I saw all the memories I had with him in his short life... But I did learn while putting the video together that he lived a very full life. It's truly amazing how time flys when you are living life. I know that right now I don't picture life as "the good ole days", but I do know thirty years down the road I'll look back and I will say they were. I now try to cherish every moment in my life now because of my dad. 

On the day of the funeral we had so many people show up. A lot of people that I didn't even know in my life. They would come up to me and tell me how my dad helped them through something in their life. They always told me he was a great man and he impacted their lives in certain ways. I never realized on how he has impacted so many people during his lifetime. I can only hope that I will impact as many people as he did in my lifetime. His funeral wasn't even really a sad atmosphere, it was rather joyous as we were celebrating his life. There was laughing and memories being shared throughout the day. That's how my dad would have wanted it.

Here is the video I made for my dad.

R.I.P. Ron Tschannen 1957-2009

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The Bittersweet...

That night I went back home to get some sleep. I wanted to stay but my mom told me it would be best if I got some rest. When I woke up the next morning, I went right back to the hospital. My father still looked deathly ill and the doctor said he was probably going to need an oxygen mask. I was so confused and frustrated with all this happening so fast. I felt as if I couldn't fix any of it and I had to watch it all happened. Throughout the day we kept relaying information to the rest of our family on what was going on. Throughout the day I tried to remain as strong as possible for everyone. I didn't want to start breaking down and crying for everyone to see. I remember sitting there with my dad throughout the day just sitting there. I didn't know what to say half the time and it got to the point where he couldn't respond that well. At some point in the afternoon my mom was having a conversation with a nurse that was taking care of my dad. I walked up to them as they were talking and chimed into the conversation. The nurse talked about how my dads body was slowly failing. I remember the look in her eyes when she was looking at me. She was holding back the tears and you could feel and see the sadness she was feeling when she was telling me the news. She told us that he probably wouldn't make it through the night. I have never felt so lost in my life. Almost everything made sense in my life, whether it was good or bad for me. This, I did not understand. It did not make sense, my father, at the age of 52, wasn't going to be able to see another day?

I remember that I brought my laptop to the hospital with me so I could attempt to do some homework. After hearing the news, I pulled out the laptop and pulled up iTunes for my dad. I made him a playlist of his favorite songs. I put the laptop by his bed and played the music loud. He loved the song Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band. When the music started playing you could see his heart rate jump up just a little, although his emotions physically were the same. As the day proceeded us siblings had to figure everything out with the medical power of attorney and such. Only one person could be a power of attorney and dad had to appoint who it would be verbally. This was such a hard moment for us all. To ask our father who he wanted to be the person in charge of decisions when he couldn't make the decision himself. Accepting death... Telling our dad that the ultimate fear was going to happen in the near future... To give up... I remember all five of us standing around him and his bed just looking at him, as he was breathing heavily. I told him we all loved him, and we would make him proud. My father responded, "I already am..." He then appointed my oldest sister the attorney and we left the room.

As the night became young the whole family was waiting around. I have never waited for death... I didn't even know how to prepare for it. I could never picture my life without my father. It got to the point where my father had to receive 100% oxygen to keep going. He had this huge plastic gas mask looking thing on his face. Our dad always told us growing up that he would never want to be put on life support. After this was all happening, us siblings decided that we needed to go talk about what to do next. One of my brothers decided to stay with dad while we went and discussed it. We all went to my oldest brothers car and sat there. None of us said anything for a minute or two. My little sister then said, "Dad doesn't like hospitals..." It was the one thing that did make sense... We all chuckled and just sighed... We all then made a decision on what to do.

Me and my oldest brother then had to tell my other brother on what we decided and make sure it was ok with him as well. We decided to go to the chapel in the hospital to talk somewhere, where there wasn't any people to bother us. We talked about the decision we made and asked him what he wanted. He agreed with us. I told him that none of us could have a guilty conscience about the decision, that it was something that would be with us for the rest of our lives. We then agreed again and said we would do it at 11pm... After we all agreed we went to go talk to the doctor about what we have decided. He said he would take care of everything and have everything ready to go at 11pm. We then went around and told our whole family the news, me and my oldest brother then went downstairs to make a phone call.

While I was making the phone call I got another phone call from my step dad. He told me I needed to get upstairs right away. I could hear the shakiness in his voice, I ran as fast as I could to my dads room. As I got to the floor I started running to the room and I saw the whole family was in there. They were all sobbing and holding on to each other. My father was laying on the bed hanging on with his fingertips... His vitals were bare minimum low. I crouched down to his feet and touched him and told him he could not leave just yet. He had to wait for my oldest brother to get up to the room before he did anything. After saying that his vitals jumped up a little, a spark of hope. I saw my oldest brother come rushing into the room and he came right next to my dad and put his hand on him.

My dad had it.... His whole entire family in the same room with him, people he loved, by his side. The people that mattered most to him in his life were there to see him depart this world. After we were all there by his side, he finally passed around 10:30pm on November 19th, 2009... I felt as though the room felt a little emptier when he passed. As if something left the room.

I don't know if he heard us in the chapel... I don't know if he heard us in the car... I do know though, that he did hear us. He took the burden off all of us to have to make that decision. It showed the world that he truly is an amazing father and he would do anything for his family. I can only wish to be half the man my father was. To be able to cry inside so nobody can see the true suffering. I did learn that family is one of the most important things in life; but better yet happiness. I also learned that life is truly bittersweet. Bitter of departure... And sweetness to a new beginning. My father left his world smiling... Happy...

The Transition...

