don't look down

my sister was seven, so i was probably three. we were playing outside of our high-rise apartment building in guadalajara, mexico. the twin towers stood out in the once flat city, looming over the country club golf course. we lived in the "poor" tower, which was identical to the "rich" tower, minus its high profile residents. anyway, there was a three story difference between the two free-standing buildings, which was basically a wall that only came up about a foot on the higher side. there was a row of short dying bushes with gaps revealing a little path between the plants and the precipice. and that's where we were.

this is what i remember. some parts might be real and some other parts might be dreams. there might have been a third child there. and there was possibly a rock roughly the size of a brick on the narrow path behind the bushes. my sister tripped and fell over the short wall. down, down, down, three stories. i was scared to look down, but did. i think a guard was nearby and ran towards her. she was lying on the ground. i don't know if it was my own initiative or if the guard shouted at me, but i went to look for my parents.

i ran through the lobby into one of the two elevators, which i had never been on by myself. i could barely reach the button with the six on it, which was our floor. did i jump or did i stand on tippy-toes, stretching my arm and my finger upwards? i remember the smell of the elevator and the feeling of the spring behind the button pushing my finger back and the circle that lit up around it. our door was on the right. did i knock, did i ring the bell, was it open? i ran across the apartment to their room. i found them. then i draw a blank. sometimes i wonder if i did anything at all.

my sister was lucky. she was a gymnast and followed her instincts as she fell head first towards the pavement by flipping in the air and landing on her feet. she broke so many leg bones and a number of vertebrae that my parents feared she might never walk again. but the doctors did such an excellent job that she recovered completely and we seldom remember that this ever happened. yet this event was one of the defining moments of my childhood. i had been brave and capable of helping in an emergency. in short, i had been a hero.