Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Four Leaf Clover ❯ 4 Leaf Clover ( Chapter 1 )

Exposition

It seemed like forever, the time between Christmas break and spring break. Finally spring break was here and I was so excited for it. I knew that my big brother, Caleb, would be spending the last of his spring break with our family at home and I was excited to see him after so long of a time. Spring break started earlier for Caleb, and even though mine had just started I still had a few more days of waiting before he would come home.

Right now, Caleb was with his friends, on a snowboarding trip in Colorado. I laughed to myself at the thought of him and his friends, all of them were goofs. I had no doubt that he would be bringing back some pretty crazy videos of all the wicked things that they did or attempted to do.

The thought of them only kept me entertained for a little while though, I was just plain old bored. All my friends went away on some fun trip with other friends or family and I was at home, just sitting around. There was nothing to do and the weather wasn’t even looking too great . It was like the outside felt the same way as I did, just bored and gloomy. So I succumbed myself to the reruns and kiddy shows that were playing on TV.

Slowly the time passed and it was mid afternoon when my dad walked into the house. My dad isn’t like most of my friend’s dads. My dad is so funny, he can always make me laugh. He’s light hearted and doesn’t like to make a big deal out of things, being like me and not liking the whole drama scene. With a dad as cool as him, I can’t help but being a daddy’s girl.

“ Hey, Dad.” I yelled when he walked up the stairs. “ Hi.” he answered back with a smile. That’s another thing about my dad, he may not be much of a talker all the time but his smile and eyes can pretty much just talk for him. I heard him doing something in the kitchen before walking into the living room where I was still sitting on the couch.

“ Anything going on?” he asked me as he sat down on the loveseat that was to the right of the couch I was sitting on. “ Nope.” I answered him, the boredom that I felt dripping into my voice. We sat there for a moment, not saying anything or moving ,just watching whatever was on. I knew it wouldn’t last long though and sure enough, I was right.

“ Hey, do you mind if I check to see what’s on?” My dad asked me. I didn’t care, nothing good was on, and I handed the remote to him not saying anything, just giving him a small nod. “ If you’re watching something, it’s fine. I don’t have to watch anything in here.” he stated. I smiled and shook my head no while answering, “ No, it’s ok. There’s nothing on, I’m just bored. I don’t care if you want to have it.”

So while my dad was searching through the TV Channels a preview of a movie came on. By the time it was said and done with, both me and my dad were laughing. “ I want to see that, it looks really good!” I told him with a laugh. My dad was still kind of laughing too as he nodded at me in agreement, “ Yeah. Hey, they just said that it was in theaters now, right? Maybe you should give your mom a call and see if she’s busy or not and then we can all go.” he suggested to me with a smile.

I laughed as I walked out of the living room to go call the movie theater first to find out about times the movie would be playing. After finding out that it would be playing at 6:00pm, I started to dial my mom’s phone number. I smiled to myself as I shook my head, I just couldn’t get over the fact that ‘I’ always had to ask about things. Though, I have been told on more that one occasion that I happened to be very persuasive. That made me smile in confidence when the other line began to ring. I pretty much knew that we would be going already and the feeling lasted as my mom answered.

“ Hello?” I heard on the other end of the phone. “ Hey Mom!” I called out in greeting before I begin again, “ Me and dad wanted to go to a movie and we wanted to know if you wanted go today, or are you to busy?” I asked her questioningly. There was a pause, which was a good sign for me. “ Sure. But do you two want to leave earlier and go have dinner before or after?” she asked me. Thinking about my dad I decided that it would be best if we went to eat dinner first and go to a later movie afterwards. It was official then. We would leave to go have dinner at around 5:00pm and then go to the movie theater.

