Write about your strongest memory of heart-pounding belly-twisting nervousness: what caused the adrenaline? Was it justified? How did you respond?

Time they say is a great healer and we are biologically programmed to forget pain. But there are some memories that are hard to forget. One such memory that literally turned my insides out was my eighteenth birthday. I was officially becoming an adult and my mother and I were walking down to the temple. This was not normally the way I celebrated my birthday and little did I know how different the day was going to turn out.

We walked down the lane and took the left to the temple. It was a Sunday morning and the normally crowded road was empty. Walking carefully on the side, my mother and I were engrossed in conversation when suddenly I felt her being pulled away from me. I screamed as she did when I found a car sweep her up and take her away from me. In a split second, she rolled off the bonnet and the car went on top of her, dragging her for a good twenty feet before coming to a halt. 

I remember feeling icy cold, my stomach plummeting to my feet as I saw her feet thrashing below the car. All I could think was “God please let her be alive!” Within seconds a crowd suddenly appeared from nowhere and as I peered below my mother crawled out. She was dishevelled and shoeless with her arms sticking out funnily. Seeing my scared nd shocked