” I Love You Aylene “

Middle school was so scary, the fact of having to start all over again. My friends all went to different schools in 6th grade. I see this girl that I had previously seen at get-togethers that my mom had always taken us to. It was an opportunity to go up to her and ask her if she remembered a funny moment that happened at the last get-together, she was so thrown off by the fact that I remembered that moment. Even though we had hung out before, it was that moment when we became friends and not just acquaintances. We instantly became very close. She was my best friend. We always made tiktoks at her house. My favorite memory of us together was when we walked to her house. We didn’t care about the distance or how far it was, we just wanted to hang out and the 7-11 trips we made were one of the best times with her beautiful smile and her contagious laugh. During our quarantine, we helped each other with our homework and we always played Roblox, we even built a Starbucks on Roblox.

Then came 9th grade. We talked, but not as much because we didn’t have classes together and we had different friend groups. Our friendship rekindled coming into our sophomore year. We had biology together, we shared many more laughs in that class. We were going to dissect a rat because she wanted to and we had begged the teacher before leaving class to put us together. We were both excited for the following week, we were ready, but before the day came I got called to the kitchen. My mom was worried. I got the heart-dropping news that my friend had passed. I remember breaking down in my mom’s arms wishing that I could go back in time and tell her to wait until the rain was gone. I fell into a place where I felt numb and broken just seeing her chair being empty. It felt like I was missing my sunshine whenever I needed a laugh, she was always there to make a joke. Now my biology class will never be the same again.

This moment made me realize that you never know when a person will pass, so never take time with a person for granted. It also made me realize how dangerous drinking and driving can be. I would never have had to go through that lonely and sad feeling if the driver hadn’t been drinking. I know they were intoxicated and probably not aware of the dangerous factors that come with driving under the influence, but I ended up losing my friend. I learned not to hold any resentment towards the driver. This was a big learning experience and made my family, and I believe multiple other families, aware of how bad this is. Losing a friend to people driving intoxicated was a traumatic experience, but it also taught me that this can happen at any time. I believe that there could be a rule implied when it comes to driving. I think that law enforcement should be more involved when it comes to driving, especially in the rain. I hear about a lot of car accidents that take place while it rains; cars can lose control or slide due to the traction of the car oil on the highway. Since it rains, it is common knowledge that water and oil don’t mix. I think that if they could invent some detector that can read when a person is under the influence or just driving over the speed limit, they can detect that and have the police go after that person to ensure they don’t do it again. As a teenage girl, I would never have thought that my friend could just pass away because our lives were just getting started. I went through several emotions, anger, and mostly sadness, thinking about the things she would’ve enjoyed doing. In my biology class, at times, I felt lost due to the fact that things would remind me so much of her.There are things that I regret not doing with her. I also felt a lot of sadness for her mom, Aylene, walking into her service, head held down, knowing that this was the last time I’d ever see my friend. Looking at her young sister looking so lost because she’s too young to know that her babebean (Aylene) is gone was just sad. This is why I think that there should be some new device to stop this, so that no other family is impacted by a lost family member due to intoxicated driving.