This event happened fall of 2010.
Garrett Young
Mrs. Hemphill
Freshmen English 21
March 2011
Life Lessons Learned in Unexpected Circumstances
It was a crisp fall morning, a beginning to a day that would change my life and teach me one of the most important lessons I had ever learned so swiftly, I barely realized it was happening. My father, my brother, two close family friends, and I were all dressed warmly and ready for what we predicted would be a long day full of fun and adventure. We were excited to finally have a day that we could all go elk hunting together and planned to enjoy this day, even if we weren’t able to down an elk. What really happened that life changing day, none of us could have predicted.
Our hunting party was deep in the backwoods above Cokeville, Wyoming. My brother, father, and our friends Ralph and Gregg, arrived in the mountains in partial darkness before dawn and began a long climb up brutal hills, not just on trails, but through dense dying foliage brush, and trees. At long last, we reached the crest and settled down for a moment to catch our breath. We devised some strategies to find elk, and we did see some, but we were not able see them long enough or be close enough to shoot at them. Having no luck, we began a long walk to the bottom of the hill to figure out something new to do.
By some strange circumstance, a man clad in blaze orange approached Ralph and I on our way down the sandy hill. When he reached us, he informed us that he was in need of some help. He and his father, who had passed us earlier in the morning, had gotten stuck in mud down the road a little ways and had no way to get out. To add to this, his father, who had recently had a quadruple bypass surgery, had shot an elk and their four-wheeler was broken down. The son told us that he didn’t want his father doing much work in his condition and would really appreciate if we could help get their truck unstuck. We met up with Gregg, my dad, and my brother, and we agreed to help the father and son.
Down the road a ways we found the father waiting for us in a truck that was practically buried many feet of brown and black, thick, and wet mud. The warm and glorious sun had come out now, but that wouldn’t help dry the mud. There was no way two men could possibly get out of this alone, so we chained this truck to Gregg’s truck, and after some work and adjustment we were able to free the truck from the mud that was holding it captive. We refused payment, which is one of many lessons on charitable service I remember. At this time, we recalled that the older gentleman had shot an elk and that he was in no condition to be hauling it out. We also figured it would be terribly problematical for his son to solely do the job. Sticking true to what we had been taught, we decided to help these men take care of their elk.
The elk had been shot in a small stand of dense, small trees that were hard to navigate. After a few minutes of searching, we found the large cow elk, and with the aid of the son, were able to clean the reeking carcass. After crashing about in the trees, we were eventually able to drag it downhill and attach it to our four-wheeler. My father volunteered to drag the elk back to the truck on the four-wheeler, and so we set off on foot as he rumbled away. A little way down the road, the elk slid down into a shallow creek bed and got stuck on some brush. We doubled back to help my dad pull it out. As we did, disaster struck. The four-wheeler was on a bit of a slope, and as my dad took off trying to pull out the elk, the four-wheeler began to roll. I was standing downhill of him and saw this all happen. Time literally seemed to slow down. There was a blur of colors as I watched my dad try to jump off the bike, but it continued roll, coming to rest partially on top of him in the dry creek bed. I was frightened beyond expression. Everyone was luckily around him, and we tossed our guns down and rushed to throw the four-wheeler off of him. He was luckily alive and able to partially keep the bike from crushing him, and he slowly crawled out from under the quad. My father was scared too, as we all were. He was able to walk away from this incident with only a separated shoulder, bruises, and most importantly, his life. After all of this, we decided to cut the day short due to the excruciating pain my dad was in and the rapidly deteriorating, overcast weather. So, forgetting our hunting plans, we rushed my dad to a hospital for treatment.
My brother, Tyler, and I would fight almost incessantly around this time. That day, things changed and our father taught us a lesson. We realized that our fights were petty and useless. We had lost loved ones before, but this occurrence reiterated to us how fragile life can be. Our dad taught us that we needed to resolve our conflicts and stop fighting because we never knew what could happen to someone we love that would leave us regretting our last words to them. Throughout this trial, my father was always strong and set a good example for us, even when emotions were on the surface, and I am thankful for that. We know that we were blessed with an incredible miracle and that we were being watched over and protected that day. I am able to learn and grow, always becoming a better person, because of the lessons my dad teaches me.
No comments:
Post a Comment