“If you could go back and change just one thing about your life, would you? And if you did, would that change make your life better? Or would that change ultimately break your heart? Or break a heart of another? Would you choose an entirely different path? Or would you change just that one thing? Just one moment. One moment that you always wanted back.” (Quote from unknown) Many times when people grow up things like these run through their mind. For me, there always running through my mind. What if I never met this person? What if I never would have done this? What if? The time in my life that I mostly wish I could go back and change was the ending of the year 2009 and the beginning of 2010. What would have happened if I didn’t go to school that day? What if I would have stayed with my mom that day? What if she would have picked me up from school that day? Would it have changed anything? Would I even be here then? It always comes back to that one day in 2009 the day that changed everything as I knew it. The day that I realized that everything in life isn’t perfect. The day that I realized that no one can prepare themselves completely for what the next day can hold…

Screeching sounds coming from the tires of the car when they rounded the corner, hitting the black ice throwing the car out of control. The car tires hit the gravel as the car starts to tilt to the right going down the long ditch. The car keeps rolling down the hill; BANG, the bag of Cheetos explodes throwing Cheetos everywhere. Screams coming from the passenger in the car as the drivers arm smacks into the window. POP! The window shatters, and her arm flies out the window as the car continuous to roll 4 more times. Each time the crunching sound of metal gets louder as the car gets ruined more and more. Then suddenly the car stops moving, but they’re still spinning, in circles… blood everywhere. The passenger gets her seat belt off, landing on the ceiling of the car, thud. Banging her fist against the window of the passenger door. “LET ME OUT! GET ME OUT OF HERE,” she cried trying to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Calm down,” says the low strained voice of the driver, trying to calm her daughter. A man slips down the snow covered hill to the car, the ring of sirens in the distance.

The bell’s ringing in school, finally the last block of the day, I think to myself as I head to my last class. I enter the bright light room and smile at Liz who is already there like always. “Hey,” I say as I sit down next to her, getting out my work for the day. The bell rings letting everyone know that they need to be in class. We all get to work like we always do. Shortly after though, I get this weird feeling. My heart starts to pound louder and louder. My pulse quickens, as I start to shake. Closing my eyes nothing is wrong I tell myself trying to calm down my nerves, but for some reason I just can’t get rid of the feeling that something just isn’t right. I hate it when I get like this. I always hate what’s to come next. However, I still try to tell myself that it’s nothing, deep down knowing that something has to be wrong otherwise this wouldn’t be happening. It never happens for no reason. It always has a reason. Someone knocks on the door as the principal slips her head into the room.

“McKayla your sister and Grandma are on their way to pick you up.

“What?” I think. “Why would my Granma come to pick me up, why is she with my sister? Why did the principle come down here to tell me this?

“Umm can I talk to you in the hall?” she asks me. Slowly getting up from my seat, I look around; everyone is staring at me. Bang! Closing my eyes, IDIOT why did you have to trip into the table. Walking into the hallway cold air hits me as I shiver, the principal closes the door. “I’m so sorry McKayla your sister and mom got into a car wreck today.” Everything goes blurry; all I can hear now is the beating of my own heart as the world starts to spin. Reaching out, grabbing the cold wall behind me so I don’t fall over, I look up to my principal.

“Is my mom ok?”

“I don’t know,” said the principal.

I walked back into the class room picking up my things, trying not to cry. Liz leans over closer to me. “Are you okay?” she asks. I just shack my head no, as I start walking out the door. Once I get to my locker, I start crying packing my things into my bag and getting ready to leave school. Once my bag is packed, I start walking towards the front of the school. I feel like the walls are closing around me suffocating me. As I get to the school office, I see my sister, and I run to her hugging her crying harder. “Where is mom? Is she okay?” At this point, Amanda starts crying as well. “I don’t know they are taking her out to Iowa City. Uncle Gary is taking dad out there.” We start heading to the car. At this point I realize that it’s my Grandma’s car. As we slide into the back of the car, Grandma looks over her shoulder and tells me, “You’ll be staying at my place until your mom gets out of the hospital.” From school, we went home, so I could pack leaving most of my things behind. I got back into my Grandma’s car and say goodbye to the life that I have always known. For I knew that it would never be the same as it was the day before.

Week after week went by, turning into months waiting for the time that I could go home. For the time that things would be back to normal. For the time that everything would be alright again. For the time that I could see my mom again. Every day in the morning after my dad got off of work, he would come to my grandparents’ house, so that I could see him and my sister until it was time for me to go to school. At this point in my life, this was the only thing that never changed, the thing that was always there. But even that wasn’t the same. Everyone knew what had happened, and everyone was always asking me questions and staring at me. Every day when school was over it was a relief. One more day done. However being at my Grandparents’ house wasn’t any better either. When I finally got there, I would do homework in the upstairs bedroom. When it was done, I had nothing else to do, except to think and it hurt too much to think. At this time in life my mom and I where very close, and I hadn’t even talked to her since the wreck. All I knew was that she was in a critical state, and I, on top of it, I seldom ever even saw my dad. It had been a long month, and it was crazy. Finally in January, the day before my birthday, I got to visit my mom.

When we got to the hospital, it was quit and dark. I wasn’t use to anything in this hospital. It was the first time I even heard of it. We entered my mom’s room, and I saw her for the first time since the day of the wreck. When we walked into her room and a saw her, I thought I was going to be sick. She looked horrible! Her left arm was swollen, and they had some kind of vacuum bag over it with a tube going to it that had blood coming out and back into the arm through. Her hand was swollen to the size of a balloon, and there were a bunch of staples in it. I swear there wasn’t a part of her body that wasn’t covered in bug black and purple bruises. Even though I was looking at my mother, I wasn’t. I was looking at a complete stranger, and I knew that never again would she be the way that she was before the wreck. My sister ran into the bathroom after just a second of looking at her, but all I could do ways stare at her. That was how bad the wreck had been? I knew that the car was completely demolished and that there was no longer any back seat. However, this I wasn’t expecting not in a million years. Her eyes weren’t even the same it was like there was no life left in her at all. We didn’t stay long before we left, I remember on the way back to my Grandma’s house all I could do was cry silently.

After those months nothing was ever the same as it was before. I used to think that life was like a fairy tale. It always ended in a happy ever after, but that’s not the truth. There’s one small problem with that, it’s called life. Life interferes with everything and makes it complicated and hard. Throwing the course of things of balance, bringing things in and out of people’s life. Sometimes it’s for the better. Sometimes it’s for the worst. It changes people, and it never stays the same. After that day in the hospital, I knew that it would never be the same. I knew that our family had changed and was damaged in a way that it could never be repaired, and so far to this day it hasn’t been.