The Worst Memory Of My Life
On One Of The Best Places In My Life
I was born and raised in Dominican Republic, me and family used to have trips during vacations or long weekends. We used to go to fun places like amusement parks, trampoline parks, and pools. But one of the best ones was a place called “La Finca”, which a way that dominicans named farms and rural parts. Well my dad had his own Finca, and We did cool stuff and stuff I hated, some things I hated was the fact that we did ate some of the animals in La Finca, not only that but sometimes I accidentally had to watch those animals slowly dying, either by being decapitated, or just being put upside down, so all the blood go to its head and die slowly. And that doesn’t mean that I am vegan or something, I still like my chicken and beef, I just don’t like imagining or actually seeing the process that it takes in order for the animal to die and be eaten. But other than that we also did some other cool stuff like we used to chill in the pool, which my father and his workers personally made, which was cool. we used to interact with animals that I never seen before, like peacocks, pigs and other bird species (that sadly were eaten by the people living in La finca) and my favorite part, we used to ride horses. I always loved to ride horses, it was my favorite part because I could feel the adrenaline, and be “one with nature”, and because I loved (and I still do) love animals, I consider it animal abuse, because of the idea that you are forcing the horse to carry your weight, involuntary. But then my father convince me that it wasn’t animal abuse, because he said I was young and lightweight, meaning that the horse wouldn’t be lifting that much weight, meaning that they wouldn’t be hurt. And as stated before I loved riding horses because, even though I didn’t really ride fast, I would feel the wind and breeze in my face, and from a young age I always liked to be fast, it was my favorite super power, it was the power of my favorite DC superhero “The Flash”, I just loved to be fast, and feel the breeze in my face.
Around 8 years ago (when I was around 8-9 years old), when I still used to live in the Dominican Republic, we went again on a family trip, this time not only my father and siblings went, but also with my aunts and cousins. I remember how we meet at one of my aunts house, early in the morning. We when inside and stayed for hours, since is on my father side of the family to be late to a trip, because they decide to waste time talking about things they could just text about or talk through the arrival of the trip, or even when we get to the trip, but they are just not like that. I remember pressuring my dad to stop talking, and ask him if we can get back to the car and for once and for all get to La Finca. After like 2 hour later we got into the car, and since we were in the city part of the country, it takes us around 3 hours to get there. So when we got there it was already evening like 3 or 4 a-clock. I remember being so mad and bummed out, not only because we arrived late, but because I heard my father saying that it might rain, meaning that we were to probably not ride horses. But since my father knew I love to ride horses, I been waiting the whole day to get to the finca in order to ride horses, and because I was already mad, he let me ride the horse under 1 condition, if my older cousin rides with me ( he was like 5 years older than me, and we used to always get along with each other, this time I hated him). I thought that my day couldn’t get any worse, but after snarling and almost crying, I accepted to with him.
I had to sit in the back, since the whole purpose was to me not to ride the horse. One of the problems was that since he was like 13 years old, he liked to go at a fast speed. Not medium speed, like I like to go, but fast. And even though as stated before, I liked going fast, even I realized that it was pretty dangerous for me to ride a horse fast. So since my cousin didn’t liked the idea of riding slow because you little cousin is with you, he just said fuck it and went fast on the horse. The things is that as stated before, the weather wasn’t that good for horsing riding, since it was raining. So when he started to accelerate and go fast, I didn’t know how to feel, I had my feeling mixed, I was scared and excited at the same time. It was like riding a really fast roller coaster, you just don’t know how to feel. I was speechless, I didn’t wanted to yell or make a big deal about it, because not only I liked the experience, but I also didn’t wanted to get my cousin in trouble, because I knew he wasn’t supposed to do it.
What used to be a great experience, then became the worst of my life. We about to end the ride, since we were at the exit of La Finca, and it was a dead end, blocked by the door. It was either stop and go back, or try to slow down and make a 180 degree turn. Well my cousin choosed the second option, but because as stated before, the weather wasn’t as nice, since it was raining, and the dirt became mud, so when my cousin tried to turn, the horse tripped and fell, And what comes after, is a moment I’ll never forget. The horse fell on top of us, and if you think that a 200 plus pound horse landing on top of a 8 year old boy must have been really painful, then you guessed correctly. I remember being in the floor for what I think was 2 minutes but felt like 30, not being able to move or to even realized what just happened. I wasn’t even knocked out like my cousin, I had full conscience of the pain I was feeling. I remember crying because other than the pain, but because of the agony of not being able to scream or yell since I could barely breathe. After crying in silence I got some courage and stated to drag myself through the mud. In which after trying my hardest to get myself to stand up and ask for help, not only for me but also for my cousin, which by the time I got up, he was starting to wake up. After looking back to see how my cousin was doing, the first thing that I saw were my older sister (by 3 years) and my younger brother (by 1 year), crying, sobbing and screaming after looking at me in my condition. And it was only then when I realized how I see from my left eye, I tried to open it, but for some reason it didn’t work, and after arriving to them (before tripping several times), they hugged me as hard as they could, and put me on the floor as gently as they could. They tried to clean me up from the blood and mud on my face and body, while screaming for my father and family. It was then when I noticed that I had mud on my mouth, eye and ears. I remember my father trying to hold his tears after looking at me in the floor. He tried to stand me up to hug me and hold me, but while trying it I cried saying no because of the pain I felt every time I moved. After like 5 minutes though, my father and his brother in law hold me as gently as they could and got me to the cabin of the Finca. They tried their best to clean me up with water and towels, which they also found a way to get the dirt out of my eye. I really don’t remember what happened to my cousin that day, but I imagine he got picked up from the floor, and put on the cabin too.
After that day, what used to be my passion, my hoobie, and in general one of the thing that made me happy became my greatest fear. I used to not get close to a horse unless it was at least 3 meters away or tied up. It came to a point that it even got my dad mad. He said that what happened would never happen again, and that I should stop being scared, and start being a man again. This is because he was raised as one of those Macho Man latinos that don’t fear anything etc. he also told me that I should try it again since he knew I will love it again. So about 2 years later after the incident my father forced me to ride the horse, and by then there was only 1 more thing I feared more than horses, and that’s my dad (and until this day is still number 1). So after making a whole drama, crying like a baby and being threat, I agreed to ride the horse. And after those years without horse riding, I really missed it, (but I didn’t act like it, because I didn’t wanted to give my father the satisfaction of winning) through all those years, I let my fears keep me away from what I loved. At the end I kept riding horses, but my cousin had to get a surgery in his abdomen area, since I think he broke a bone or something after the incident.
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