One Second is All it Takes

One second I was looking at the sky from the back seat of my mother’s green Acura MDX. The next second I was screaming for my life. This was the day that my family and I got smashed by an 18-wheeler. This was the day I lost the woman I love most.

The sky was the color of midnight blue. I looked out of the window like I always did on long road trips searching for constellations in the sky. I turned my Nintendo DS on and went back to playing Madagascar. Surprisingly, I was moments away from beating my high score. I looked up to ask my mom a question and then…BOOM!

Ten seconds of terror. Ten seconds of spins and turnovers from one huge crash.

This was the one and only day of my life that I shrieked out, “MOMMY!” The car stopped. I looked to my side and saw that my baby sister, who was an infant, had slept through it all. My mother and brother were silent. A few seconds later, she asked if we were okay. We were, but sat in silence from the shock. The car was still partially on the road and cars were coming and going, but no one stopped. I looked back and saw a massive truck behind us. I couldn’t see behind us before; I took a double take. Whoever hit us had completely obliterated the trailer attached to our truck. My mom walked over to his vehicle and you could see the terror and disbelief on his face. They talked for a few minutes and then she walked back. She looked down with a look of dismay and dejection that I had never seen before. She looked at us and sighed, “He didn’t even know he hit us. His eyes were blood red. He must’ve been tired.”

After my mom called the police I looked down and searched for the gift my crush had given before the day of our departure. I was sad to go because I had liked him for three years. My last day at school I told him how I felt, we hugged, and he got picked up and left for home.

He showed up at my house three days later, told me that he felt the same way, and pulled out a gift for me. It was a white bucket with big colorful circles on it. Inside the bucket was green styrofoam and inside of that were Blow Pops to sort of look like flowers. There was a sign attached to the bucket saying, “Seeing you go really BLOWS.” It was the sweetest gift I had ever been given, but it was gone. All I had now was an empty bucket and shards of candy spread over my lap.

My mom finally let us get out of the car and start searching for our belongings. Even though the U-HAUL trailer took most of the blow from the impact of the crash, the rear view window of the MDX shattered and half of our luggage was scattered in the desert. Interestingly enough, everything behind the Bible in the truck was destroyed; that was the day I became a true believer because he protected the bodies of the ones I love most and our most valuable items -our lives.

We spent about thirty minutes in almost complete darkness searching for everything we could; we were in the middle of nowhere. The car battery was dying because we used the lights to see, and it took forever for the police to come and file a report. It took even longer for AAA to come and my mom had to take from her emergency fund to get the car towed to the nearest hotel and there went the money for my 13th birthday celebration in a matter of minutes.

The next day, filed a report of our injuries and got checked out. The problem with that is that they don’t look at the long term. If you don’t show signs of injury that very day, it’s as if nothing happened. Even though we did not come out on the other end of the accident with any visible injuries, something happened to my mom that still incurs trauma to her to this very day.

No longer could we go on long road trips together, laugh and groove to the latest hit songs, or even just enjoy the ride. We still don’t speak about that event to this day, but one thing is for sure. It only takes one second. Any lack of attention and the people you know and love can be gone in an instant. The only way to prevent this from reoccurring is to focus on the task at hand with every ounce of your being. Give it your all. Pay attention.

Not only were we struggling financially to recover from such an unexpected occurrence, but my mother no longer drove with confidence. Physically she was fine, but mentally she was gone. Every time we hit the road, she would stay in the far right lane and refused to go above thirty miles an hour. If the terrain changed the slightest, she would slam the breaks. Any downhill movement? More brakes. Any gust of wind felt through the window? Brakes. She hit the brakes so much that I felt like I was going to vomit from motion sickness.

I think back to what would have happened if we didn’t have a trailer blocking our rear view mirror. What would have happened if my brother and I were assigned to watch the side view mirrors all night? What if the driver had had enough sleep and didn’t have to worry about working through sleep deprivation just to make a living? What if the truck driver had had a solid knowledge of what it means to be a safe driver? Had he been educated in that department? Did his employers care about his life or were they simply focused on transporting goods by any means necessary? Perhaps if he was allowed to sleep this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if we only traveled in the daylight this would not have happened. Perhaps if the rear view mirror wasn’t blocked one of us would have noticed the bright lights on our tail. It’s too late now. There’s no reason to live in the past, but what we can do now is take steps to help spare the lives of others like God spared ours. To prevent this from reoccurring now we always check the front, back, and sides of ourselves at all times. How many lives would be saved not only driving at night, but even walking at night if people were completely aware of the environment around them? It only takes for one person to be caught off guard for an accident to happen, so driver training should be focused on keeping the focus on the driver and those with them to stay alert at all times. The main goal for driving is to get from one place to another safety, so we should do all that we can to ensure this matter is taken seriously. If it isn’t, it could cost us our lives.

Six years later, it was now time for me to get dropped off to college. We made this expedition in the daylight and we made sure that we could see behind us in the rear view mirror by taking two cars so each one could be packed lightly. We kept our eyes peeled the entire time. No music. No laughter. Just driving. There was no room for a mistake. Taking our eyes off of the road even for a moment is too big of a risk to take.