The Split of a Second.

Haven’t you ever had a feeling, when you woke up, that it just won’t be your day, that it’s just better to stay in bed and not moving from there? Well, I have. I’ve had those kinds of days when everything is just meant to be wrong, but still, I never figured that one day things could be even worse. Still, you have to wake up and move on, it is part of the routine.
That remarkable day was in fact, a rainy, cold, busy day in New York City, when I got up from bed with my left foot. I had run out of shampoo, I could not find my uniform, and there was no breakfast. Besides, just to make it better, I was late.
Getting late is awful, not only you are missing duties, but when you have a boss like Martha, it really is worse. When I try to sneak in late, somehow she always notices. Then she grabs my tiny arm with her big fat dirty fingers and starts yelling at me with her manly voice, looking at me with her bulging eyes. At this point of the day, when she starts explaining me how being late won’t sell more Happy Meals, I begin to realize how pathetic is my life. And then I come to realize that the fact of working as a cashier of McDonald’s at thirty-four is not helping either.
So what do you do when you are me, and want to improve? How do you grow from it? You know, I am still waiting for that moment in my life, where I can finally take that leap forward and make myself proud. Never thought it would be the way it really happened. Now I just kind of regret it.
Going back to the chronology of my bad day, I had just heard my boss screaming at me, when I finally started to work. The day was kind of normal from then, selling all the different options we had to offer to a whole different variety of costumers. That was until this curious man came in. It was around two in the afternoon, and he was drunk as he could ever be. Then that feeling I had in the morning, it just came back to me.
At this point, all I could do was watch and be alert, because I did not know what to expect. When he finished his meal, he just left stumbling with everything around him. Then he got in a car, in the driver’s seat, and drove off. I’m more worried by that moment, since as we all know, if you are going to drink, don’t drive. Guess my feeling was right, because he still hadn’t crossed the nearest intersection when he crashed right into another car.
I rush out to the street, panicking. I mean, I feel in my veins such a rush, everything is hectic, someone is yelling: “Call 911!” I do not know what to do, yet all I know is that I want to help. Finally, that moment to prove myself, that moment I’ve been waiting for is here.
Once I get there, all I can see is blood. It’s everywhere, and so is glass. I’m seeing the ugliest scene ever. As you might never guess, turns out that in the drunk’s car, there’s also a pregnant woman. She does not seem very hurt herself, but all she can do is scream about her baby, and how she thinks she lost it. With her, there is the drunk man, who now is unconscious. Then I see the other car, and I just can’t believe it, it is my dad in it.
Now I’m taking panic to a whole new level. I was determined to help when I ran out to the street, but now I’m frozen. Firefighters and paramedics are just coming in. Everything is going like in fast motion. Now, I finally react. I pull one of them and get him to do everything he can to help my dad. Still, my dad is stuck in the car because of the seatbelt, so it is going to take more time.
While the firefighters do their job I am holding on to my father’s hand. We are talking, and I’m trying to keep him distracted. I ask him how has been his day, and he answers in a very sarcastic tone: “It has all been very good you know, experiencing new things.” This is the part of the story where I just shut up and look to him in the eye, and tell him over and over again that he is strong, and that he will go through this, and than in a year or so we will sit together and laugh at the story. Suddenly one of the firefighters asks me to move. They are about to free him.
Once he’s out of the car, the paramedics start working on him. I’m worried sick now. We hop into the ambulance in a hurry, seems that he does not have that much time, they have to work quickly. In a matter of minutes, we are at the hospital. The doctors come and take him in seconds. Now all I can do is wait.
As he is taken to surgery, through my mind come all types of thoughts. What if I loose him, what if that was the last time I’ll speak to him, what if he really is hurt that badly? All I know is that things won’t be the same ever again. I pray, and I hope. I realize it is the first time I’ve felt this way. Seconds go by as if they were minutes, and minutes go by as if they were hours, I’m as desperate as I could be.
The doctor sends updates once in a while, but when they start sounding as the same they don’t exactly tranquilize you, but upset you more. I’ve had around a liter of coffe, I’m exhausted. It is around midnight now. Seems my dad got pretty wounded in order to need a nine hour surgery. I’ve heard from everyone involved in the accident during all this time. It’s kind of sickening. The drunk dude that caused the whole thing just had a concussion, he is going to be just fine. The woman lost the baby, which I am sorry for, but she still has the opportunity to have more. But my dad, my dad is in surgery with his life on the line, and no one knows if he is going to live.
Finally, as I am realizing how unfair life can be, and how quickly it can end, I start giving up hope. Then the doctor comes out. My eyes light up in a second. I am thinking to myself: “He is going to live, he is going to be ok, and everything will be fine. Gladly! ” As the doctor comes closer, I get to see better the expression of his face, he is not that happy. He comes and looks at me in the eye and just tells me: “We did everything we could, but the damage…”
I can not hear anymore, my legs are shaking, and I can’t stand up anymore. I just let myself fall to the floor. Tears start running through my face, I can’t speak. He is gone I think. Worst is, that morning my father was ok and by that night he wasn’t. I would never have imagined that things would turn out that way, it was the least I expected. But that day I learned how life really is, and that it can change in a split of a second. For me, that was it.
My father was the only person I had left, you see, I am an only child, and my mother died of cancer when I was sixteen. All I ever wanted was to make him proud. But for what I can be thankful today is, the single fact that I got to be with him when he was in agony, those few moments in the crash, in the ambulance. Nothing has changed from then, but everything has. I still do the same things I did back then, but now, I look life with a different perspective. As we all know, you never know when is going to be your last day, so it is better to live every single one of them to the fullest.