(Last Name) 1

(Student Name)

(Teacher Name)

(Class & Section)

(Date)

A Stormy Night

At some point in our lives we experience some unusual situations, which changes our

perspective towards life, and alters our personality completely. I had a similar incident a few

years back when I was eighteen. I was living at my parent’s house. During that time, my

grandfather from my mother’s side was recovering from “brain paralysis”, and he had come to

visit us in our home. It was the time when I used to think of myself as a man who feels no pain. I

was totally careless and free to do whatever I wanted to. I used to think that nothing in this world

could stop me from achieving my goals.

Because of the paralysis, my grandfather was unable to speak. Although, I felt bad for his

condition, I was never really concerned about his presence, and went on with my daily routines,

the way that I used to. We had a few sittings together where I could feel his affection towards

me, but I never got the chance to show him kindness or love from my side. Back then, I was

more concerned about my grades and used to stay awake till late night for studies. I also used to

read horror stories and articles, whenever I had the time.

This one night, I had to stay up late to prepare for my test in the morning. Before going to

sleep, I read a story in which the death visits its guests on a steam-train, and leaves while loudly

blowing the whistle of the train. The story was impressive and I slept after reading it. At 4a.m, I

woke up to the sound of the same whistle, a few seconds later my mother entered my room and
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told me to check on my grandfather, as he was not breathing. I thought I was in a dream. We

tried everything, but my grandfather would not wake up.

Panicked, I took him to a nearby hospital. I remember carrying him around the hospital

while asking for the doctor, as there was no time for the stretcher. My arms were tired and my

muscles were completely filled with lactic acid, and right when I was going to drop him some

doctors appeared and pointed me towards a bed. The doctors declared him dead in just a few

seconds. I could not believe my senses. I wanted to punch the doctor who told me that there was

nothing he could do. It was the first time in my entire life when I felt completely helpless and

defeated. I saw my mother standing still holding back her tears, but there was nothing any of us

could do.

During this whole scenario, I had not dropped a single drop of tear, but when we were

escorting the body to the morgue, suddenly tears started dropping down my cheeks. I could not

hold them back. I felt like a child who had just lost his mother. My pride was hurt, I had just

learned that there is no expectancy of life. I had wasted all my time reading novels and books,

while completely missing the opportunity to live a few moments with a man, who only had a few

moments left.

From this incident, I learned that though we all have our goals and objective that we

want to achieve, it should not be at the price of our feelings of love, passion and affection. As

these are the feelings which provide us the beautiful moments that we can cherish our entire life.

Moreover, we should never shy away from expressing our love to our family and loved ones, and

should cherish each and every moment we find with them, as this is the only life that we have,

and we don’t know when it’s going to end.

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