The few hours that I had to wait seemed to be passing by fairly quickly for me. It was around 3:00 pm now and I was already to go. I was sitting in the kitchen, sipping on a glass of water, when the phone rang. My dad was walking up the stairs at the same time as I went to check the caller ID, it was my mom. I picked the phone up off of the receiver and handed it to my dad saying, “ It’s mom.” before going back to my water glass at the table. Rising Action

“ Hello?” my dad asked as he answered the ringing phone. I was at a pretty far distance and yet I could still hear it. It was my mom’s voice. It took me a moment to figure out whether or not she was yelling, which just happened at times, or if she was crying, which never happens. I wanted so desperately to think the first, but it became evident that I wouldn’t be getting what I wanted. She was indeed crying, no, more like sobbing.

Immediately my mind began to think of my Grandpa, who had not been doing so well over the past few years. It’s been hard on my mom, she taking care of him for so long. I knew she would feel just crushed if something happened to him.

Finally, I stopped thinking around those thoughts and started to tune back into what was going on at the moment. It seemed that my mom’s crying was getting louder and louder, ringing on throughout my ears, I knew something up and it wasn’t good. I could feel that tight spring inside that held all the worry and panicky feelings at bay start to coil. I was still listening intently to the conversation going on between my dad and my mom.

Then, that spring inside had just snapped. On the other end I heard it, Caleb, my brother’s name. It had been mixed up in with the jumble of my mother’s sobbing and my dad’s coaxing, but I had heard it, Caleb. There was no doubt.

In that split second, that spring full of all those feelings had sprung open. I could feel my heart sinking into the depths of my body, making me feel it’s strong pulse all throughout. My head started to pound in time with it’s overwhelming pulse. Everything seemed like it was growing cold, panic trying to take hold of me. I knew this though and I knew that I had to stop, I had to.

“ Ok, Kori, just calm down. You don’t know what happened. You don’t know the whole situation. Calm down, breath, and focus. You don’t know what happened. Everything is fine.’ I kept chanting to myself , calming myself down before I broke down into a crying mess. My dad didn’t need an extra one of those right now, I knew that was for sure.

“ Alright Honey, we’re on our way there.” I heard my dad say to my mom before hanging up and turning to me. His face wasn’t like anything I’ve seen on him before. I couldn’t place it, but I’m almost certain that mine was the exact same way and that he was feeling almost the same things as I.

He didn’t say anything to me, having no need to do so, as I followed him silently down the stairs. Once at the bottom I quickly turned to go into my room to throw on a sweatshirt and grab my sunglasses. My dad leading the way as we rushed out of the door in silence, both trapped within our own thoughts. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask but, believe it or not, no words came to my mouth. It was as if it knew that now wasn’t a good time for such things, even though my mind was going chaotic. The entire drive to my mom’s work was done in silence. That was driving me nuts as well, but I still never uttered a word.

Turning into the parking lot, my dad did a quick parking job and shut off the engine. I was the first one out of the car, my dad following after me. I reached the door and as soon as I opened it I could hear my mom’s crying,

She was in her office crying while talking to someone on the phone. It would have been comical at a different time with me shaking my head at her, telling her she’ll get some sort of new cyber type of cancer because that phone of hers was always attached to the side of her face. But that would be at a different time, not this time, not now.

Now, as I looked at her, she didn’t look like the strong woman that I knew so well, she looked desperate and broken. It was hard to see her in such a foreign state. When she saw me and my dad walk in she said her goodbyes quickly to her best friend, who happened to be a very good friend of the family’s as well, who was on the phone with her.

She practically darted from her office chair and into my dad’s arms, which embraced her welcomingly and comfortingly. I stood a little ways back, taking everything in. I saw how she grabbed at my father as if he was holding her in the air with thousands of feet below her, my dad holding her tight as well but for different reasons. I watched as she buried her face into my dad’s shoulder, a sobbing cry tearing through her throat, as she attempted to escape from whatever was happening. She tried to escape from it, even if it would be for just for a moment, she tried.

