A Car Ride To Christmas

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book, False Hope, that I am in the middle of writing. I would like feed back of what you think so far. The book is based on my journey of living with an alcoholic and how it effected my life, his and the people around us.

A Car Ride to Christmas

It was a frosty winter’s day. The celebration of Christ our King had come and the commercialization of Christmas drew to a close. However, the typical Christmas festivities would be interrupted by shiny red lights, which unfortunately wasn’t Rudolph’s nose. You see my boyfriend of 10 years, Mike, was a drinker, a heavy drinker at that. When it was time to conjugate in social situations, he would put on a “sober” face and carry on. He would then be back to his old ways within a few hours until the next gathering. This behavior eventually took a toll and caused a blue Christmas.

We awoke to a normal day at our downtown dwelling. We lived in a five story apartment building overlooking the beautiful scenic city. Both of us dressed, collected our presents, and were out the door. Our first stop along our route was my parent’s house. My family observes a traditional Christmas. The entire family-aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc… assemble for food and exchanging of gifts. The affection and love we have for each other is deeply rooted and shows.

After a long afternoon of conversations and bonding, the two of us left to embark on our next Christmas get-together, which was 20-25 minutes away. On our pleasant drive to Mike’s mother’s house, we both chit chatted about how the grey sky looked with the peak of sunshine bursting from the white fluffy clouds. It was then the unenviable happened. I heard a thud sound coming from the passenger’s side of the car where Mike was sitting. My first inclination was are you okay? As that thought raced across my mind, I glanced over to see if everything was alright. As I slowly turned my head to the right, I quickly saw what would become an occasional occurrence. Mike was uncontrollably jerking with his eyes rolled back into his head. I had never experienced such and was deathly afraid.

Mortified, I let out a huge scream that could only be comparable to a character in a Hitchcock movie. I drove as quickly and fast as I could up the winding ridge we were traveling and made it safe into a person’s drive way. I jumped out of my car and nervously flagged down bystanders for help. These two men came to my aide. Frantic, I told them the situation and that I had never experienced this type of activity before and I didn’t know what to do. They both went to the car where Michael was sitting to check up on him. I immediately dialed for emergency personnel.

As I dialed 911, I was hyperventilating. I didn’t know how the situation would turn out. The 911 operator told me to calm down and make sure Mike was breathing. As I approached the car, the two men were trying to speak to Mike. However, he was in a daze. I responded to the operator with a yes, he is breathing. She assured me that everything was going to be alright and help was on the way.

After I hung up with emergency dispatch, I immediately called my parent’s house. When they answered the phone, I quickly screamed, Mike had a seizure. Shocked, my parent’s told me to settle down that the ambulance would be there shortly to assess the situation. Shaking uncontrollably myself, I said my goodbyes and dialed his mother’s cell. Since we were literally down the road from his mother’s house, she and his sister drove up to the scene at the same time the paramedics arrived.