I will always remember my first major camping trip going to Crystal Mountain. I was seven and we had just bought a brand-new RV. I was so excited because there were bunk beds and at the grandparents, I always got the bottom bunk, but my parents had promised I could have the top.

Now keep in mind I was seven and at that age most kids aren’t very good at keeping still when they sleep and I was hardly an exception. Not a single person thought of that though nor of the fact the bunkbed was completely open or of the fact that it was five feet up and the floor was hardly soft.

I can hardly remember what happened before I fell asleep that night, but what happened next is very vivid.

In my sleep I roll off the bed. I awake not when I hit the floor, but I hit my older brother’s arm that had been hanging out of the bunk right below me. Then I hit the floor and I do not register anything, not the pain or what is happening.

I do not come back to myself until I hear my mom yelling and see how her Patagonia coat is stained red. Even after that I could not comprehend what was happening all I knew was my mom was scared.

Things go rather fast after that. My mom drives me to the hospital (an hour away) while dad stays with the boys. She ends up calling an ambulance halfway there once I start hallucinating.

I remember the hospital and how bright it was, I remember the needles and how the doctors wanted to put stitches in and how much I did not want that. But most of all I remember my mom in her bloody coat and how young she looked.

The first thing my mom does once we leave the hospital is grab hot chocolate. It was the best hot chocolate of my life. Rich and delicious and in some way, it eased what had happened that night softened the edges. The hot chocolate to me was akin to water in a drought. A spot of normalcy in a day very much not normal. It did not erase what happened, but it was a ray of light to my pain.

When we get back to the trailer the first thing I say to my brothers isn’t about how bright the hospital was or how scared mom was; It was about how mom got me hot chocolate.

Now year later, we don’t talk about that day, but I remember everything and hot chocolate is still my go to comfort. Because despite all the pain and fear attached to that memory it is a reminder that no matter how bad things get there is always something good out there you just have to look for it.