I sat in a church pew wearing an evergreen Laura Ashley ankle length dress with a black sash and shiny black flats. I sat among my teenage peers as we gulped but couldn’t swallow the astonishment and anguish rising like pebbles of bile in our throats. We had to remind ourselves to breathe and couldn’t believe one of us had fallen, much less two.
The worst part was seeing their mothers.
We couldn’t even look at them and turned our heads away as a son and husband held up their crumpled bodies.
Drunk driving claimed our friends.
It took just a second.
It could have been any of us. We shuddered with guilt and sorrow because we knew this to be true. We never spoke the words, and still haven’t to this day, 25 years later.
It could have been me.
I did a lot of stupid things in my youth. I was irreverent and irresponsible and invincible. I was also ignorant. I drank underage. I made bad choices and stupid decisions. I tried to fit in and played the roles of both instigator and victim. But I will tell you this, I never, not once, have driven a car while under the influence of alcohol or anything else. Never. Once I was too drunk to drive home so I stayed at a friend’s house. I made the responsible decision, knowing it would land me in a load of trouble with my dad. The real responsible thing to do would have been to not drink, but that’s not what I did so I made the next best decision. I didn’t drive. There was a raging summer storm. The power blacked out. The phones were dead. I had no way to tell my dad I was staying at my friend’s house. This was way before the days of cell phones, mind you. My dad was understandably wracked with worry and a fair amount of anger. Now that I am a mother, I can only imagine what it feels like when your teenage daughter doesn’t come home after a night out with friends. A parent’s worst nightmare. I called the next morning and faced my punishment. My dad was livid. I lost all my privileges that summer. I was foolish but not stupid. I’m here to tell the tale.
Other times I was not so smart. I got in the car with drivers who shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. We laughed easily and delighted in the fact we got away with something deliciously naughty. We cranked the Police as loud as the speakers could take it without crackling back with angry static and we whooped it up going through the drive through all-night doughnut shop. It didn’t seem risky at the time because as a teenager, I didn’t have the sense I have now. I lacked perspective and any small dosage of reality. We were all invincible as teenagers. We were just having fun.
Our lives were dangerously fun.
Today a family laid to rest their 17 year old daughter. She died in a drunk driving accident. She was the same age as my friends when they died in 1987. The teenage driver survived with some scratches and is facing multiple charges. His own mind will punish him forever. I’m not confident the system will work to prevent this from happening again. It sure didn’t make justice shine for Raymond Cook‘s victim. There are no winners here, no victory lap.
How can a mother possibly say goodbye? I see those mothers still, shrunken to half their size, capsized by a pain so deep and raw. It is palpable to me now in ways I wouldn’t have comprehended then.
I don’t know how to keep my sons safe once the apron strings are loosened. I don’t know how I’d carry on should this terrible fate touch us.
A parent’s worst nightmare indeed.
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For those of you who have navigated your children through the teenage years, what advice and tips do you have? I’m listening.