999

I wonder if his car beeped as it begged him to wear his seatbelt that night. I sure hope that the annoying, constant, and irritating sound of the seatbelt alert was not the last thing he heard in his short life. On the third of December, 2022, I woke to the sound of my mom crying on the phone, begging anyone who could hear to please tell her that the news was not true, that it was all just some cruel, sick joke. My mom does not cry very often, and neither does she pace, much less in the hallway that leads to her children’s respective rooms. So when I heard my mom pacing, crying, and repeating the words “Oh my God” over and over, I knew something was terribly wrong.

This is not my tragedy. I am not even a side character; I am simply background filler. I have no right to share this heartbreaking story as my own, much less tell it from my perspective, but this is all I know. I share this with the hopes of encouraging people not to disregard the annoying beeping of your car, unless you want your best friend’s mother to pace outside her daughter’s room, wishing she were not the bearer of tragic news. My mother opened my sister’s door, and immediately my sister got up frantically, asking what had happened. Mom wasn’t able to say anything other than his name. My sister and he had been friends since we moved from Venezuela to the U.S. They matched each other’s energy like no one else, and there was something so precious that radiated off both of them when they were together. He quickly became part of our family. Due to his complicated home life, his time at our house started increasing, and suddenly he was spending every summer and Christmas break with us. He began to appear in family pictures, never hesitating to run in when someone said “family photo!” Now, all those photographs are haunted by a sibling whose life did not begin with our family, but did end as part of it.

There are the constant questions that always linger in the back of the minds of those who knew him: “What if he never went out that night?” “What if he had worn a seatbelt?” “What if someone had gone out with him?” “What if…?” “What if…?” “What if…?” 999. He believed there was hell on earth, that the cruelty of the world was once out to get him, but he never let it get to him. He believed in the power of turning things upside down, from bad to good, from suffering to happiness, from hell to Heaven. And if you saw him walking around, you would have never guessed he was once suffering. 999. Those are the numbers we all now wear on our wrists, the bracelets I see on the people closest to him. “Have strength and know that you are worth it” – 999. Those were the last words written in his journal before the tragedy, words that are engraved into all our heads because he deserved nothing less than to believe that for himself. Our lives are worth too much to pretend that we could never be next. Wearing a seatbelt, practicing safe driving, these are small tasks that could change many lives in an instant.

There is something so foolish when it comes to the act of disregarding something as insignificant as a strap around over chest. That strap could safe your life. There is something so foolish when it comes to the desire to drive a metal machine over the limits which the road itself is offering you. Those limits were made for a reason. I don’t believe the pain your mother carries is worth the “thrill” of seeing 130 mph on your dashboard, neither do I believe the pain your siblings carry is worth the “comfort” of not wearing a seatbelt. So now they have to miss you for longer than they have known you, but they will never blame you for it. They will simply get up in the morning, make their beds, and share another instagram post on their stories, every 3rd of December, reminding people of the importance of safe driving and wearing a seatbelt. So I hope this grief is enough to make you change your mind, I hope you get into your car and plan to make it back home safely, that you try your best to do so every time.