Metaphor Madness By Melanie Ririe

Melanie Ririe


My life is trying to fall sleep but can’t, I’m still aware of what’s going on but not fully aware. I can hear people talking but can only understand some words. Mother’s day, car crash, Hospital, and someone’s crying what does it all mean? When you’re trying to fall asleep you can still hear what is going on in the house until you fade away into sleep. I’m a little girl, about six years old “trying to sleep” and can’t understand why everyone is so unhappy, only a few words out of their mouths I can hear; dad is hurt and is being flown to the hospital, not responding, unconscious. My life is laying there with only my ears to listen.

My life is a dream. I’m listening but the words are all a blur so I have to see and feel what is happening. My mom is leaving my siblings and me with my grandma and grandpa while she goes to see my dad in the hospital, but why is he there? He’s been in a car accident is all I can hear I want to know if he is okay but they can’t tell me that, all they know is that he is in a coma… what is a coma? Asleep and can’t wake up? Well wake him up! How could this happen? I’m only six years old so it’s hard to understand but I have people here to explain and help get me out of this sleepless dream.

The story starts Mother’s day 2001. Everyone in my family except my dad just got home from church; my dad was a car salesman for Infinity and was driving a car to my uncle in California and wasn’t going to be home for a while. We had just got home and the phone rang, I watched my mom listen intently to the person on the other line while I jumped on my bed. Out of nowhere my mom starts to cry so I stopped jumping and listened to the conversation but all had been said, she put the phone down. My mom isn’t just crying she is in pain, not physical pain emotional pain. “Your dad had been in a car accident.” She says to my sister and I, and my sister starts in crying! I’m in a dream and can’t cry with them because I don’t know why their crying I only cried when I fell off my bike. My sister and I are left in the room while my mom goes to call someone else, I didn’t really know what all the commotion was so I jumped off the bed not joyfully but not sad enough for my sister so she yelled at me and told me that our dad could be dying right now so I shouldn’t be happy. Then the reality set in.

“Dad” could I ever call anyone else that special name? What would happen if my dad did die, what would the rest of my family do? This all was so hard to understand for me I was in a sleepless dream incapable of knowing certain things. All I knew at that point was that my dad was in a Reno, Nevada hospital, in a coma in very bad condition to the point where he could die. Even if he lived he wouldn’t be able to walk and he would have to be taught many things over again. He may not know who I am.

My dad not only could walk, he became a ski instructor at Brighton ski resort! I’m no longer in a sleepless dream I am awake. Everything that happened that year I now know, and I know that it was supposed to happen. My families faith was a little hill you couldn’t even sled down, now it is a mountain you can climb.