Memoir
By Zach Vonderhaar
I was in so much pain. I could feel my skin opening and the blood running down my leg. It was Spring Break 2005 and my family decided to take a trip to Jamaica and it was my first time being out of the country border, well unless if you count swimming in the ocean off the coast of Florida. It was a long way there and I remember seeing the coast of the United States turn into blue, glimmering water.
On the plane ride I played cards and games with my family. I did hangman across the row of the plane with my brother and my dad. I also read a little and did a little drawing. It wasn’t really artwork, it was more doodling. When we got there the airport was really weird. The weird part was the coloring and just the way everything was set up was just different. When we got there everything was amazing, but much different than what I had pictured it. The resort was huge and there were many things to do. There were pools with a few water slides. There was a game room and there was shuffle board. There were restaurants and a free ice cream machine that was delicious. There was also tennis, which I didn’t do, and ping pong. My favorite thing there was the game room. The game room had a lot of games and one of my favorite games that I have at home was there. I don’t exactly remember what it was called but it was an NCAA Basketball game. I was always the UNI Panthers and my brother was ISU and my dad just chose a different team every day. It was also one of the only places there that was air conditioning. If the day was one hundred degrees and scorching hot, you would want to go in there and cool off. As soon as the door opened you felt the air rush against you and it was so refreshing. Some days when I was in there I got cold and went outside to warm up. Later on in the vacation, that room would come to use.
It was at the end of the vacation and I was walking up to the room with my mom and I tripped on a step outside and I thought I was ok at first but I wasn’t. I saw my skin ripping open and the blood coming out. I walked a few feet and my mom sat me down and ran inside to get some one because she knew that it was a deep cut. So I sat there teary eyed and blood running down my leg and then I saw my mom running out with someone and they covered my leg with a paper towel to help with the bleeding and then the man was leading us to the first aid center. When we got there the nurse cleaned it up and put a bandage on it and said when the doctor got there a little bit later, he would give me stitches. When I came back my parents came with and I laid down and he gave them to me. And it hurt but I couldn’t see him do it and when I was done he put another bandage on it so I couldn’t see it. The rest of the vacation I couldn’t get it wet and it was a little hard to walk. The game room came in handy because I could sit in an air conditioned room and play games. That was the only time that an injury had happened to me like that and it was an amazing, interesting, and scary experience.
Please comment on what you like and how you think I could have improved it. Thank you.
