The Great Fall

I’ll never forget the day my sister almost died. It was a cloudy Tuesday in May of 2000. I was eight years old and Rachel, my sister, was 6. We had been playing in the field across the street from out house and saw an old pine tree half fallen across the way. It was then we decided to take on the big tree and climb it. We really didn’t think anything could go wrong so we said why not? Wow were we wrong.

    If I remember correctly, we had been mad at mom for not letting us play by the well in the field. Yes the same well my sister fell down about 6 months after this. See the farmer who owned the land had beef cows on the property and Rachel and I were terrified of them. Just as we decided to go out into the field, the farmer let the cows in the field at that exact time. So we ran for the tree we had decided to climb not 15 min before.  I never understood why we decided to do this, but in the mind of and 8 year old, anything is better then being chased by a cow.

    Now remember, we had lived by this field our whole life. We had caught grass hoppers in it, been chased up trees in it by cows, we had eating wild strawberries in it, flung cow patties at each other in it, so you would understand that we new this field like the back of our hand. We were very restless little kids and it always gave us some excitement to be in it. Never this much though.

    Now you must know, this pine tree was about 50 feet tall, so in little kid measurements, HUGE! As we were climbing, I told Rachel not to do anything stupid, just follow me and she would be fine. Of course not, since when do little sisters ever listen? They don’t. As im climbing up and up, I hear this blood curing scream behind me, as I turn around, I see Rachel hanging on a branch with one hand and basically dangling there. As I am nearing her, she let go and at that exact moment, I grabber her by the back of the shirt with both hands and was holding myself up on the tree by my legs. It was very scary!

    After that, we never did go back to that tree. Eventually the farmer came and cut it up into firewood and sold it. We learned a lot. Rachel learned to listen to me and I learned not to trust my 6 year old sister. Both of us learned that disobeying mom wasn’t the brightest idea we had either. It was all worth it though, because I’ll never forget the day my sister almost died.