Personal Essay- Event Not Easily Forgotten

It was dark for about three hours now and it was like any other summer night. It was the end of August and I had just gotten home after a typical summer day of hanging with friends and going to the beach. The crickets were chirping which set a nice background tune to put me to bed.  It was a good night; everyone in my family was in bed. I was quietly sitting in my bed when suddenly the silence was broken by the ringing of the house phone.  It was almost midnight when the phone rang.  From the second the phone started to ring I knew that nothing good was going to come from it. I popped out of bed and went down the hall to answer the phone, just has I turned the corner to the kitchen the ringing stopped and I saw my mother standing in the kitchen with the phone. The look on my mother’s face was one that I never want to see again. She was pale white and look like she had seen a ghost. I quickly asked her what was wrong and she started to cry. She finally muttered out that my cousin had been shot. My first instinct was that my cousin who was stationed in Iraq at the time got wounded. However, it happened much closer to home. My mother told me that it was in fact her nephew and that he got shot at highland plaza in Holbrook. 

This was just a quick ten minute drive from my house; I quickly grabbed my clothes and headed out the door. We had to go to my cousin’s house because with all of the confusion my aunt was not sure if she had locked the door to her house. We had no idea what was going on, we didn’t know if the people who shot him could end up going to his house. The ten minute drive seemed like it was forever, not knowing if my cousin was going to survive was the worst part. As we arrived at his house everything seemed normal. I grabbed the bat out of the trunk and headed into the house to make sure there was no one in there. As I look back on that night that was probably a stupid move, especially if there in fact was someone in the house armed with a gun.  I was filled with anger however and really overwhelmed by the whole situation. After checking out the house and realizing that everything was fine I locked the door and we headed to Brockton Hospital. As we arrived at the hospital we met up with the rest of my family. It seemed like my family was the only family in the waiting room at the time. We waited for about an hour for the doctor to come out and tell us how he was doing. He informed us that my cousin was very lucky and that he had been shot in his right shoulder. Apparently the bullet had gone in one side and out the other. He was lucky to be alive; the bullet came within inches of his heart and within centimeters of a main artery. He was in critical condition and had to be flown to Boston Medical Center. We all piled into our cars and headed for the highway on our way to the next hospital. After arriving at Boston Medical Center we finally were able to find out what had happened. Apparently my cousin was sitting in his car in the parking lot of a movie rental store when three kids driving a white Acura Integra pulled up and hit him in the face with their pistol. They ripped him out of his car and then he took off running. It was at this time that he was shot in the back by a pistol, the bullet went in one side and out of the other. He then ran through some woods to a neighborhood where he collapsed on someone’s porch.

Once we got to Boston Medical Center we were informed that my cousin was now in stable condition and that he was going to make a full recovery. I remember that night like it was yesterday, everyone was so nervous and silent while in the waiting room that you could hear a pin drop. One thing that I do not understand about the whole thing is how someone could kill another human being over a car.  Things could have gone a lot different for my cousin that night and he is lucky that he is still alive. The people who tried to kill him however were never caught or tried for the crime. Maybe someday they will get caught but I highly doubt it. My cousin today has made a full recovery and works for a towing company in the same town.  He has told me that he feels weird when he is driving around town because he could walk right by the person who shot him and not even know. This was one of those events that stick with you throughout your life. I never rule anything out if I’m driving through an area that I don’t know because you never know how desperate someone may be.