Someone’s Family

In the silent night, a text spans across my phone screen sat in the car seat next to mine. It has the name of my lover sprawled across it. Although I yearn to reach for it, I cannot not.

It is against the law. The legal law, and the moral law.

If I were to grab my phone and lose control of my car at this moment, I could be the one to blame for four counts of vehicular manslaughter. I could take someone’s daughter, son, and grandkids just because one text, one distraction, or reckless driving takes priority.

The family would never reach their destination, and would never spend the holiday season in their parents, in their grandparents’ house singing songs of Christmas joy. The only songs they would sing would be the songs of grief, and misery.

What could’ve been a night filled with lifelong memories becomes a night that starts a new chapter in someone’s life. A mother does not need to bury her daughter. A father does not need to bury his son, and grandparents definitely need not bury their own grandchildren before these kids have experienced what life is, and what love is. Just because some teenager was selfish enough to put three seconds of communication of their puppy love first.

That young family has their entire life ahead of them, starting with a simple night and grandma and grandpa’s house. They were to have turkey, a roast, and cake. To take pictures, and beg the grandfather to play a song on the piano as they sit by the fire, and open Christmas presents. That family would then go home, a life a beautiful life. The daughter would go to school and start to love art, get her license, and pursue her art career. The son would go to school, meet his first girlfriend and marry her in college, starting the same scene, but this time with their parents.

The parents would grow old, watching their children grow up, through the ups and downs, and enjoy the process. The mother and father would work long hours, and cold nights to provide for and make sure their kids are happy and healthy and would love one another.

That is, however, if the grandparents never received a phone call at six at night on Christmas Eve, telling them the last of their bloodline had been killed, and there would be no open casket funeral. A scene so devastating, that their faces and bodies have been rendered unrecognizable – and the teenager – her face is the one recognizable for killing four innocent, happy children .

The family dog will wander around for a couple of days, with no one to feed it or take it out on walks, wondering when its owners will come back. The baseball team will not be the same anymore without Chase on the first plate, and his dad coaching. Their house will remain empty, and the lives they once occupied will remain hollow. Little Chase made a promise to his grandfather that he would play baseball in high school just as his father did, and now his grandfather remembers this moment as he cries above his grave.

Driving safely is more than driving safely for yourself and your family. Driving safely is also more than fear of breaking laws, but rather breaking someone’s family. I know that if the family that was killed on the road was mine, I would never recover. I would no longer have my cousins to share my awards with or play with at family gatherings, and the missing piece of my family would be gone, and never return.

Even if it were just one family member, it would still be horrendous. A family is not a family without all parts of it there. If it was just the daughter who died, who would be there to take after the grandfather and let the sounds of music waft around the house all hours of the day and night? How would the mother feel watching her only daughter die in front of her eyes? All because someone else’s daughter could not keep her hands on the wheel, a mother watches her daughter’s life slip from her own hands.

The implications of reckless driving are ones that reach far. It’s not always a texting driver that can kill a family, but sometimes a sleepy driver. It could be an iced road, or perhaps even a small, unusual mistake a driver has never made. But driving safety is of utmost importance because it is not just people driving on the road, and it is not just cars driving on the road, but it is someone’s family, and someone’s bloodline. It is a friend, a family, a coworker, and a reason for living in the car. And driving recklessly is not only a death sentence to the people within the car but also a death sentence for the person driving. From the legal troubles of driving recklessly to the lingering guilt of killing someone while driving, safe driving is the only way to ensure another day without the trouble of killing an entire family.

So I look back at the road, and at the family in the car beside me. My text message is not worth their lives.