The Scars from the Car Accident That Left a Mark on the Leg of My Mom
Life is very precious. It is a beautiful thing that can be taken away in the blink of an eye. Nobody ever wants to think of their loved ones dying, but in just less than a second, a person can go from alive to dead. The accident had happened so quickly, it’s hard to believe that it ever happened. It was a beautiful day in 2002. I was looking through the preschool window, eagerly waiting for my mom to come and pick me up. Five minutes later, I heard the footsteps coming through the hallway. I raced to the source of the sound, and saw her standing in the doorway with a grin on her face. I smiled back, glad to see her, and we left and got in the car. Our smiles were simple exchanges of love, but one that I loved to do with my mom. It was our own secret greeting.
It was a ten minute ride from the preschool to my house. On the way home, I stood up in the car to see if we were anywhere near my house. After a few more minutes of driving, I saw my house. Then my mom stopped the car and got out. I felt a shake under me. But it wasn’t because of an earthquake. Instead, my mom had fallen on top of the hard rocks, bringing the car downhill with her. The car went down another foot or two but it suddenly stopped because my mom’s left leg was stuck underneath it. I heard someone yelling from down the hill but I was not able to recognize the voice because it was very noisy outside.
I still heard someone yelling so I looked out though the window and realized that it was my mom. She was yelling her lungs out and asked me to call my neighbors. This was because she felt deep pains in her left leg. People from all over my block started to come out from their homes because they heard all commotion going on. When I saw my neighbors, I felt embarrassed because I felt that people as far as New York had heard my mom’s yelling. While the crowds were watching the aftermath of the accident, I saw my familycome from the other side of the street. My grandma was the first to come by the car to pick me up. When she picked me up, I started to cry because I was scared to death. I was crying on one side of the street and my aunt was calling the ambulance on the other side.
While everyone was panicking and yelling, I saw the ambulance coming. I called out to my cousin and told her to tell my aunt that the ambulance was here. When my aunt received the news, she yelled at the crowd and told them to move to one side. My mom got into the ambulance and rode to the emergency room with my aunt by her side.
My mom waited in the emergency room until it was her turn to get stitches. Her stitches took about an hour to get done. When I saw her, she had about 25 stitches on her legs. She had to recover at the hospital for about a week so I went home with my grandma. I was scared because the car, something large and scary to me, had rolled over my mom’s leg. That was when I started to wonder what life would be like if my mom didn’t come back and stayed at the hospital forever or if I never saw her again. When I heard the news that she was coming home, I was so happy that I cried. When she came home, we exchanged our secret greeting; a smile for a smile. Her smile this time was a lot smaller, but it meant the same thing to me. Tears streamed down my face as I returned the smile.
Even to this day, I still look at my mom’s spider web leg, and see the scars that have stayed on for eleven long years. The day of the accident was when I learned how fragile life really is, like the stained glass windows found in churches. But it only takes a blow to break those windows. Life can be terrible and unfair. But it is also precious since we only get one life, and it is up to us to give meaning to it and make it worth living.