I could feel that spring inside of me threatening to coil again when I saw her like that. My mom, she just looked so devastated and it scared me. Never before have I seen her so afraid and desperately lost, never before had I seen her cry, not like this. It was horrible and the more I kept thinking about what could have happened, the more that spring coiled tighter. I couldn’t take it anymore, the scene in front of me, and just not knowing. I couldn’t be left to wonder about it anymore, I had to know! I had to know what happened, what happened to Caleb!

“ Mom, what happened? What happened to Caleb? Is he alright, what happened?” I asked her, hearing my own voice choke upon the words because that knot, the kind you get when you hold in your crying, started to form in my throat. I waited silently for her answer, seemingly already wanting to shy away from whatever answer that would escape her lips. She sobbed even harder, shaking her head on my dad’s shoulder.

“ Caleb,” he hoarse voice choked out his name, “ H-He was in a-an accident, Kori.” she told me, turning her face to look upon me with sad and sympathetic eyes that were now red and splotchy from all of her crying.. I looked between her and my dad, his eyes giving me the same look save for any redness because he had not shed a tear. I hated it, I hated to see that look, I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want their sympathy, I didn’t need it, I wanted answers and that was what I was going to get.

“ Well, what happened to him? Is he going to be ok? Where is he?” I shouted, my face growing hard with frustration, that knot in my throat finally receding. I never really had that much patience for things and my parents were never an exception. My dad was running his hand up and down my mom’s back, soothing her and calming her down some before she tried to speak again.

“ Kori, Caleb broke his neck. We don’t know what happened or what his condition is at the moment. He’s being rushed to the Duluth hospital right now.” She barley managed to explain between her seemingly constant hiccupping cries. I was actually shocked to hear this. My big brother had never had a broken bone in his life and now his neck is the first to break.

“ Let’s just go now.” my dad implored, breaking me out of my daze. He escorted my mom to his car, opening the door for her and shutting it once she got inside. I sat in the backseat and buckled up as my dad pulled out quickly and started to drive in the direction of Duluth, where my brother was currently at in the ER. ‘ Of all the things that could have possibly happened to him, that had too.’ I thought as I shook my head.

My mom had started crying again and my dad tried to sooth her some by rubbing a comforting hand on her thigh. “ Mom, look, you said yourself that we don’t know what’s happened to him. You need to calm down, breath, and start thinking positively. Stop crying.” I told her, urging her into being that strong woman that I know she is again. To be honest, I just couldn’t take seeing her like that and it was starting to really get to me. I didn’t want that to happen, I wanted to stay strong, I didn’t want to start crying.

Duluth was over an hour away from where we lived. It was the longest hour of my life. Never before had I felt so scared, desperate, unsure, frustrated, and so sad, all at the same time too. It was so hard to stay as strong as I wanted to. Little by little, with every cry that escaped my mom and my dad’s words, that strength wore away. That knot was getting bigger and more painful as the time passed, but I wouldn’t give into the pain and cry. ‘ Be strong.’ I kept telling myself.

We parked in the parking ramp at the hospital and rushed inside. We were directed to a private waiting room in the ER and told that someone would be coming to tell us when it would be ok to see him. The wait wasn’t long at all, but it seemed to be longer than the car ride. There was a knock on the door and a woman walked in. I was sitting on the couch by my mom, my dad in a chair right across from us. Fresh tears streaked my mom’s face as the woman spoke to us. She was a social worker who worked at the hospital and dealt with situations like my brother’s and their families. She was the one who checked in on things and could keep us informed as things progressed.

Finally she told us that we could go see Caleb. It got to me, when we walked the short distance from the waiting room to the emergency room he was in, that we could be so close to him and yet it seemed so far away. Turning into the large room the first thing I saw was him lying, all strapped in on a bed with metal sides all around it with blankets covering him.

I made note of there being no blood or anything and let out a breath of relief. The thought of there being blood everywhere plagued my mind and I was glad to see that there was none, though that didn’t make the situation any less serious I knew, it just helped me relax some. I stood back some, taking things in, as the doctor who met us at the door when we entered talked to my parents and told them what was happening.

