The Life Changing Event

“I do not want to go to the game, ask her can we just not go.” Those are the word that reminds me of a memory I would never forget. It was the beginning, when I started living my dreams and my sister’s. I remember me and my sister had a basketball game. It was the summer of her junior year and my freshmen year. We played on an AAU summer basketball league. Our game that day was at two and three o’clock. I was a shooting guard and my sister was a post. My sister was more excited about the game then I was. It was in the summer of 2009. My mother was gone, and we had company over. We were having a good time, until my mother called and said, “I’ll be home in about an hour, be dressed and ready for y’all game.” As time went by my brothers were talking about riding the horses to the arena. I was more interested in riding horses then going to our game. Even though my sister was more excited about going to the game, I tried convincing her into not going. I told her, “We’ll have more games, let’s just ride horses today instead.” It was complicated convincing her because she was passionate about basketball, but it worked. Once my mother called back, I told my sister, “I did not want to go, ask mom can we not go.” She convincingly told my mother, “We do not want to go to the game; we want to go riding horses with my brothers. We have company; we don’t want to leave them.” My mother said, “Fine, that’s y’all choice, but be safe and ride toward oncoming traffic.” From that moment, going horseback riding that day, is what changed me and my sister’s life.

We were getting ready to go riding. It was my two brothers. My younger brother was 14 years old and the other one was 15 years old. The older one was in the same grade as me; the other one was going to the eighth grade. We also had company over. It was six of us going riding with five horses. We got the heavy saddles, rough blankets and rusty bits. We put the blankets on the horses’ backs, and the saddles on top of the blankets. We put the bits into the horses’ mouths. In minutes we had the horses saddled up. Everyone was on their own horses except one horse had to double up. The ride on the way to the arena was smooth. The sun was shining bright. We were all laughing and joking, reflecting back on the old times when we use to ride horses every weekend. The arena was not that far from home, so our mother allowed us to ride to the arena, but we would have to be back before it got dark outside. My mother always gave us rules so that we would be “safe.” As we were at the arena, things were going great. We lined our horses up, to see whose horse was quickest. Of course my horse fit up to that title. We had to get home before it got dark. It was five o’clock and the sun was beginning to go down. We all got back on our horses and headed out toward home. The ride was full of laughter, everyone was smiling and voices filled the air. The horses were walking at a slow and calm pace. The ride began to get shorter; we were about three blocks away from the house. We were all still talking; my sister shouted out something to me that grabbed my attention, and as I looked back I heard a big boom, and my sister and her horse went flying in the air.

The big boom was like roaring thunder. My sister ad her horse screamed out; they went from the air and crashed down to the ground. At that moment my heart stopped pounding, the horses’ front feet went up in the air; in that instant the horses and everyone began to panic. Our chuckles instantly stopped, and tears began to fall. We all flew off our horses; the horse shoes went clacking down the road. My sister was lying on the ground unable to move, crying out for help. I could not see my sister that way. My arms covered my head while I was pacing back and forward in the field; my eyes were bloody red from my tears and anger. Worried voices flowed in the air asking “Who did it? Where is the truck that hit her?” There was no sign of the vehicle in sight, just a diesel that stopped to grab the horses and the car that stopped to help us. I called my mother, unable to pronounce my words fully; my words were spaced out with loud cry. The only words I was able to say were, “Neisha. Hit. On 63rd, come, she’s hurt.” The car that stopped called 911. My mother got there same time the ambulance did. She was pacing back and forward trying to figure out what had happen, and where the vehicle was that hit her daughter. The car was going so fast, that the driver did not realize what she hit, and did not stop until about a mile from the impact. They discovered that the vehicle that we thought was a truck was really a car. They were unable to get my sister up; she was crying about her leg and arm hurting. They had to air lift her to the hospital because it was a trauma injury. We had to ride the horses back home, and then went up to the hospital to see her. She was laying in the bed, face red and eyes full of tears; I could not stay in the room, thinking that if we would have went to the game she would have been okay. Instead she was laying in the bed hurting with unbearable pain. She had to get rods in her arm and leg. She was told she was not going to be able to play basketball anymore nor ride horses until she was healed completely. Those words hurt her just as much as her pain.

That day my sister was taken away from doing the things that she loved. She can no longer play basketball; she is barely able to function the way she used to. She cannot lift heavy things nor run. After she was taken from the things she loved, that day changed me. She is the reason I play basketball with passion and put my heart into playing basketball. I play basketball for myself and my sister. I don’t give up playing basketball for anything. After that day, I take my talents to heart, and do the things that she could have been doing, if I did not choose to ride horses instead.