Jamie's Fall

Jamie looked out her window. She was a passenger in a fifteen-seater van heading to Mexico. Jamie was fifteen, and usually loved road trips. She had been enjoying this one, but halfway through, she had gotten motion sickness, and wasn’t feeling to well. She studied the mountains. They were in Idaho, coming from Canada. The mountains were very beautiful, even though it was March; there was still snow on the tops of the highest ones. She noticed they were heading into a small city, and she dreaded the smell of McDonalds and car exhaust. She crinkled her nose.

They finally passed through the city, and were crossing over a bridge. It was a very long, beautiful bridge. The water was deep, clear, and blue. The waves were not still, by a long shot, but she still sensed calmness about it. Suddenly, she watched a man jump from the tall bridge down into the roaring waves. Jamie screamed at her uncle who was driving, “STOP THE CAR!” Her uncle swerved, braked, and stopped just off the bridge. Jamie leaped out of the car, with her uncle questioningly hurrying after her, “Jamie, what are you doing? What’s going on?” Jamie pointed to the man, “He jumped in. He needs help.” Jamie kept running while peeling off her shoes. She didn’t even think about how cold the water was, she just kept running. She was about forty feet away when something grabbed her waist and she plummeted backward.

It was her uncle, “What are you doing?” She asked, fighting to let loose and save the man, “LET ME GO!” she screamed. Her uncle turned her around, “Jamie! Calm down!” Jamie twisted and turned and finally got free, racing once more to the water. She was only ten feet away, when her uncle yelled, “The sign, Jamie, the SIGN!” Jamie paused only for a moment to look around and find a sign. She read it, ‘WARNING: It is forbidden to enter this water, there are extremely strong currents at all times of the day and year.’ Jamie looked to the bridge to think, and plunged in the icy water.

Sometimes people do wrong things for the right reason. Jamie jumped into the forbidden water (a wrong thing to do) to save someone (a right thing to do). It’s hard to know what do to in wrong-right situations. Right-right and wrong-wrong situations are easy to decipher. If you’re doing the right thing for the right reason, it’s okay to do it. If you’re doing to do the wrong thing for the wrong reason, it’s easy to not do it. Even if you’re doing the right thing for a wrong reason it’s easy to know that it’s wrong. What’s not that easy is telling whether you should do a wrong thing for the right reason. You’re inner self tells you, “In the long hall, I’m doing the right thing!” But if you had to sin (do something you know is wrong) to accomplish the good thing, you’ve lost the most important thing – your soul.

What should have Jamie done? Please email me, I’d like to know your comments.

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