“ Caleb has broken his neck .We have taken x-rays of the broken bones and there are bones from his shattered vertebrae that are scattered throughout. We will need to operate on him soon to get those out of there and mend the bones back together.” he explained to us as he was showing us everything in the x-rays.

My brother was just lying there on the bed, an ER nurse talking to him while she worked on getting him set up for surgery. I had to talk to him, I had to talk to my big brother. The need was just so strong and at the same time I was so scared. I was scared to see him up close in such a vulnerable state. He was so strong, in both mind and body, and it just hurt so bad to see him like that.

Nonetheless, I found myself wandering away from my parents and the ER doctor towards my brother’s bedside. The nurse smiled at me as I walked up and continued to do her work, talking to my brother as if nothing at all had ever happened. “ So you’re nineteen and in your third year of college, you must be really smart then. You have the same strawberry blonde hair as your mom.” She told him, making him smile. His eyes were closed while he was talking to her and didn’t know that I had approached. (Climax)

“ Caleb?” I called his name softly. He opened his eyes and gave me small smile. I could tell that he was scared and that he was just putting up a front for me but despite all of that, I still couldn’t help but give him a small smile of my own. It scared me though, that he had to put up a front like that. “ Does it hurt?” I asked him, my lip trembling slightly as the words escaped me. His eyes met mine for the first time that day, they looked so different. His voice was low , “ I wish it did.” He told me before breaking contact and looking away.

A tear escaped from his eye, glistening in the white light as it rolled down the side of his face. I watched it as I felt my own finally escape from mine, that lump in my throat choking me so I couldn’t say anything. It was so hard to believe, that someone would rather wish pain upon themselves, intense pain, just so they could feel. That’s what my brother had just wished upon himself. Caleb was so smart, he knew what had happened to him. He knew that he had become paralyzed and he knew, from what the doctors have told him and from just knowledge in general, what his chances were at ever feeling again.

I never believed in wishing. I always had the thought that wishing for things was a sign of lost hope, when you become so desperate that you can’t see anything good coming from anything. His hope was gone and it felt like mine had left also. I’ve looked up to him for my entire life, and if his hope was lost so was mine.

He never looked at me again or said another word to me as he lied there. I knew it was because he wanted to be strong for me and that just made everything hurt that much worse. It was supposed to be the other way around and I was determined that would it be, but I failed. I couldn’t be strong enough for my brother and now he didn’t have any hope left in him.

“ Caleb, we’re going to take you into surgery now, alright?” the nurse told him.

“ Ok.” he answered quietly before they lead his bed towards the door. They stopped to let my parents talk to him for a moment before they left. My mom was still crying when they left and I went to go stand by her and my dad. I hugged her and just started to cry, I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I couldn’t be strong anymore. I was hurting, scared, and felt like a failure. So I cried.

We were escorted by the same woman social worker into a different waiting area a few floors up to wait in while my brother was in surgery. The lady was really nice, always trying to make us as comfortable as possible. She looked at me and smiled. I gave her a small smile back out of politeness. “ Your parents tell me that you’re really close with your brother. Is that because you around the same age, how old are you?” she asked me curiously. “ Sixteen.” I simply replied quietly. “ Oh, I would have thought you to be older than that. You’re the youngest?” she asked me. “ Yeah.” I told her, silently hoping that she would get the hint that I didn’t feel like chatting at the moment before I ended up coming off as rude. She seemed to get it and left me alone after that leaving me thankful.

My mom and day had gotten a hold of my older sister and her boyfriend a while ago and they were both on their way her with some friends. My crying had stopped a little while ago, but my face and eyes still held the evidence of my tears. I knew that they would most likely start again as soon as Raylee, showed up with Leo. My sister’s best friend, who I thought of like another older sister, was going to show up too with her husband and his younger sister who was also very good friends with my sister. All being friends of my brother and practically family.

