Moms Know Best

People always say that you should try your hardest never to make mistakes. That the mistakes your make can impact the rest of your life. Others claim that the mistakes you make don’t define you, and that you can learn valuable lessons from your mistakes. As kids, teenagers, and even grownups, we all make many mistakes. We make mistakes routinely in our daily lives and if we always took the time, we would subconsciously think, “Hey… This is wrong.” Most mistakes hold little to no repercussions for someone like my cousin, who stays out of trouble and usually avoids situations that could affect her reputation. Other mistakes would leave her with consequences that made her wish she never ever considered making the choices she did. I too could share some stories about mistakes I have made, which have left me with memorable consequences. Although my stories would be interesting, I think her story is a bit more fitting for this prompt. The ghastly incident that comes to mind took place in the winter of 2017 when I was still in sixth grade. My cousin was a sophomore in high school with an adventurous friend group. Now you could say that this friend group liked to live life on the edge in a way, but I would just say that they participated in stupid activities. This friend group of hers definitely made many mistakes, from which she tried to exclude herself. Her parents also did an amazing job of trying to shade her from this activity, and it ultimately made her a more complete adult. There was one night during her sophomore year that she probably wishes she would’ve chosen to listen to her parent’s advice. Her friends were planning to have a late-night fire, and everyone already knows the stuff that goes down at a young high schooler’s fire. Her parents had already tried to dissuade her from meeting her friends there that night, but she assured them that she wasn’t going to do anything that they wouldn’t approve of. While I don’t know everything that went down at my cousin’s fires, I do know that her group enjoyed playing games in the dark. Her friends enjoyed the games that you would typically play late in the night, like manhunt or hide and seek. Games you would play when sitting by the fire started to get monotonous, and you needed to spice the night up a bit. “Hey! This fire is kind of dying and I’m getting cold just sitting here,” a bored friend would say, “What do you say we get up and move?” Then the spooky friend would speak up and say, “You know it is pretty dark out. That could make hiding right now really scary…” Then they would proceed to play the games that would creep each other out, and make each other shiver down to the spine.

She and her friends split off into teams, they choose the seeking team, then… Whoosh! Every other team is hightailing it into the black of midnight. Behind dingy sheds that are deep in the backyard. Up in the trees like a squirrel evading its predator. Crouched behind an obvious boulder because it’s pitch black, and any spot at that point is a winner. Sometimes they would even hide around corners or in close places, just to jump out and scare the seekers. So like all of her friends, my cousin took off into the woods that night looking for a spot to stake out. Now keep in mind that it’s the middle of the winter, where it’s icy everywhere and would be impossible to see. Well as she was sprinting through the woods, my cousin definitely found some of that ice. My cousin slipped and took one of the toughest falls onto the frozen solid ground. Unfortunately, she was unable to contort her body for a safer landing, and her left knee absorbed every bit of the impact like an airbag in a fatal crash. When she had come home that night, she was walking with a limp. She tried everything in her power to hide it because her mother had already advised her not to run through the woods because it was dark and icy. Her mother had some intuition that she was not going to adhere to that advice anyway, and could tell that her daughter was dealing with some pain. My cousin finally sat down and revealed her leg, leaving her mom appalled by the gruesome sight in front of her. My cousin’s leg was black and purple from the middle of her shin to her knee. The swelling in her leg was so awful that under her knee, she had a second knee! Her mother brought her to the hospital either that night or the following morning, to learn that she had an extreme contusion. This was ultimately going to take quite some time to heal, which was a problem because my cousin was a three-sport athlete. Her mother was very frustrated because she specifically told her not to run through the dark woods during the winter for this specific reason. So the lesson learned is that a mother always knows best, so don’t take their advice lightly.

“Mom and Daughter 2” by Ava Lowery is licensed under CC BY 2.0.