You'll never guess what happened.
"Mom and dad wont give me those cookies so I guess I'll have to sneak them off the top of the cupboard myself."
Famous last thoughts by child me before I jumped off our lovely vintage red couch, missed the target by a landslide and decided that a bed of thinly covered, sharp, brand new pots and pans below me would be the best landing pad for my little body.
I had to be rushed to the hospital. I was bleeding a bunch. Thinking back, I can remember the split second that I realized I'd missed and was falling. The big beautiful panelled windows, that let so much light into my parents room, to my left, light coming and bouncing about through the greenery outside. My arms were stretched out in front of me, I was doing that superman flight mode thing, I glanced down at the off white harmless looking sheet below. It had looked like a bundle of them but just before I hit full force, I noticed the sharp edges glaring at me, threatening me to not come close. Well. Guess I didn't take the hint.
The hit was painful, not my best landing. The fall itself hurt bad enough, created a mostly bruised version of little me like I'd been caught in the middle of a dog fight but it also cut into my skin; my chin, my right eyebrow are the parts I remember clearly, my parents tell me my arm was the worst.
I vaguely remember the car ride there, I was numb from the pain yet I remember how it felt to have air coming into my body from the open wounds, weird, ouch. They laid me on a blue turning red towel to keep the car seats clean, whichever car we had back then.
One of them drove, the other sat besides me trying to comfort the wailing kid who was stupid and just wanted a cookie. At this point my memory of the event becomes muddled. Dad picked me up out of the car and ran in clutching a now stained face cloth to my face, I think. Mom was close behind or was it mom holding me and dad close behind?
The bright red "emergency" light caught my eye above the entrance we ran into. Then blank, a blindingly white passage, then a table or bed and ladies wearing nursing outfits fussing around me, then blank, then a needle and me screaming my head off and them calling for help because I couldn't handle the pain or the thought of them sticking that into my face or arm and they couldn't handle my flailing limbs and all round panic.
They held me down one at each limb, one for my body and one sewing me up, trying to stop anymore blood loss. I remember that part from above like a movie scene, only from the story my parents told. Then blank.
I thought of my favorite person I had left at home, my big brother, was sad that he wasnt with me. Wonder if he got to the cookies, wonder what happened to those cookies. I think it's safe to say, I would've died for those cookies. Thought of our nanny who was with us since before I was born and how she often called my parents because of situations like this. I miss her. I miss the life I had back in my home town. The shop on the corner, 'Johnny's', we'd buy Mammas and fizzers and sometimes bread and milk. How my high school best friends mom's shop was across the road and we'd always hang out there after school.
The jazz band, the plays every year instead of every second, the people I loved, the school I loved. All I grew up knowing, the Spar across the road from the movie rental place and nandos, where they'd always put up a blow up Santa in the corner of the parking lot. The church my parents led right by the mall that was down the road from our house. That Spur I dreamed I'd work at one day and that Steers attached to a Milky lane. The roads we'd drive everyday for all our primary school years. The church building, the view from those 1st floor windows around the whole auditorium, the acoustic drums in its glory days, the black bass I played with butterfly stickers all over it. Jocelyn, Gaia, Christiaan. The family we made. I miss them.
These are the things I'll hold dear even when I move to the next place God has for me for us, I'll do the same for here. For he has preordained my steps and my story therefore I will trust him and love him for all that he gave me then and now and to come.
Then I woke up in my bed at home, stitched up and my Mom, my Dad and my brother were there too.