It was around 10:00pm when they showed up. I was hugged by everyone, it being a comfort and yet at the same time I didn’t like it. I could feel their sympathy for me, they all knowing that I had a very close relationship with Caleb. Raylee was crying, scared because she didn’t know what happened, just getting horrible messages on her cell phone from my mom who was sobbing like mad.

It was getting late and not only was I tired, but my eyes burned and my head was pounding from crying earlier. They had all gotten a room at a hotel because they didn’t want to drive home and offered me to stay with them, but I was reluctant. I knew it was my brother and all, but if my parents were already going home, I would really much rather spare a couple hours of sleep to be able to go home with them to sleep in my own bed and have fresh clothes for the next day when we would be retuning.

Some food was ordered and in truth I hadn’t eaten since noon that day at it was close to midnight now but I wasn’t hungry for it. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of eating, I just couldn’t. The only thing I wanted was for Caleb to be done with surgery and for me to see him before we had to leave.

Around 1:30am he was wheeled out of the operating room and being brought up to intensive care. We went up with him to say goodbye with the promise that we would be back in the morning. Everyone else stayed longer, being that they didn’t have to drive home.

It was late and the night air by the Great Lakes was like ice as the wind pushed it through my sweatshirt, making a shiver go up my spine. I hadn’t talked since I spoke with Caleb in the ER, I was trapped in my own thoughts that kept on replaying in my mind what he had said to me. No one else was there to hear it, only me.

My parents were talking up front as I sat in the back in silence during the drive home. I couldn’t help the tears that kept escaping my silently all the way home and into the night as they plagued me in my sleep or what little sleep I got. I either kept thinking about Caleb and how he was doing or I would dream about his accident that was relied to us by a nurse in the ER who had asked him what had happened.

It turned out that Caleb had entered a snowboarding completion in Alexandria. From the sounds of it, he was doing really well and when he was just with his friends he was pulling off back flips and some other tricks. So he went and got a ride to Alexandria and paid a small entry fee for a number vest for the competition. He was doing really well and on his way down the hill there was a barrel that he was going to do a simple nose grab off of, something that he has done thousands of times, but the hill was steep, steeper than he thought it was. He had too much speed and when he jumped the barrel he fell backwards. Caleb knew what he would land on his back but the snow was powder soft and he thought that he wouldn’t get hurt, at the most get the wind knocked out of him. He doesn’t remember landing or any pain, just waking up with everyone around him and not being able to move or feel anything.

It was hard for me to even just imagine how awful it would be to just suddenly wake up, not being able to feel anything or move. How terrible it must be to want to be able to feel anything at all so much that you’d wish for pain. With those thoughts in mind I went to sleep that night to awaken to a more painful headache and burning eyes.

The next day I was up early to get ready to leave and travel to Duluth. I was up in the kitchen sipping on a glass of water when my dad walked in. He looked at me and my face, I knew that my eyes were red not only from yesterday but from this morning also. He looked at me sympathetically before he spoke, “ I feel so bad for you, Kori. I know that you and Caleb were very close and you’re probably hurting the worst of all of us in some ways. I wish that I could just make all of this go away, but I can’t. I want to, but I just cant. I don’t know what I can do. I’m just so sorry that you have to go through this.” he whispered.

I couldn’t look at him when he was talking, I couldn’t look at his face and I didn’t want him to see mine. I knew that he knew I was crying and when I felt him turn me around to give me a hug a sob tore through me. I hugged him back tightly, not wanting to let go, understanding my mom’s feelings of yesterday and the comfort that my dad can bring. He didn’t have to say anything, in fact, I rather him not. I’d rather him hug me than have to speak words like that, words that mix up all of my emotions.

When we got there, we spoke to a nurse that has been taking care of Caleb. She described to us better of what exactly happened to him. She said that when he came down on his neck, his spinal cord had been twisted and crushed. With spinal cord injuries, they could never promise anything about him getting better. Many never do and what you’ve got is what you’re left with for the rest of your days. Otherwise a miracle would sometimes happen and they would come out of it, having their time in a wheelchair as just another memory that they can look back upon.

