A Crippled Teenager

It was as if a cow came falling from heaven and landed smack on top of me. One minute I was running, catching, and having a great game, and the next minute I had doctors looking all over me. Football was an expected sport for most boys in the town I grew up in, and if you played well, you were indestructible, or so we thought. During my eighth grade year, I was having a wonderful game and I too thought I was capable of anything. It was a high pass that required a massive leap into the air. The pass was caught, but I hadn’t thought about my landing yet. But oh, I would be fine; I always was, until this landing. I came down on my arm as though it would have still broken had it been made of steel. The popping of the bone alone was enough to turn your stomach. That unfortunate day changed life as I had known it for a while.

Yes my voice still squeaked, and my hormones ran strong, but for the most part my days never changed. The thought of being able to move any part of my right arm had left my thought process for the time being. It was the most aw

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Every night at the dinner table we would sit down in silence waiting for fathers speech that had become as common as the table prayer. I began to learn that the things father would say at the dinner table were just merely words coming out trying to release his frustrations.

Father took me to the hospital after a long three months to get my cast removed. I never knew until then how important it was for a son and a father to have a good relationship, but I would not trade my father for anything in this world, including another broken arm. I almost looked forward to it every evening because it was a way for me to release some of the energy and anger I was not able to release in football. It started with mother every night, and I guess it was because she did the shopping. I was not peaceful, I did not know how to keep my voice down, and on top of everything I never spent any money! I never asked mother for anything, and either my grandmother or myself bought everything I owned. He laid into mother about why we needed this type of cereal, and then why my sister Erica needed a new dress. This pattern move around the table through mother, sister, and brother until it came my turn. We ate and talked like men, but more importantly we talked like friends. By the end of the month I think we were all able to quote the prices better than he could. ful thing a thirteen-year-old boy could possibly imagine.

When it became my turn everyone knew that dinner as far as we had known it, was now out the window. It was as if he had our monthly budget and bills sitting directly in front of him to read off the expenses we had.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 933
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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