Another Victim Story

Michelle and I were in seventh grade when we became friends. We met in the outfield during our gym-class field hockey games. She and I would both head toward the outfield because we knew there was little chance of the ball coming out that far. The outfield was a great place for two gym-hating girls to have a conversation about the important things in life. 

After eight or so years of growing close and growing up together, Michelle and I became the victims of a drunk, speeding, driver a month or so before our 21st birthdays. Michelle died as a result of injuries almost immediately. I was left with a bunch of injuries and a future, which had once been colored and rich with the bright dreams Michelle and I had shared, had been replaced by a blank, white, screen before my eyes. As I saw the blank white screen that had so cruelly taken the place of a once warm and inviting future, I realized there was no path to follow, no doors to open, and no clear milestones ahead. It was as if everything in my world and future had been wiped out, and I was left to venture on alone - completely alone. Maybe it wasn't really about losing my future, as it was about seeing all those growing-up years disintegrate. 

I don't pretend to have known exactly what my plan was as I entered that blank, white, future; but I was very aware that having that seemingly blank future was having a better future than Michelle had been given. It was, at times, difficult to reconcile being happy to have that bleak future while grieving the loss of a friend, as well as her loss of her future. I had to decide not to try to reconcile those feelings. It was clear that, with such an emptied out future ahead, all I could do was pack up what was left of a damaged life and take the first steps.

In the beginning, I felt as if I was, in fact, surrounded by all that nothingness. Just as I had thought it would be, it was like walking through an expansive, snow-covered, mountain range with no paths. As time went on, I began to run into new people and new situations, which added color to all the white. Over time, the white was no longer as stark. There was more and more color, although the absence of the feeling of having paths to walk remained unsettling. Once enough time had passed I became used to the feeling of having had all the normal paths of life taken from mine, and, I suppose, I became skilled at making the best of things.

The paths that were missing were those paths Michelle and I had imagined throughout our teen and early adult years. We had been on a path toward graduating college together. We had been on a path toward meeting the right guy and getting married. There had been the path toward our individual career aims, and that all important path toward having children. Along those paths there were supposed to be college graduations, bridal showers, being in each other's weddings, baby showers, being Godmothers to the other's babies, and New Years Eve's shared at one of our houses with our oh-so-different husbands. It was as if I had been a train, going along my track, the way everyone goes along his own track, until I was derailed – never to get back on that “real” track again. I did, of course, find myself rolling along some tracks, but they weren't my “real” set of tracks.

I went on to be a bridesmaid and a bride, and to have my baby showers and babies. I went on to see my parents die before I did (the way it's supposed to be), and I went on to see fine lines show up under my eyes. I wouldn't trade the track on which I ended up for anything. Still, all these years later, there's just something kind of broken about my life. It's just something with which I have to live.

I am, of course, extremely grateful to have the life I have. It's just that because somebody chose to drive drunk and speed; Michelle's life was wiped out, and mine was - at least in some ways - forever broken.

Another Drunk Driving Story

The young woman whose drunk driving killed my girlfriend was fined $20 and lost her driver's license for one year, so I'm not sure drunk driving always affects the drunk's life all that much. It can, and does, however, destroy the lives of innocent people.

My 21st birthday was spent mourning the loss of my long-time friend, Michelle. Michelle, who was killed weeks before her own birthday, never got to be 21.

We were on our way home one night when - from out of the quiet darkness of midnight - the wild headlights appeared a little way down the road, in our lane and clearly headed directly at us, at high speed. I saw the speeding headlights, and I had enough time to hope my parents wouldn't feel too bad when I was killed. With the speed at which this drunken criminal was headed towards us, I could not imagine surviving. We were in a tiny convertible, the car Michelle had found so adorable when she bought it.

Michelle and I had grown up together. As young friends do, Michelle and I often spent hours imagining our futures. The future we imagined ended when that drunk, speeding, driver lost control and (from what I've been told) barreled over the top of our car.

Michelle and I were close. We were serious girls, but we fooled around a lot too. As kids, we once sat on a cemetery wall, waiting for a bus, discussing the song, "Both Sides Now" and how we liked it. Being kids, we decided to sing the song together. It became our special song. When I think of those two happy girls I think of how neither of us had any idea of what was to come.

That night, in the time it took me to look over at Michelle to calmly say, "He's going to hit us" and then look back, the wild lights seemed to be on top of our little car. I was knocked unconscious but temporarily regained consciousness as the ambulance attendant got me from the jagged and ripped open car. It wasn't until the next day that I truly regained consciousness. That's when I learned that Michelle was dead. My injuries were not life-threatening, but I had multiple fractures, a head injury, and a face and head full of cuts and gashes. It hurt to breathe, and it seemed like every muscle I had was damaged. None of it seemed to matter, though, because I had to concentrate on believing that Michelle was dead, and imagining life without her. The fact was I didn't believe she was dead, and I couldn't imagine life without her. Not believing and not being able to imagine, I guess, were the result of the numbness of shock and grief. The numbness is what helped me get through the months to follow.

Michelle's mother had lost a baby years before, so Michelle's death was particularly tragic for her. The complete horror of losing someone so young, and the unrelenting awareness of a future never to be lived, was enduring. Michelle had a sister, three brothers, and a baby niece. She would not get to see future nieces and nephews. I went on into that future without Michelle, missing her, of course. As years passed, I began to think of how Michelle was frozen in youth while I had matured. What surprised me was once my children got closer to Michelle's age I suddenly had a new realization of exactly how young 20 is, exactly how much a mother loves her grown children, and the true magnitude of loss when someone so young is killed. It was, I guess, a kind of secondary grief that set in decades after I thought I was over the accident.

While I once imagined a future Michelle would never get to have, I can now see the past she didn't get to have - and that, I think, is sadder than anything. Although I've been over the accident for a very long time now, I still think of my life as "before accident" and "after accident"; and I still, at least in some ways and to some degree, have the feeling of being a train, derailed and then put back on tracks belonging to some other train - not me.

I began my adult life under a cloud of loss, and when the cloud finally lifted it was too late to be that same young girl again. The lyrics to Both Sides Now include, "something's lost but something's gained from living every day." No truer words have ever, perhaps, been sung by two happy, young, friends on a cemetery wall.