My parents asked their own questions, but I had one of my own. “ What about his eyes? Why do they look so different?” I asked her. My mom and dad looked at me questioningly, “ What do you mean, Kori?” my mom questioned. I didn’t answer, instead I waited for my own from the nurse. She smiled at me, I didn’t know why but I just got this vibe from her, it wasn’t bad, and it actually made me like her.

“ His eyes are the way they are now because of all the trauma he’s been through. His body isn’t used to this, he was never like this before, and he just went through major surgery that he still has to recover from also. It is sort of the same thing with his shivering. His body is hurt and in pain, he just isn’t able to feel it, so it’s coming out another way. That will stop and I’m sure that his eyes will return to normal too.” she explained to me. I nodded my head and turned to go into his room, not knowing what else I should say or if I should say anything. It was an awkward situation, not to mention feeling, that I was the only one who noticed such an insignificant thing or even cared about it when he was lying there with a broken neck. I just did, I felt it was a part of my brother and I wanted to know when that part would come back.

Everything was just so hard now. It’s something that seemed so simple and yet was so hard to explain. Of course I wanted to help out my brother as much as possible, I love him to death, but at the same time I wished that I didn’t have to, that he could do it himself. I’m sure everyone wanted that though, but I had different reasons from all of them. I had promises of learning knew things from him and of more fun times with him, but what about now? I thought it was ironic that now that my brother couldn’t teach me was when I wanted to really learn how to do things and for him to teach me, like how to play the guitar, golfing , snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding, and so many other things. What about that now? Now I was left feeding him while he lies in his bed not being able to move anything but his mouth and blink his eyes. What now? Why?

Those were the questions that haunted my mind constantly. What do I do? What are we going to do? What’s going to happen to my family? Why did this happen? It made me so frustrated and I always had to fight my urges to just strike out at someone for no reason. They didn’t do anything, it wasn’t their fault. I just want to know why!

The answers to my questions never came though. I was sick of everyone saying that everything happens for a reason. No, that wasn’t right! Why the heck would there be a single reason to rip away my brother’s world, his life!? There wasn’t any. Caleb was so smart , so outgoing and so strong. He didn’t deserve this, it shouldn’t have happened. I would say that it shouldn’t have happened to him, but I would never wish pain like this on some other person or on someone else’s big brother, never. It just wasn’t fair.

I had many discussions with my sister and had time to ponder over these things myself. I always asked her, “ Do you think God is punishing us?” I mean did we really do something so wrong to deserve this? If not, then why would God allow this to happen, not just to our family and Caleb, but to anyone. Why? I just didn’t get it and it made me so angry. Why would God do this to us?

I was angry, angry at God. Mad that I couldn’t change anything, I couldn’t even do anything. There were times that I just had to completely separate myself from everyone else out of fear that I would strike out at them. Something happened to me one day though, making everything just sort of come together, making me believe that there may not be a reason for why things happen, they just do. It happened when I was on the computer just surfing around, when I came upon a phrase that from then on I engraved into my mind. I thought about it whenever I felt upset about something and it helped me through it.

‘Even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. No matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. Life sometimes gives you a second chance.’

Falling Action

So the days passed by and the hospital was pretty much like a second home that I knew like the back of my hand. For two months straight we drove back and forth, waking up early and getting to bed late. There were times that it really caught up to me and I just couldn’t go to visit Caleb.

The longest time that I went without seeing Caleb during the two months was only a few days after his accident had happened and I had to go to skating practices for the ice show. The show was two days in a row, the first one preformed in the evening, the second during the day. I ended up leaving early during the second ice show to go see him. That day I didn’t perform so well, I was to anxious to see Caleb and tell him about how I rocked the first ice show.

