A difficult moment in my life was coming home to my best friend’s dad having a stroke. Last year, around Thanksgiving, I was at school getting ready to go home. I felt my phone vibrate through my backpack.. My mom texted me and typed, “Still at Jury Duty, dad’s still at work., Can you go home with your best friend?” I went home with my best friend and her little sister, who lived 3 blocks away.

When we were walking up a 2 huge hills, their parents weren’t answering any calls. We thought that they were just busy with work. They were both stay at home lawyers and were always on the phone and busy. My best friend and I were talking about an essay for our English class about the book The Outsiders. We had to choose our favorite character from the book and write a 3 paragraph essay. She said, “I’m gonna write about Ponyboy Curtis because he is the main character and the book was about him.” I told her, “I’m gonna write about Sodapop Curtis because nobody else will choose him and in the movie, The Outsiders, Rob Lowe played the role of Sodapop. Young Rob Lowe was very nice to watch.” When we finally reached her house, we had to walk up the long spiral staircase. When we reached the top of the staircase her mom,, pulled open the door, dragged us inside, and told us “All of you, go upstairs to your bedroom room and close the door!” She was sweaty and her voice was very shaky. When we got to her room, we had no idea what was going on. For a second, I thought that maybe someone robbed the house. I could hear her mom on the phone being told to calm down. I knew that she was in the living room because the floorboards creaked. When she got off the phone, she ran upstairs and told us that my best friends dad, was very sick and she didn’t know what was going on. She ran back downstairs to make sure that he was okay. She ran back downstairs and started screaming like a car's brakes screeching. The ambulance came within 2 minutes. We could hear and see the lights from my best friends bedroom, still upstairs wondering if her dad was okay. The paramedics took her dad down the spiral staircase very slowly making sure that he didn’t miss a step. The paramedic told us that he believed her dad had a severe stroke and that he would need to get to a hospital immediately. I was still waiting for my parents to answer the phone and tell them to pick me up. My mom finally answered and I told her what happened. She said that my dad would be there soon.    

Her dad is still recovering today and is lucky to be alive. The one thing that I learned from this experience to be grateful and blessed for what i have, my health, and my family.