Drive safe someone loves you.

In Montana, even the fall was frigid. It was already in the single digits in late October and you couldn’t walk outside without feeling like your toes might fall off. My school was about as middle of nowhere as you could get. With only 200 students it was a close knit community. I remember so clearly exactly what I was doing when I got the call. I was stress-baking due to a hard homework assignment, singing whatever song my phone shuffled onto while I measured out the ingredients for the bread. The caller ID read that it was my best friend from my home in Utah. I answered the phone laughing but her voice quickly sombered me. “Were you close with lauren?” I felt my heart drop. I mean sure? Who didn’t know lauren. She was the type of person you couldn’t miss. She wasn’t outgoing by any means, but she was friendly and bright. Her quiet composure had a peace to it. “Yes… She was in several of my classes, we talked a lot. Why?” I could feel my stomach plummet to my feet as she said the next words. “Have you not been on instagram? She’s dead.”

A lot of what she said was a blur. Icy road, head on collision, dead basically on impact. Dead? Lauren? The soccer player that had been so full of life? The devout christian? The girl who was sunshine as a person? That lauren? I let my phone hang up without a goodbye. I don’t even think I let her finish her explanation. I walked mindlessly two doors down from mine and knocked. They were definitely having a get together but one look at me and they gave me all their attention. “Lauren is dead.” They didn’t know who she was let alone the words to say to me next. For days I remember walking numbly. My feet moved class to class, my head spun, but I never spoke. I didn’t drive for a week. Just the thought of being behind a steering wheel sent me into a spiral. One wrong patch of Ice had taken her far too soon, It wasn’t even her fault. How could this happen? It took a bit, but In a few weeks I had become more like myself. The world still turned. In a way, losing her prepared me for the next blow of my freshman year.

“Meet down in the classroom for a team meeting.” That text from our coach had only ever meant one thing… Trouble. I remember all of us trying to figure out why. Had there been a party last night? Has someone been caught drinking? Were we not conditioning hard enough? We soon had our answers. When she started the meeting all of us noticed one thing. Two of our teammates were absent. My coach addressed that first. “Last night I spent most of the early morning at the dorms, many of you don’t know, many of you do, but two of your teammates got behind the wheel of a car drunk and crashed late last night.” Gosh as if the air wasn’t already heavy enough, the weight multiplied. I felt my eyes water as I instantly pictured their car crushed on the side of the road. We all sat there in suspense. “No one knows how they are alive but they are. The one driving is in jail, and the other is in the hospital.” There was a slight sigh of relief in the room. We hadn’t lost two sisters. They were alive. They were going to be ok.

Tears broke out around the room as all twenty-one of us got hit with the news. We all knew that the drinking meant they would be suspended, or kicked off the team, but at least they were alive. The next few weeks were a battle. Instead of worry or empathy, other students laughed and made horrible nicknames for our two sisters. Those same students even went so far as to drive to see the tree, as some sort of twisted tourist spot in our small town. That night echoed for weeks in laughs around the school. At one point I remember vividly yelling at a boy who had made a nickname for one. “If they were 6 feet deep right now you wouldn’t be laughing.” Those words were heavy enough to make my eyes water.

What was the point of these two stories? Why am I sharing the stories of three girls whose lives were all changed in different ways due to the decisions in a car? I would much rather them call a ride, or arrive a day late, than go to their funerals, jail cells, or hospital rooms. One call would’ve changed everything. “The roads are icy, I can’t get there today.” or “I had too much to drink and I need a ride.” I would have much rather that, then the results the world gave us. Lives are altered everyday by the decisions of those behind the wheel. Safety when you drive is the most important thing. In one year I lost a friend, had one sister in the hospital, and another in jail. I would not wish that on anyone. The tears from their loved ones, the yells, the screams, are ones I wish to never relive. One decision can cause or alter a life and those that surround them. Making safe decisions can not only spare your life, but also the grief from those who love you. Drive safe, someone loves you.