The day I broke my wrist.... True Story

When I was a kid, my summers would be spent in Mexico with my mother's family. I would stay at my grandparents home and we'd spend endless days spending with my aunts and cousins. My mother is the youngest out of six siblings, you see, and the eldest is my Aunt Sylvia who pretty much lived to her title as the big sister, the ring leader, the head honcho, whatever you want to call it, she was it. 
Now my Aunt Gaby, the fourth sibling, always invited the whole family over to her house. It wasn't mandatory for my Aunt to do this big meal for the whole 30 of us (very close aunts, uncles, grandparents, nieces and nephews) since, every weekend my aunts, Sylvia, Lupe, Gaby, and Yasmin, (sometimes my grandma too) would alternate, so the cooking wouldn't fall onto a specific relative, but it was my Aunt Gaby’s house that I remembered the most fondly.

My uncle, a tall and kind man of a few words, was a truck driver, and he had more than 3 eight to sixteen wheelers in his garage. Whenever I was over at their house, I would mysteriously disappear into my own little world that consisted of exploring my aunt’s extremely large yard that served as a garage for my uncles monstrous trucks. I remember, I would climb on the big trucks and I would go underneath and inside the humongous car. I would always be searching, like a lioness – or a fierce cub - searching for its prey. Sometimes my cousins and I would play hide and seek and I would always be the last one found!

Some days, I was in the middle of the garage, far away from the trucks and I would sit on the iron ladder that went up to the roof. My aunt had these guard dogs that lived in the roof of their house since the dogs liked to jump on people and sometimes bite strangers, so they kept them in the roof when there were visitors. Now I know that might seem cruel, but it was not. Those dogs would come down when they weren't rowdy and were kept well fed. They were happy dogs. Sometimes I would go up three rungs up the iron ladder and throw chicken bones to them but I would never go past the 3rd rung.

One day (I was 5), I don’t know what in the world I was thinking but I went past the 3rd rung and climbed all the way until I was able to touch the my favorite dog, Princessa. The dog had nothing against me, came over in front of the ladder and started searching my hands for more chicken bones. After petting and feeding the dog her beloved bones, I climbed back down with a lot of difficulty. I had only made it to the last 5 bottom rungs, as I turned around and tried to see how many more rungs were left, I suddenly lost my balance and fell. Now falling from the 5th rung may sound like nothing, but it was a big deal especially since I was smaller and the rungs were attached about a foot away from each other. 

I was unable to go down the ladder fast enough.

And boy did I did get hurt.

When I fell off the ladder, I had turned just in time to break my fall. 

With my arm. 

I laid there on the cold concrete for about 10 milliseconds until there was a bursting pain along my left wrist and arm. I screamed, a high pitched scream that even the dogs whimpered and whined at the sound of it. My grandpa (still quite young for a grandfather, since he was in his late forties at that time), and my uncle Abel, came running out through the door from the living room where everyone was watching TV.
NOTE: EVERYONE IS TALKING IN SPANISH. It did take place in Mexico...

“Mija,” My grandpa crouched down beside me, “what happened?” His face full of concern.

I was crying so hard that I could hardly talk. “I was ...*sob* …ladder…*sob*...fell…and I HURT!” I cried louder holding my left arm like as if it was dead.

“Let’s take her in side,” my uncle said, gently picking me up and placing me on my feet. I was too busy crying my eyes out to notice that both my uncle and my grand-daddy were half carrying me and half making me walk.

Once inside, everything had been explained. But there was only one person who dismissed the fact that perhaps my arm was broken. “No. She’s just faking it.” my Aunt Silvia said, who had always intimidated everyone by her presence,.

“Noooooooooo!” I sobbed, still holding on to my left wrist like it no longer had life.

“Callate and stop crying!” my aunt yelled. She looked around the room at all the relatives looking at me standing in the middle of the room,  blocking the view of the big screen TV that was in Aunt Gaby’s living room. I could tell my other aunts and uncles were feeling sympathetic but I didn’t care. All I wanted was for someone to stop my arm from hurting so much.

“Leave her alone, Silva.” My grandmother said, starting to get angry. “What if it really is broken? You know her mother will beat the shit out of you for not acting fast.”

It was true. My mother, who was the only one living in the United States, was very, VERY protective when it came to me. One time Grandma hit me and she had hell to pay. Not even Aunt Silvia dared to get my mother mad, but she would never admit it outloud.

My aunt huffed, looking more and more like a chicken who just laid big fat egg. “Fine.” She said with a sharp edge in her voice. Then, she asked looking smug, “Gaby, do you have un dulce?”

“Eh? …uh… si.” My aunt replied, looking puzzled. She turned and went out through the door that joined the living room and the kitchen. I heard her shuffling around until it got quiet and she came back with a Carlos V, which just happened to be my favorite chocolate bar. I thought it was unfair. Everyone knew that my one weakness was candy, especially chocolate. If a stranger had told me to come with him and he had candy, I would no doubt have followed him, walking away towards my own doom. I wasn’t named Dulce for nothing. Aunt Gaby handed the chocolate bar to Aunt Silvia and sat down on the couch next to Uncle Abel who was sitting next to my grandpa and Aunt Silvia.

“If you don’t be quiet, then I’m not giving you this delicious chocolate bar.” She told me impatiently. I quieted down, still crying, until I was hiccupping and choking on my own tears and mucus. Aunt Gaby reached behind her and grabbed the toiler paper that had the same characteristics as a tissue. She leaned forward again and gently wiped my nose and ordered one of my cousins to get me water. While the errand boy went and fetched me water, Aunt Silvia waved the bar of chocolate.

“Do you want this?” she asked me, still waving it back and forth, my eyes following like a pair of flies after a shiny light. I nodded, sniffling and in pain. “Bueno, then get it.”

I gently put my left arm down and with the right reaching slowly towards the candy bar, just in case that my aunt was going to play a mean trick on me.

“No.” She batted away my right hand impatiently and with her other hand, she pointed and said, “With this hand.”

“Will you leave her alone?” Grandma said hotly. “The poor girl is really hurt.”

Tears spilled over the brims of my eyes again and the hiccups continued, as I realized she tricked me. Once more, with great gentleness, I picked up my own left hand again, and lifted it so that it hung above the candy bar, which she no longer had waving in the air. From somewhere in the room I heard many empathy murmurs. As I was contemplating on how to grab the chocolate bar and keeping a steady grip on my arm and not hurting my hand anymore, Grandma came and gently lowered my arms, making sure that I didn’t bump into the chocolate bar that was underneath my hands.

“Have you had enough.” She scolded my aunt. “Juán!”

My grandpa, who had been right next to Aunt Silvia, was startled to hear his wife yelling at him. “What?!”

“What do you mean what?! Go get the car and take her to the hospital.”

“That’s what I was thinking of doing! Sheesh!”

“Then what are you still doing here?!”

“Woman, I’m going, I’m going!”

My grandpa and my uncle ended up taking me to the emergency room where they took an x-ray on those mean and cold metal tables. The doctor told me that I had broken my wrist in 2 places. He told me that the bone on my wrist broke off into 5 little pieces but if I wore as cast then I would be good as new.

For two months, I had to wear a cast on my arm. After I left the hospital, my grandpa took me to a shop and bought me a bunch of candy. After that, I no longer felt intimidated by my aunt. In fact, she said that she felt intimidated by me since I’m waaaaaaaay taller than her by a foot, and I have an attitude that matches exactly my like my mother's.