?Waking up on the beautiful, sunny morning of March 23, 1999, never thinking that date would carry with me for the rest of my life, I figured it was going to be another typical morning of my life as a third grader: I woke up to the high pitch sounds for the theme song of Rugrats, savored my bowl of sugary Fruity Pebbles, and carefully laced up my tiny Air Jordan shoes to reluctantly force myself to another day of classes. Do not get me wrong, these events still occurred, but my horrific trip to school forever changed me as a human being. I gingerly walk out of the house, still recuperating from going to bed way too late, and labor my way up in our old, white minivan. My mom turns the key, and we were off. On our usual, boring path to school, consisting of my mom picking up her dear friend’s son and then driving only five minutes to our middle school, everything seemed completely normal. The canopy of trees rushes above our heads as the cool spring wind whistles through the partially opened windows. My mom then cautiously crosses an intersection on one of the side streets by my school. As I look to my right, I unexpectedly see a bright flash of red and then complete darkness dominates the air. Glass rained all over us crashing against every surface. It seemed as if time stopped and only burry visions circled around me. A large speeding pickup truck just slammed head on into the side of our minivan ramming us into the front yard of an old ranch. To this day I insist that I blacked out, but my mom claims that I was fully responsive and listened attentively to all of her instructions. Think of this as you may, but I do not think I was alone that day. The only thing I recall after the crash is waking up in the cold, dewy grass of a Tuesday morning lying next to my slowly dying brother. Pain in my hip and neck rushed through my body like a speeding bullet, but my brother was suffering from a much more extreme head injury that made him practically unrecognizable. The side of his face was covered in blood. I was very young and dreadfully confused as to what just transpired. I thought I was in a nightmare, but I knew I had no chance of waking up. As my eyes remained locked on to my