School went on and so did the everyday things of college. The days seemed to fly by with classes and outside obligations. The balance was still a struggle because of all the stress I had been going through back at home. There were several weekends where I had to go home so I could see my father. I remember having phone conversations with him and he would always sound so upset and angry about how everything was playing out. I have never been so frustrated with everything because nothing seemed to be working. Over the summer the doctors told him and the family that he only had a couple years to live. His cancer was now classified as stage 4, which means it is not curable. They tried chemotherapy over the summer and it did not work. They then went to radiation and it minimized it but had deathly side effects. His body began to slim down and each week began to look more and more sick. I felt as though I was losing my father before he was actually even gone. I was so sad that I could not spend everyday with him because I was at school.

Around mid-November, I remember my mom told me my dad was in the hospital again. He was in the process of trying to live alone still but he was having troubles taking care of himself. I remember the frustration running through my body again and I just wanted to let it out. She told me I should talk to him over the phone so he could hear my voice. The conversation we had was very minimal. He seemed so disoriented and confused as if he almost didn't even know who I was. I told him I loved him and I would see him soon. I drove up to Fort Wayne that night to go see him at the hospital. When I got to the hospital I talked to my mom to see how things were going. He apparently had a mini-stroke and passed out in his household and hit his head pretty hard. According to the doctors everything was ok and he should be out in a couple days. I then went into his room to see how he was doing and he looked so tired. I have never seen him look so exhausted in his life. I knew this time was different unfortunately... I could feel it... I knew things were changing...

The Assembly Line...

So after the whole move-in process was done and I was finally settled in, I had to take care of a bunch of things before classes started. I have always heard rumors about the outrageous book costs of things... They weren't lying. I remember spending over 600 dollars on books for classes that were for my "core". I remember spending 80 dollars on an English book that showed me how to cite a source MLA style. At the time I wanted to be a Secondary Education Major and teach high school social studies classes. I wanted to inspire kids in the public schooling system to do things with their lives. I knew so many people in my high school that didn't even consider college as an option; not because they didn't want to, but because they thought it was financially impossible. 


Most of my classes were core classes; which are classes that every student is required to take as a college student. The core classes purpose is to make it so each student is a, "well rounded individual". Going into school I thought this was all so cool and awesome. As I started to take classes, I started to find out that my core classes were becoming regurgitation of what I have learned in high school. Why am I spending $600 on regurgitation? Not to mention the $7,000+ tuition and the $9,000+ to live in the residence halls. 


The balance of social life and academics was also a big adjustment for me. I always seemed to never find time for homework and at the same time, never find time to socialize and meet people. One minute I have a 150 page reading assignment about Columbus spreading syphilis then I'm staying up all night watching TV shows with friends until 3 in the morning. Funny part is, I seemed to learn more about life hanging out and meeting new people than studying about some random fact that isn't relevant to my life.


A couple weeks into school I remember having to have to go back home to go see my Dad. He ended up in the hospital because he wasn't feeling all that well. I remember stressing out so much because of the situation. I felt nothing else mattered but that time and moment. But then when all of that was said done, I had to drive back down to Muncie... And hop back in the line...

I am going to start off with the beginning of my college experience. I remember the emotions stirring up inside me the couple days before I actually left for Ball State; the curiosity, the fear of the unknown, the excitement of being on my own. While all these feelings were building up inside me I also felt so proud to be one of the first people in my family to go away to college. Everyone in my family was so proud of me that I was going off to college. Knowing that they were so proud of me made me feel like I was worth a million bucks. When the day finally came for me to move to Ball State, I remember saying goodbye to my brother at his work. That was the first time I ever had to really say goodbye to him in my lifetime. I knew then that things have really changed in my life. 

My family and I drove down to Ball State and we started to move everything into my room. Going to Ball State I had no real idea of who my roommate was going to be. When I got to my room, there was a pair of red air forces and a suitcase. I immediately thought that I was going to have a black ghetto roommate. After getting the whole room organized a Chinese guy walked into the room. I find out his name is Daniel and he is from China and he was my roommate. He spoke very poor English and I could barely understand what he was saying to me. After I was all moved in, the time came for me to say goodbye to my family. It was actually really easy for me to say goodbye to my mom, my step-dad, and my sister. When it came to saying goodbye to my dad though, it was so much harder. I could see him holding his tears back and I was trying so hard to not let the emotions get to me. I remember thinking that this could have been one of the last times I got to see my dad because he had cancer and it was getting worst.

After my family left I felt a bittersweet moment. One moment I felt so lonely and wished that I could be with my friends and family forever. And then there was the moment of feeling so happy that I am doing something on my own… Walking my own path…

My Path...

My name is Brandon Tschannen. I am 19 years old and I from Fort Wayne Indiana. I am writing on this blog to share my path with all of you... Each of our paths is different from one another. There is never a path that is identical to one another. Society builds a path on a nice slab of concrete for all of us and suggests we follow it to reach the end of the path. Some of us veer off just a little of that slab and few of us go way far away from the sidewalk.

For me, I have taken a very sharp turn away from that path that was paved down for all of us. In the fall of 2009 I started to attend Ball State University. I went through some rough times and good times while I was there my freshman year. In November, I lost my father to cancer the week before finals. With all of this confusion going on in my life I began to question everything. I questioned what was my purpose? Why was I here? Was happiness the goal? This is something I didn't know a little less than a year ago. 

This is just the beginning of my path in life. I want to share it with the world so everyone can know that it is ok to question everything. I want people to know that just because society tells you that you have to do something a certain way doesn’t mean that, it is the right way. For too long I have listened to people and try to please their expectations of myself. This whole time I have been pleasing everyone but one person; myself. I hope you all will follow this as I tell more of my story.