After the first couple of months we stopped traveling so much to see Caleb. He was going through therapy and both of my parents had to start working again, not to mention how much the cost of traveling down there everyday was. But every weekend I either went with m mom or dad, sometimes my big sister if she was off. Every time I went to visit him, he seemed to be getting better, stronger. It was something to look forward to when we visited, seeing something knew that he could do.

My hope had started to come back to me, hope that something good will come out of all of this, out of all this pain and hardships that we’ve gone through. I’m pretty positive about things but I’m not one to give my hopes up. The days go by and my mom still has plenty of breakdowns. I have to keep telling her to take things day by day, that’s the way we have to live our lives now, not looking into the future where we don’t know what’s going to happen. She prays for the day that she’ll see Caleb walk again, she’s a mom, I can’t blame her especially when I want the same thing too. It’d be so nice to have him back, Caleb, but I see the reality of it all has been blocking all and anything else that there is.

There was a day that I came across my mom crying, I asked her what was wrong and she had told me that an acquaintance of hers from church that knows about Caleb had simply told her to except whatever God leaves you. I have never been so angry in all my life till that day when I heard that. How dare they assume that they can tell my mom to just give up! I was livid, no doubt about it. The only thing that happened to cheer me up some after my outburst happened to be my mom, that she had shared quite a few choice words with them. Bluntly stated, she told them to stuff it and keep any and all thoughts like that to themselves because they were just a waste, especially to her and our family. That made me happy, I was proud that my mom had stood up not only for her, but Caleb and the rest of us. It was the first time in a long time that I shared a good laugh, a true laugh, with my mom.

On one of the days we were going for a visit, I went with my sister to go shopping for new clothes for him to wear. We went to the mall and got him really sweet punk clothes from different stores because he decided that that was the look he wanted to go for now. That was more of my thing too, so I was really excited to get all different things for him.

We stopped at all of the stores that we liked to go to as well, one of them being American Eagle .I had already spent most of my money so needless to say there wasn’t anything there that could fit in my budget at the moment. Raylee shopped for some clothes for Leo, picking out a few things that he would like. I watched her as I made my way through the clothes, even though I couldn’t buy any.

I made my way closer to the checkouts and saw a jewelry stand on the men’s side of the store. I walked over and started to look through different things, seeing if anything just seemed to fit Caleb’s style. It just so happened that I came across and dark, worn leather necklace with a four leaf clover on it. I thought it would fit with Caleb’s style and not only that but it ironically fit the very day he had his accident, March 17, St. Patrick’s Day.

I decide to get it for him anyways and see what he thought about it. If he didn’t want it, then I’d either return it or just keep it for myself, for remembrance. After I had bought my purchase, I waited for my sister to get done with hers. When she did I took the nag from her, dropping my smaller bag inside to leave her carrying just two bags.

We drove to the hospital, me leading the way to his room once we got there since my sister didn’t know her way around that well with her having to work and not being able to visit Caleb as much as me. I knocked on the door and entered as soon as I got an ok.

“Hey Caleb! How are you?” I greeted him with a smile as I set the bag at the end of his bed. “ Hey, I’m alright. How about you, Kori?” he asked in return with a small smile. “ I’m good.” I answered. “ How are you, Raylee?” he asked my sister as she set down her bags on the floor by his bed. “ I’m good too!” she accentuated with a smile.

“ Oh! Caleb, you have to see what we got you! All of it is so cool, you’re gonna like it!” I told him excitedly, making him chuckle at me. I could never help it, I always had those weird outbursts. They were use to it by now though, me and my randomness, it would never go away.

While Raylee dug through one bag I dug through another, pulling out everything for his inspection and approval. We had decided already that we would just return the clothes he didn’t like tomorrow and possibly get him some more or any that we forgot that he showed us online. Out of all of the things we had bought, he only disliked a couple of things and one we had to take back because it had a whole on the inside of the pant leg.

