When people are young they are also stubborn.  Many people at a specific time will do what's for their own good rather what's right for others.  When asked to do something for someone I often respond with a sarcastic remark or a straight up no.  But sometimes ones lack of generosity can also lead to one's regret, or one hell of a story.  I mean, yeah, something terrible might have happened, but that’s very, very unlikely.  If it does, make light of the situation.  Share it as a story with friends and family.

When I was little, and I mean very little (like 2-ish); I was a very obnoxious child.  Whatever a bad child does I did.  Around this age, nearly four babysitters had quit and my mother had just had another child 1 year and eleven months after myself.  That child's name was Austin, my younger brother who’d grow up and appear to share no age difference and to imitate that same highly obnoxious attitude of his brother;  However, back to the March of 2001, our family was in a very bad position and was essentially in shambles.  At the time, they were struggling rigorously on the bare minimum to support us financially, being behind by months on bills and unable to afford food enough for the four of us.  My mother was forced to work two jobs; sixty hours a week, and to work for us kids alone.  My mom wasn't entirely sure what exactly to do.

Jump a year later and  like myself, my cousins at the time were also very disobedient.  My aunt Karen, her twins, my grandparents, and my mom and I were all gathered at my grandparent’s house one afternoon when a rather fierce storm had commenced.  My aunt, who’d been looking after her two meddling twins had asked her oldest son Jordan to quickly run outside and shut her car windows.  Jordan, like what I and many others would’ve done had denied her request, complaining that he’d get soaked running out in the middle of the storm.  After fighting with him and repeatedly asking him to shut her windows, she was forced to dash outside to shut em’ herself. 

As she was hastily closing her car windows, lightning had struck a very large tree across the street.  With the extremely close sound and shock of the lightning, my grandpa had peered outside to see what was holding my aunt.  He repeatedly wailed, motioning everyone outside to see my aunt pinned under a tree, motionless.  One had immediately dialed 911 while my grandpa had thrown a blanket over her head to stop us from looking at her (not the most important thing to do in this situation).  The water had turned red and the rain had become tears.  Her twins, only three years old, had seen their own mother pinned beneath a tree in a pool of blood. 

The firemen and paramedics had arrived fairly quickly, but what seemed like hours.  We watched as they lifted the trunk of the tree and moved my aunt from under.  With everyone grieving over the incident,  to our disbeliefs, she was alive and well.  Of course, she was taken to the hospital for immediate treatment, but all was well.  In fact, it was later revealed that the red water surrounding her body wasn’t actually blood, it was her hair dye that had washed out from the heavy rain upon her head.

At the moment we had all jumped to the conclusion that she had to be dead.  I mean, she was pinned beneath a tree that must’ve weighed a ton and had come down with such force.  Not to mention the pool of red surrounding her motionless body.  If Jordan had agreed to roll up her windows, she wouldn’t have been in this situation, but he may have been, and his life may have ended at an extremely early age.  In this case, Jordan’s disrespect and lack of generosity had indeed potentially saved  his own life, also creating one hell of a story that’s repeated and enjoyed yearly among the holidays and shared among friends and relatives.  It’s a story none of us will ever forget and a story that will forever be remembered.