I'm writing this because of the guilt and shame I feel. I know I have caused a tremendous amount of pain not only to myself but for you as well, and for that I am deeply sorry. I should’ve been more cautious, I should’ve looked both ways, I should've thought of the consequences before taking action. But now it is too late I made the mistakes that I did and I can never take them back. I’m sorry mom I wish I thought of you before I dug my own grave.
Do you ever think such a beautiful day of playful fun with your friends could ever go so wrong? Just a few young teens trying to have fun in the sun on a hot summer’s day. Playing in the back alley riding on their bikes playing with nerf guns I would've never thought it would cost me my life. I woke up that early afternoon to my grandma’s voice in the living room. I loved waking up to my grandma being over that meant we were going to Shabbona park that day to see my friends and ride my bike for hours on end. And that's just what we did just after we ate we headed out to the park. There I was accompanied by my good friend Anthony and his older brother Nick. Anthony was about my height 5’5 while Nick was going on 5’10 but to me it felt like he was a giant because I would have to look straight up to talk to him. In my blurry memories I see Nick as 6’5 but this is only because I was 11 years old at the time. Anthony and I wondered off and tossed around a baseball for about half an hour before Nick rode his bike over to us with a great idea he had in mind. “Hey, kev we got a few nerf guns back at the house. Do you think your baba (my grandma) would drive us back to our house and we could have a nerf war with our bikes.”
“Yeah, she will no problem and that sounds like a great idea.” I said energetically in reply.
“Awesome i’ll meet you guys in the field house” Nick said. Anthony and I were so excited, this was the first time we were going to use the nerf guns on our bikes. We ran so fast back to the field house I was out of breathe when I went to go ask my grandma if she could take us all back to their house. Exhausted I muttered the words, “Can you take us to Anthony’s house?”
She replied amused at my lost of breathe, “Yeah, no problem what are you guys planning on doing over there?”
With my breathe back by now I managed to explain our plan of having a “Nerf war”. And with that we all got into my grandma’s car and took a short five minute drive to Anthony’s house. There we were greeted by their mom, one of the sweetest ladies I ever came to know, Nick and Anthony went up to their room grabbed the guns for our war and we headed to the alley. It was no longer than ten minutes of us shooting each other that one of the bullets managed to out into the middle of the side street. This bullet was mine that I had shot at Nick as he was riding away. I speed up on my bike trying to retreive the only damn thing I cared about at the time. Not paying any mind to my surrounds I coasted out into the road and before I could even stop to bend over and grab the bullet. CRASH! I was struck by a car I can only assume was doing around 25mph. My head was the first thing to hit something solid, it went straight through the windshield of the man's car leaving a hole in the car just slightly smaller than my head. And when I say say a hole I mean a hole you could stick your hand through it I didn’t just crack the windshield no my head went clean through it. I rolled off of the car already covered in blood. It sprouted from the back of my head and leaked through my ears and slightly from my mouth. I was covered in my own blood within seconds. There was a pool of blood surrounding me, it looked as if I was bathing in my own blood. I can remember the horrifying scream from Nick almost a cry. I could see the man's face whom had just hit me, he was still inside his car, it was as if he was paralyzed from shock. In the blurry distance I could see Nick halling ass to go get help, but there was not much that could be done at this point. I had lost a lot of blood and staying conscious began to become harder and harder. I felt myself begin to doze off amongst the pain. My screaming and crying was not what I was focused on it was the immense pain that was circulating through my body just as quickly as blood was spilling everywhere. The man regained focus and quickly got out of his car. I don’t remember exactly what he did if anything. All I can remember is Anthony's mom running towards me in the distance screaming my name, while my grandma limped behind her. I could hear them crying halfway down the alley. Once again it became increasingly difficult to keep my eyes open as all I felt I wanted to do was sleep the pain away. I remember Anthony’s mom lifting me to a sitting position with my head in her arms. I remember the gasp she let out when she felt the hole that was now most of my head. That's when I lost it, I couldn’t hang on any longer. Right there I let the pain and restlessness get to me and I closed my eyes never to reopen them again.