Personal Narrative Final Draft

I Had the Time of My Life, With You

I was nice and cozy in my newly finished senior quilt, when I began to hear voices and movement around me. As I rolled over to see what time it was, my eyes squinted automatically as the bright sunlight shone down on me through the window. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw that my mom, grandma, and two little brothers were already awake. It took me awhile to remember that I was in my grandma’s room at the Assisted Living Center in Butte, Montana. I sat up on the pull-out bed as I stretched, and I was tempted to curl up in a ball and go back to sleep for a little while longer. However, that thought was interrupted as my mom told me that I needed to get in the shower and get ready for the day. After breakfast, we were going to head out to Whitehall, Montana, where there was an old-fashioned train bridge where we were going to take some senior pictures. Before getting in the shower, I decided to check my phone that had been charging on the other side of the room.

I had a text from my best friend, Jessie, asking me if I had heard the news. As I replied to that text, my mind was racing with the different possibilities that she could have been referring to. Right after I pressed SEND on my black Envy 2, my phone began to vibrate vigorously in my hands as I received several texts from some of my other friends. As I opened one of the texts, my eyes read over a couple of words that I never thought I would see. My legs became Jell-O and I fell to my knees as my world seemed to come crashing down on me. I checked the messages over and over, hoping and praying that I had somehow read it wrong. Tears rushed down my face as my mom came quickly over to me.

“Lyndsey! What happened?” my mom questioned as she wrapped me in hug. At that same moment, my little brother Trevor had read something on Facebook and knew exactly what was wrong.

Through many tears and in-between sobs, I tried to tell my mom what was going on, but all I could get out was, “Tylor. Killed. Car. Accident.”

            Jessie shared the details with me through text messages because she would start crying again if she tried calling me. After receiving the few details that were known at that point, I hopped in the shower as an escape from the dreadful texts that were being sent to my phone. My tears mixed with the water pouring out of the shower head, and my head was pounding. At that point, I didn’t even want to read the messages that were sent to me to offer comfort and words of support. All I wanted to do was throw my phone out of the window and wake up from this awful nightmare. How were any words supposed to provide the comfort that I needed at that time? The attempts seemed pointless. My best friend, Tylor Burke, had just been killed in a car accident, and there I was in Montana, five hours away! I got out of the shower and put on my maroon legging outfit that I had planned to wear for my senior pictures. The person that stared back at me in the mirror, however, did not look like she was ready to go take pictures. The girl in the mirror had glowing green eyes that were bloodshot, a blotchy skin tone, and red streaks that began at the corner of her eyes and continued down her face. She looked like a mess.

            “Lyndsey, do you want to come down and help me serve donuts and coffee downstairs? I am in charge this week and need some help,” said my grandma from the other room.

            “Sure Grandma! I would love to help you! Just give me a couple of minutes to finish brushing my hair,” I said trying to sound willing and excited. We both ignored the way my voice shook that didn’t quite match my attempted enthusiasm. I really did want to go help her; I was just not in the most social mood at the time.

While I finished brushing my long, brown hair, I tried to get my emotions under control so that I could go down and help my grandma. I thought that it might help me get my mind off of things for a while, so I headed downstairs arm in arm with my grandma who was wearing her favorite red sweater. 

Several people began to show up, and I greeted them with a forced smile. “Good morning! Would you like any coffee or juice to drink?”

I tried to stay busy making sure everyone’s coffee mugs stayed full and that they had the right flavor of donut available at their table. As people would ask my grandma who was helping her, she would introduce my brothers and me.

            “These are three of my wonderful grandkids. That is Trevor over there, and the other younger boy is Torey. And that is Lyndsey. She isn’t really in her cheerful mood like normal because one of her best friends was killed in a car accident this morning,” said my grandma time and time again.  Somehow, she always managed to add that fact onto the end of every introduction.

During these moments, I tried to stay strong, but they usually resulted in me walking very quickly up the stairs and into the seclusion of my grandma’s room.

“Is grandma telling everyone down there about Tylor?” asked my mom as I entered the room with tear-filled eyes.

“You know her too well!” I said as a little smile crept across my face, the first real one that had appeared all morning.

            A few days later as we were on our way home from Montana, we had to drive past the exact place where the wreck had happened. When we drove past it, I saw the torn barbed wire fence where the car had broken through, and car parts seemed to be scattered everywhere. It seemed as though a totally new dam that I didn’t know existed had broken inside of me, and the tears were falling down my face faster and faster. Looking at that site, it seemed as if a piece of me was missing. I was only 17, and it was impossible for me to think about going through the rest of my life without one of my greatest friends by my side. Senior prom, graduation, his 18^th birthday, and college were just a few events that he would never get to experience.

*     *     *

            Sitting at the table in my new apartment, eight-and-a-half hours away from all of my friends and family, I began to go through some of my old pictures. I see pictures of Tylor and me wearing our matching outfits on twin day and our pictures from prom, and I can’t believe that it has now been seven months since the car accident that took his life. Coming from the other room, I hear my phone go off indicating that I have a new text message. As I go to get it I hear my ringtone: “Long live the walls we crashed through; I had the time of my life, with you”. For a split second, I hope that I will see ‘NEW MESSAGE from TYLOR BURKE’ on the screen of my phone. Reality hits me as I see that it’s just another reminder for our ward activity. Reading the new message I realize that our lives can change at any given moment; the change can even be caused by one short text message. 

Tylor and I at Prom