I recently read an article titled, “The Mess You’ll Leave Behind” that talks about the pain and suffering your parents will have to go through after you overdose. In the article it touches on the idea that hopefully you weren’t in a car and killed another person. My mother was that other innocent person you killed because you decided to drive high. I’d like to continue the article for the other family’s point of view.
“Hopefully, you won’t die in your car. If you do, I hope you’re not driving at the time. I hope the last thing you do on this earth isn’t crashing into and killing someone else, maybe more than one person. I pray that’s not your legacy. If you don’t die at home, your parents will get a visit from the local cops and a ride down to the coroner’s office so they can identify your body.”
https://stopthesilencespeakthetruth.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/the-mess-youll-leave-behind/
The innocent person you killed won’t be in the car alone. Her husband of 25 years plus will be in the car at the same time. He wanted to take his wife out on a date before he left on a week long business trip. You will not have only killed a mother, a teacher, a spouse, and a sister–you will have injured a father.
Witnesses will say that you were driving erratically and will forever feel guilty for not calling the cops. Seconds after the accident, people will rush out of their car trying to perform CPR and call 911. They will forever remember pulling someone’s limp body out of the car, and they will be equally as scared. The driver of the other car will ask about you, and witnesses will say there was no saving you. Ambulances and police will arrive to take everyone to the hospital. The road will be shut down during rush hour causing huge delays. Within hours of your death the newspaper will publish an article depicting what had happened. You crossed the center line because you were too high to be driving. You didn’t even see it coming, you didn’t know that was your last breath, nor did you know you were about to take some else’s life.
The children of the person you killed will be called and told the horrible news. Her children will not believe the news. Their whole world will freeze, and seconds feel like minutes. Decisions will need to be made on the spot about what to do with their mother. Her family will be sitting there not knowing if they should cry, pass out or scream. They will google your name, find your old arrest record, and your Facebook page. Their daughter will realize that she graduated high school with the person that killed her mom. The person you killed will have been an amazing person. She will have had a greater impact on the community, one in which you endangered. You got caught this one time driving high, but how many other times did you drive high.
The other driver that you ran into will always play the “what ifs” in their head. What if they had gone to the bathroom before leaving the house. Seconds later could have played out a whole different story. What if her and her daughter had decided to go to yoga that day. But the truth is they were there, and you were the only one that could have changed the outcome of this event. If you would have known this is what would have happened, you would have probably changed your mind, but you selfishly got into a vehicle under the influence and drove.
The friends of the deceased will be contacted days later because the phone is taken to the police station. Their place of work will be contacted because that is the easiest way to get a hold of a large mass of people. Many of their closest friends will find this out through an email of the tragic event. Their friends will not understand how this could have happened. People will begin to look up your record and see that you’ve had several run ins with the law and will assume your intoxication. The person you innocently killed will have had no trouble with the law. They will have been a well-liked person and your legacy will be that you killed someone. People will later talk about you and say, “yeah he died because he decided to drive high and killed a school teacher.” You will be remembered for not only being high while driving but by killing and severely injuring another person.
The daughter will have to receive a bag filled with her mom’s diamond earrings, her wedding ring and other belongings in the car. She will cry as she puts on her mother’s wedding ring knowing she loved her father literally until the day she died.
Her children and family members will have to take care of legal paper work and making funeral plans. They will have to make the decision on whether they should cremate or find a casket. Her daughter’s best friend and her will have to go to the cemetery on the windiest day to try and find a spot for the whole family to one day be buried. The 20’s are supposed to be the best time of their life, and her children will be suffering from grief. Their mother will miss their graduation, marriage, buying their first house and all the major life events that happen in your twenties. Just a daily reminder to her children what happened because someone drove high.
Family and friends of the innocent person you killed will forever wonder what life would be like if that person was still around. You took someone’s parent, teacher, friend or sister.
Let’s talk math. Every time you do something stupid you are testing your luck. Statistically speaking every time you make it out alive from using drugs or in this case driving high you are that much closer to failure. The best thing that will happen to you when you get behind the wheel while high is that you get arrested. The next best is that you will only kill yourself. The worst possible situation in this life you could ever do is kill yourself, someone else, and even worse, injured another person. If you decide to drive high understand that the best case scenario is that you end up in jail.
Before I get attacked for making a “woe is me” article, understand my hopes are that one of my mom’s students sees the bigger picture. Hopefully this article touched you into understanding the greater issue into driving under the influence. I don’t blame the parents of the driver. They are experiencing grief and pain too. They too are victims in this horrible accident. They no longer have their son, and I no longer have a mother. I’m 23 years old, and I have to move into my parents house to care for my father. However, I wanted the story to be told from the other point of view in hopes of making a more personal impact on my mom’s students.
