Scary Moment

One cold night in February, I was getting ready for bed like any other normal night in my life. I put on my warm, fuzzy, penguin pajamas and I crawled into my comfortable bed fit for a queen. I was excited because my penguin pajamas were new and so was my cover that my grandma crocheted for me as a birthday gift. I realized to myself, this is going to be one of the best night's sleeps in my life. I flipped over the pillow to the cool side and drifted off to sleep like a baby would.
All of a sudden, the pitch of a loud bell woke me up from my slumber. I figured it was just the alarm system going neurotic as usual, but it wasn't. The sound of the loud pitch went away. I realized it might have been the phone ringing and my mom had answered it. Getting comfortable again in my bed, I went back to sleep. Until, my mom ran into my room with panic and told me to get out of bed and get dressed. I didn't take her seriously; it was 11 pm at night. Why would I want to get out of bed and get dressed at this time of the hour when I was obviously getting some beauty sleep? But in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong but I didn't want to face it. I was scared; I knew what phone calls in the middle of the night meant because they've happened before. My mom yanked the covers off of me and I realized she was crying. Through her tears, she cried out, "Chauncey's been in a car accident; we have to go see if she is okay." My heart dropped and my stomach felt queasy. My sleepy eyes now filled with worry and tears woke up while I ran to my drawer to put my Cal State sweater on. My amazing night's rest rapidly turned into a nightmare.
The ride there was rough but fast. My dad raced through free-ways like he was a racer in a car race. I continously told my mom to be strong and have faith that my sister is fine. It took a lot for me to be the warrior in the family but my dad was so focused on getting there while my mom was so worried that my sister was dead, it led me with no choice to be the one in between, the one with courage. Getting to the scene of the accident was like watching the news while the reporter was talking about a bad car crash. The red and blue police lights brightened my eyes and the sirens of the ambulance danced around my ears. My dad told me to stay in the car like I was some 12 year old that didn't know how to handle situations while they went to see where my sister was and how she was. While I waited in the car I thought to myself, is this real? Am I dreaming? I never thought this would happen to anyone close to me. I consciously kept looking over my shoulder to watch what was happening behind me. There was a white Toyota Camry which had absolutely no sign of it ever having a right side and another car that was completely unidentifiable. It felt like a knife went right through my heart when I realized that it was my sister's car that was unidentifiable. I looked around for my sister but there was no sight of her anywhere. I started to cry and tried to remember the last time I talked to her. It was that very morning and we had just bought Lady GaGa tickets for the summer. We we're so excited and words couldn't explain how much we had to see her. Remembering that moment, I cried harder and I slowly turned around to see what was happening. Three people were walking towards the car. I was prepared for the worst and predicting it was the police with bad news. I took a deep breath and told myself to be strong. As the people got close enough that I could see who they were out the window, I was speechless. It was my dad, my mom and Chauncey, my sister.

A great burst of air filled my lungs and chest as I flung open the door to give her a big hug and kiss as a loyal dog would do to its owner. I could not get it through my head that she was standing there and perfectly breathing! Her cheek had a red scar across it and a bruise a size of a baseball was on her left arm but she was well. When we got into the car, she was suprisingly joking that she had nine lives like a cat and she was on her 5th one. We all laughed and smiled. My family was together again but the family car was totaled, since it was slammed into the wall of the freeway by another driver. Luckily, it was a safe car to protect my precious sister. To this day, we celebrate my sister's accident to remind ourselves that life is too short and it could be gone in a blink of an eye.