Birthday

On my seventh birthday I was hanging out with a man name Cliff. At the time he was a close family friend. To sweeten the deal for my birthday he wanted to take me to grab something to eat, some ice cream for desert and then we’d go to a park before going back home before the guests for my official party showed up. We arrive at the park and I’m feeling invincible. Stomach is full after a big meal, just finished an ice cream sandwich and I was flying on the swing set, practically going over the bar. I eventually made my way over to the playground where a big swaying bridge caught my attention. It was one of those wooden ones that connected the part of the play set with the slides to the part where the ladder and jungle gym was. Cliff saw me amusing myself on the bridge, came over to me and asked “Want to go high?” So far everything we had done was fun, even on the way over to the park he held me above his head while I stretched my arms out in front of myself waving at people in cars, pretending to be superman. I remember them smiling and waving back. I didn’t know what going high meant but so far everything we did was a blast, so I was down. He told me to stand on the far end of the bridge, and I did. He backed up to the opposite end where he jumped onto it from one of the wooden platforms. Cliff was a big man, he still probably is. The force of his jump propelled me on the other end of the wooden string bridge and it sent me flying upward. I landed and almost fell over but I caught the rope railing of the bridge and shouted “Again that was fun!” So Cliff backed up a little further and made the bridge swing, throwing me back onto the platform this time. I jumped on it trying to do to Cliff what he was doing to me but he was too big and didn’t even budge. “Again!” I shouted. This time Cliff backed up to the very end of the play set and had a running start at the bridge. When he jumped it looked like he was about to do a cannonball and at that exact moment I realized that something was going to go wrong. I let go of the rope rail I was holding onto and tried to step back to the solid platform but it was too late. As soon as I let go of the rail Cliff hit the bridge and up I went. The next thing I remember after flying over the bridge was landing on the sand surrounding the playground and from there, things get fuzzy. I remember waking up in my bed in my pajamas. It was still my birthday and my whole family was over. Aunt, uncle and cousins all having a great time without me. When I came to I jumped out of bed and joined my party, everyone except Cliff and my mom were drunk. It surprised me even as a little boy to see everyone living it up having a blast on my birthday, which I wasn’t even a part of up until that point. That day I learned two things that stuck with me my whole like. Things that seem like fun can in fact be wreck less and potentially dangerous, and the fact that parties for the children in my family are an excuse for the adults to get together and drink.