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Dead at 18
Gone forever
by Matt Barton
the Carillon
A lament about the life lost due to drinking and driving
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Dead. The word is so overused that it doesn’t even register anymore. The finality is frightening and the ominous nature of this word makes us cower in fear. Dead. It clunks off the back of your teeth, leaving a bad taste if you repeat it enough times. Dead. My sister’s friend now belongs to this word.
Why is he dead? A young man, barely 18, is now gone. There is a general acknowledgement that the driver had been drinking before getting behind the wheel. It seems everyone is caught in a system of shock. They disbelieve the fact that he is dead. It is like a bad movie. They miss him. Everyone is trying to adjust to the fact that he is gone.
He will never know the joys of another day. He will never see another sunrise, never enjoy another ice cream, get married, have kids. He will never smile again. His life has ended. He is now a statistic.
What I can’t understand, what I cannot rationalize, is why he got in a car being driven by someone under the influence. How stupid. How selfish. How needless. It has been less than a year since the last teenager in this circle of friends died of drinking and driving. Was her death not a harsh enough lesson to remind these young adults of the consequences of drinking and driving?
Her life was not one of inconsequence. She mattered to people. She was loved. A friend of mine was especially affected by her death. She had been his first kiss. When he told me what she meant to him his face was filled with pain and sadness. She was a person who shaped this world. Her life has ended. She is now a statistic. How many more have to die foolishly before everyone gets the message?
Regina is the drinking and driving capital of Canada. I’ve listened to people joke about it as if it were a title worth bearing. How redneck, ignorant and boorish are the people of this city who look at this as something funny? When did the value of a life become so meaningless? Statistics have no meaning, no personality, they don’t matter.
Any rational person can justify paying $20 for a cab. Dead or a cab? What sounds better? It’s not a hard thing to do. Drinking? Call a cab. Get home alive. Don’t become a statistic.
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