In his very short life, my little brother fell from a staircase twice. The first time was when he was one year old. We were visiting my paternal grandmother’s house, which had a steep staircase connecting the two floors of the house. One evening, we were all upstairs preparing the bedding for the night when we heard a loud cry in the corridor. Everybody in the house got alarmed by the cry and came to rescue him. And there he was, my baby brother lying and crying on the landing of the staircase. He was crawling and had fallen from the steps. As I watched my baby brother’s wrinkled face, I wondered to myself how on earth he had ended up there. Why did he go so close to the staircase? Being a cautious child, I had never fallen from a staircase myself.
When he fell from a staircase from the second time, my brother was two years old. My family was visiting an outdoor activity park in my hometown. We had had an amazing fun time there, and toward the end of our stay, my parents were gathering information at one of the park stations. I don’t remember what exactly they were doing, but I remember my brother and I had to wait next to them for some time.
Being the oldest and cautious child, I didn’t move around too much. I stayed close to my parents and talked to my brother about random things that came to my mind. My brother, on the other hand, wasn’t so good at staying still. As we chatted, he moved around here and there.
There were a few large wooden steps leading to the ground from where we were standing. At one point, my brother went to the edge of the floor, looking over the steps. Then, he started to jump on his feet. A thought vaguely crossed my mind as I watched him: hey, that doesn’t look safe…!
The next second, my brother fell. Like in a slow motion, I saw him roll down the large steps all the way to the ground. Then a loud cry brought all of us to our senses.
My parents immediately left what they were doing and ran to see what had just happened. Seeing that my brother had hit his head, they quickly brought both of us to the car, and we drove to the emergency department of the nearest hospital. My mother was worried about the possibility of any brain injury.
Fortunately, a large bump on his head was all he got, and no serious damage was done to my brother’s health. But the incident was big enough to scare my parents. Although I didn’t do anything to prevent his accident, my parents kept telling me how much they were grateful that I was there to watch him and let them know of the accident right away.
Surely, my little brother had a very different nature from me – much more carefree and sometimes a little reckless. I didn’t think much of it when I was child, but now that I look back on our relationship and how different we were, I cannot help feeling delighted that I got to have such a fun little brother in my life.