898_Throwaway_898: When I was younger (about 6 years old), my brother sister and I had a game that we would play. Nothing sexual but it was called Dare. The object of the game was to walk around the outside of our raised deck while holding on to the railing and walking on the very narrow ledge.
We had played the game before and one day my brother and I were outside alone (Mom and sister were busy inside) and I challenged him to play. My very fuzzy memory is that he didn’t want to play and I slightly pressured him. He gave in and I went first. On his turn around something happened and I watched my four-year-old brother crash to the ground below.
He landed in a terrible position and broke his leg directly under his hip. He was in the hospital for 34 days with a screw drilled completely through his knee that was used to hold his hip in position. He was in a body cast from the chest down for over 8 weeks and had to go through months of being in a wheelchair and grueling physical therapy to be able to walk again. Now, almost 15 years later my brother’s legs are slightly different lengths from the bones resetting differently, and has some minor muscle problems due to this.
However, he was also named the best goalkeeper in our state last year and will probably be moving out of state to follow his dream and play soccer. I love him more than he’ll ever know and more than I could ever express here. He’s the smartest, most talented person I know and I’m so proud of him. And it breaks my heart a little more every time I think about his childhood I feel like I am to blame for the months of pain he had to endure.