Personal Narrative: My Childhood Memories Of Sledding

Sledding is a childhood experience full of laughter and excitement. From the first time a child is pulled in a sled to the time when they attempt their first crazy sledding feat, wonderful memories are being created. Sometimes these memories blur together like snowflakes in a January wind. Happy memories with forgotten details, but still leading to the same ending; delight. Most of my sledding memories were like this; running through backyards and flying down hills. Sometimes however, memories are not always delightful. One memory in particular fell into that category.

Several years ago, it was an early Christmas morning at my Grandparents house. The sun was pouring through the windows and the smell of breakfast still hung in the air. The setting was optimal for a great day of happy memories that would only be recalled in short term. What was to follow was anything but a short term memory. Sledding at Indian Hill had been a family tradition. This menacing hill seemed to slope straight down and I can remember standing at the bottom and feeling like I was about to embark a three day hike up a mountain. Looking back on it now, I am not even sure that it was that steep. But at seven, this monstrous hill was like a mortal enemy.

It was so cold outside it seemed

like with even the slightest of a breeze, the air itself would shatter. Growing up in Minnesota had taught me that there was no such thing as a light winter jacket; winter was a frigid experience and it was a fact you had to adapt to in order to function. After what seemed like hours of preparation, our car had swallowed five sleds, two extra jackets and blankets, assorted mittens, two cousins, one sister, two uncles, a dad and a grandpa. Being the smallest, I was the last to squeeze in.
The time flew by as we raced down the hill again and again. We kept the cold out with the simplest solution: adrenaline. Our hearts pumped faster and faster as we clipped up the hill.
It was finally time for the age old fight to begin. The adults took their “it’s time to leave” stance and the four of us kids started out against the world. It turns out if enough pleading and begging was performed, one more run would be allotted. That last run started out as harmless as the first hundred. I was in the front of our favorite bright red sled and my older sister Sara had climbed in the back. With a single push we flew down the hill, and straight into a sumac bush. Shrieks flowed freely from me as pain I never knew before erupted out of my leg. Sara being older and ever so much wiser quickly told me to stop screaming because I was making a complete fool out of the two of us. It took one glance at my twisted leg for her to figure it out.
The next several hours had been like watching cars fly by on an expressway. My dad and grandpa had carried me back up the hill and driven me to the nearest hospital. I remember hearing the nurse say that because it was Christmas day, the surgeon was not there are it would be easier for me to just be transported to the same hospital I had been born in, which was located a convenient 50 miles away. There had been a surgery and several days of recovery in the hospital before I was given a walker and the okay to leave. Needless to say this had put a slight damper on the Christmas experience, but it did make it a unique holiday break. I remember my parents, who normally struggled with fitting all of our new gifts in the car, standing outside puzzled by the sheer concept of fitting a seven year old with a broken leg in the car for an eight hour drive back to Shawano, Wisconsin.
I can reflect back on this and think about how this one event has affected me.

My leg had, of course, completely healed but the scar still remained. I regained full mobility of it and it has yet to cause any problems. Yet, ten years later I can still clearly remember this particular memory with a good amount of accuracy. I do not think it is because I’m mentally “scarred” the experience, yet I am still hesitant to go sledding. I think a lot of why I remember this so well is because it was an event that taught me so many lessons about so any different things. These lessons included large, overwhelming things like determination and perseverance, but also obscure things like perspective and

self-goals.
Everyone has at least one memory in their lifetime that they can describe with pinpoint accuracy. Sometimes these memories are milestones, huge points in a person's life that changed their course. Sometimes they are smaller, less dramatic events, which taught a simple lesson. Each memory is as unique as the person that experienced them, but they all have one thing in common. Every person connected to one of these strong memories has felt an extreme emotion. Joy, sadness, anger, embarrassment, and excitement are just some of the emotions attached these memories. It is in these emotions that a person can find one more piece to the puzzle of life and begin to see the bigger picture a little more clearly.