Special Significance Essay, Research Paper
Life is an unpredictable thing and one does not know what he has until he faces something that would turn his life around. We tend to take many things and people in our lives for granted. In my case, the people whose love and care I took for granted were my friends. I also underestimated the significance of living among people versus a complete isolation. One particular incident made me rethink my values.It was the month of July of 1991, and I just graduated from high school. My two classmates Tanya and Marina, who were my friends since pre-school, graduated with me. In spite of the fact that I had known those people for such a long time, I had never paid attention to the importance of our relationship. Since the three of us graduated with honors, our school granted a vacation package for us to go to one of the most beautiful cities on the south of Russia, Yalta. On the first morning of my vacation in Yalta, I woke up unusually early. Tanya and Marina, whom I share the room at the hotel with, were still sleeping, and in order not to wake them, I decided to leave the room quietly and go for a walk to the mountains that were nearby. When I got to the top of the mountain the landscape that was resting at the foot of it took my breath away. I did not suspect that such a beautiful place existed on the Earth! The sun, that just rise, colored the nature with all kinds of shades. The mountains around looked as if the greatest landscape-painter in the world had just painted them and his watercolors did not have time to dry yet, so fresh and bright they were. I saw the sea with blue waves and white foam on their tops. The sand sparkled on the sun like it was made from pure gold. Admiring this beauty of nature I did not notice that it has been almost two hours since I left the hotel. I realized that my friends must have been waiting for me because it was time to have breakfast. When I told my friends what I just saw, they offered me to spend the rest of the day and the following night in the mountains and meet sunrise there. I was very happy to hear it. So, we took everything we needed – food, warm clothes, sleeping bags and map with us and headed for the mountains. We were walking up and down the mountains, appreciating the nature around us. Once again, I thought that God must have had a great fantasy if he really created this. After a few hours of walking Tanya and Marina got tired, but I wanted to climb to the highest mountain so that I could see everything from the top and take some pictures of it. It seemed to be so near us that I asked my friends to stay where we were to prepare dinner and went alone. From that point on, I do not remember much except that I was falling into a big hole. I suddenly understood that I got0 lost. As far as I could see, I saw the mountains, nothing, but the mountains. It became dark and cold. I was screaming for my friends, but there was no use. I don’t know how much time I spent trying to find my way back, for me each minute was like an age full of fear and loneliness. I thought to myself, if nobody could find me here, what would I do? I was frightened to death. I sat down and cried, I cried for a long time. At that time, when I felt extremely helpless and lonely, my past started to pass in front of my eyes. I began to understand how happy I was just a few hours ago. I had everything a person could want in his life: loving family, a lot of friends, bright hopes for my future and it all was suddenly taken away from me in an instance.
It was getting cold, and I was hungry too. Right away I remembered about food, warm clothes, sleeping bags and map that we took with us and blamed myself for being so careless and not even bothering to take even the map with me. I decided to try falling asleep, it was the easiest way for me to stop this nightmare for a while. I found a safe place and from branches of trees made something that looked like a mattress. My mattress was hard and thorny but sleeping on it was much better than thinking of what had happened to me. Fortunately for me I fell asleep very quickly. I was awakened by sounds of people’s voices. First thing that came to my mind was that this was a dream, but soon I realised that I really heard it. I started to scream as loud as I could and, thank God, people heard me. When they came closer, from many of voices I recognised voices of my friends. Their voices brought an indescribable feeling of relief and gratefulness to me. I felt as if my heart was going to explode. I could not wait until I saw and hugged my friends, Tanya and Marina, so I started to run toward them. After everything went back to normal, Tanya and Marina told me that when they understood that something happened to me, they immediately went back to the hotel to get help. They were so worried about me that instead of staying at the hotel, all bundled up in warm blankets, waiting for the rescue team to find me, they decided to go with them into the cold and scary-at-night mountains. My friends said that they were looking for me for more than twelve hours until they found me. Their actions made me realise who much they love and care about me. The day that I spent in the mountains was the worst day in my life nevertheless it made me think about many things that I’ve never thought of before. My friends, Marina and Tanya, showed me what a real friendship is all about. If I hadn’t had such friends, I might have never come back home again. They saved my life and I am very grateful to them for that. Since that day I know that I have friends whom I always can count on. I learned also that the beautiful day when you are happy and enjoying life, might become the nightmare if you behave thoughtlessly and carelessly. Our life can be sad and painful and it is very unpredictable sometimes; we have to keep it in mind and try to do everything that is possible to stay away from making avoidable mistakes. Being strangled in the mountains, alone, I concluded that a human being is created so that he cannot survive outside of his community. Even though, we sometimes say that it is better to be alone than to have uninteresting and boring people around us, I understood that this is ridiculous. There is nothing worse than a complete isolation.