The Truth About Sister’s Dramatic Fall, And The Weight Of Guilt
How Speed, Apples and Silence Shaped a Childhood Memory
Once there were three siblings who enjoyed the still-warm days of late summer. Actually, there were four, but the eldest wasn’t really part of the group, as he wanted to be a priest. He had proclaimed this when he was seven, and there was no changing that, and from that moment, everything he did was carried out at the dignified pace expected of the clergy.
School had just started, and the two youngest had also just learned to ride bicycles. It was necessary for getting to and from school as easily as possible, even though it meant the two seven-year-olds had to ride on a busy road without a bike lane. But nobody thought about that back then. The most dangerous thing was if an emergency vehicle, like an ambulance with flashing lights and blaring horns, came by. One of the two youngest was one day startled by such a vehicle and didn’t know any better than to throw himself and his bike into the ditch, hiding until the sound had faded. He would later end up working in the emergency room. Had the wail of the sirens bewitched him?
It was a Saturday morning, and the trio planned to bike to their neighbor’s house, as the neighbor had four children, two of whom were around the same age as them. And the neighbor had a pineapple apple tree, and those apples were ripe, and all the children loved them. The variety was known for easily getting worms, who also seemed to enjoy the apples, but no matter—a little extra protein wouldn’t hurt. They would eat the apples anyway.
The road to the neighbor's house followed a winding, hilly country road with almost no traffic, so the three could ride a bit freestyle. The eldest could even ride with no hands on the handlebars. The second one also tried, but it was too difficult. However, he could ride super fast, especially when he leaned over the handlebars, reducing wind resistance to nearly zero. Off he went!
The youngest lagged behind a bit. She had a small yellow girl’s bike that couldn’t keep up with the older boys’ faster bikes.
The last stretch went down a gentle hill, not steep, rounded off by the earth, shaped like a woman’s breast—round and harmless. The two older siblings raced down, turned into the neighbor’s driveway, and quickly found their friends. They were busy saddling a horse, so the older two didn’t give a second thought as to whether their little sister had arrived. After both had taken a turn riding the horse, they started wondering where she was. Was she with the neighbor's youngest, perhaps already in the apple orchard eating the pineapple apples?
The horse was unsaddled and set free. They went to the apple orchard, but no one was there. No little sister and no youngest neighbor girl. The two older siblings agreed that she must have given up trying to keep up and, being the crybaby she sometimes was, had probably gone home and was now sobbing on their mother’s lap over the unfair treatment by her older brothers.
They biked home on their iron steeds. After all, it was lunchtime, and you had to be present for that, or you'd get scolded by the father. He liked to eat at exactly noon, no matter the day of the week.
Back home, they noticed the car was gone. The garage door was open, so Dad must have left in a hurry; otherwise, he always closed it. In the kitchen, there was no Mom. No pots boiling, no food with enticing smells drawing them to the lunch table.
They had to call for their eldest brother. Was his reverence at home? The door to his room was opened. He came out pale and scolded the younger two, saying they should have looked after their sister, who had now been taken to the hospital with a hole right to her brain through her forehead. She had come walking back with her bike, blood streaming down her face, mingling with her tears. Yes, it wasn’t certain if she would ever come home alive again.
The two younger boys didn’t understand anything. How had she gotten a hole in her forehead? Well, explained the future priest, she had fallen on the dangerous hill where the two of them, by their reckless behavior, had led her astray, just as the Devil leads people into sin, by riding too fast and not waiting for their sister.
The two boys felt ashamed. They suddenly understood why she never made it to the neighbor's house. She had chosen to walk with her bike the two kilometers back to Mom instead of going the 100 meters further to the neighbor’s house, where help would have been right at hand. It was a logic they didn’t understand.
The hours crawled by. At half-past two, the car returned, with Dad at the wheel, Mom, and little sister in the backseat. Little sister was helped inside. She had obviously survived and had a white bandage wrapped around her head. She was put to bed.
The two previously tough boys feared the worst. But neither Dad nor Mom scolded them. Not a word. They only explained that she had a concussion and had been stitched with 11 stitches in her forehead. She must have fallen on the way down the hill and scraped her forehead on the asphalt. It would heal fine.
Their sister’s explanation was that she got scared when the bike started going faster and faster on its own down the hill, so she hit the brakes. Then she fell, and that was that.
The two slightly older boys, however, suspected that she had tried to do tricks, just like them—maybe riding with no hands on the handlebars, or standing up on the pedals, or lying flat over the handlebars to go even faster. But she never admitted to any of that.
The hole to the brain was fortunately an exaggeration, and after about a week, the bandage and stitches were removed, and their sister looked exactly the same again. Her ability to tell a story in the way that got the most sympathy hadn’t faded either. Dealing with the truth sometimes requires a little exaggeration, and she became a master of that after this incident.
The two older boys never forgot the event, nor the eldest brother's preaching about the consequences. Yes, he would indeed make a good priest for capturing sinful souls, but that’s a whole other story. My parents never talked to us about her accident. They never scolded us because of it. We were just left alone with our feeling of guilt, and I do not believe that was a healthy and good way, that our parents chose. Maybe we were guilty, maybe we were not. I would tend to “not” seeing back on the incident. But as a child I had this feeling, and it had been wonderful to discuss it with my parents at that time.
This story base on a true accident. The Author was the younger of the two boys.
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