“ Oh, Caleb! I bought you something else too!” I declared excitedly because I almost forgot about it. “ I think you’ll like it. It’ll fit with a lot of you clothes that we got, it’s pretty sweet.” I told him as I dug for the small bag that I put inside of the bigger one from American Eagle. Once I had found it I pulled it out and brought it closer to him. Dropping it out of the bag and into my hand, I held it out in front of him for his inspection. I knew that it wasn’t all that fancy, but I figured that it would go with his style pretty well and that he would like it.

“ Yeah, that’s pretty cool, Kori.” he told me, smiling. “ So you like it?” I asked him. “ Yeah, I like it a lot actually. It’s cool. I like the dark leather.” He told me. I smiled, “ I knew you would like the leather!” I laughed . We stayed there for a few hours past dinner, watching movies with him and just filling him on the things that were happening at home.

A lot of things were going on at the house. We were having remodeling done for Caleb, to make things easier for us when he came home. The months seemed to be starting to pass a lot quicker than usual, but you wouldn’t catch me complaining about it.

Caleb had been moved to a different location where he would learn to do things more independently which was good because he always liked to do things himself, at least that way nothing could be done wrong. So he was down in the Cities, a little over three hours away, making it a lot harder to go visit him when we wanted to.

Only after spending a few months down there was he back to college. He went to NDSU before his accident and wanted to go back there where his friends were. I would have wanted to do the exact same if I hadn’t been able to see most of my friends for such a long time. It was a rough start when he first went back, but things smoothed over fairly quickly and now things are working out pretty well for Caleb. Some days are hard, but that’s to be expected. I can’t visit him now because I have gone back to school just like him, but he comes home on all of his breaks that he gets.

When a full year had passed, St. Patrick’s Day had a new meaning to me. It became not only a day of remembrance, but it was a special day too. I still never got any answers to the questions that I always asked and I’m still left to wonder about things. Things are better though and whenever I think about that day I’m reminded of a dream. Looking back on everything now, it seems like a dream, like it happened to someone else and not me. I’m reminded of the irony of life.

Mathew 21:21

Jesus replied, “ I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

The very verse that was dreamed about., ironic because on Caleb’s 21st birthday it will have been exactly 21 months since his snowboarding accident. Since then five more years have passed.

Now I’m standing in a large crowd. All around me there were people, all of my family was here along with all of our friends. We were cheering and clapping like mad when the man called Caleb’s name. He had not given up and followed through with his dream and now here he was, graduating from a great law school and on his way to becoming an even more successful lawyer.

He was coming down the isle and I got my camera ready to take tons of pictures of him. I called his name louder than everyone else to get his attention and when he looked, he gave me a brilliant smile while I took the picture. I wanted to get more, but it all happened so fast and before I knew it he was up on the stage, accepting his diploma. I turned my camera to the viewable setting to review the picture and what I saw on the screen made tears come to my eyes.

There was Caleb’s smiling face, smiling right back at me, and on his neck was the necklace that I had gotten for him so long ago. I’ve never seen it on him until this day, and there it was, the silver clover starkly standing out against his black gown. But that wasn’t the only thing, no. His eyes, in that picture, his eyes were those same steely, blue eyes from years ago before his accident. I got my brother back.

After the ceremony I left first to meet up with Caleb who was outside by all of his friends. “ Hey, congratulations everyone!” I congratulated all of them. “ Thank you.” they all replied before saying there own goodbyes to my brother and going off to find their own family members that were starting to pour out of the building.

“ Hey, Caleb, how come I never have seen you wear this before?” I questioned as I pointed to the necklace. He smiled at me, “ Kori, I never take this necklace off. I’ve worn it since you gave it to me,” he told me as if I should have known it, making me laugh lightly. “ It fits me well, don’t you think?” he asked me proudly. I smiled, “ Yes, it does quite well.” I told him before giving him a hug. A tear escaped from my eye as I thought, ‘ I finally got my big brother back. Caleb.’