Be Present

Be
Present

The morning was brisk, and the sun just creeping over the hills in
the distance. A man gets in the truck with his coworkers ready to
start his day working in the oil fields. They proceed down the road,
as they go, he looks out of the window into the sky hoping for a good
day. His mind wanders off to his pregnant fiancé and baby to be. As
they stop at a red light, he sends a text to his fiancé, “good
morning, I love you and will see you when I get home.” The light
turns green and they proceed into the intersection. <Crash> a
driver wasn’t paying attention and smashed into the side of their
vehicle. He took the full force of the impact on his side. He is
pulled from the wreckage, many are injured, but he is in the worse
condition. He is staring at the sky now, taking his final breaths,
and as he slowly fades away his mind takes him to his family and the
things he will miss. Their wedding that was planned later that year
and his son’s birth and long life ahead. He takes his final breath
as tears stream down his face, he fades away alone and with
unfulfilled desires. His name was Mickey “Trace” Grubbs III and
he was my friend.

The driver was a young woman heading to work, she was texting her
friend as the light turned to red, she looked up at the last second
as she passed through the intersection and hit the truck right in the
side of the cab. Her air bags deployed, and she had minor injuries.
It took a matter of seconds to end my friend’s life, and it all
came down to someone averting her attention to her phone, instead of
the road and her surroundings. This occurs so much in America,
that an average of 34,000 people died to incidents just like this.
Out of these 34,000 lives that were so suddenly ended, my friend was
one in this statistic.

What
can you do when you face something like this? Some resort to anger
and retaliation, and others deal with the pain and close themselves
off from the world. The fact is that it’s not just 34,000 people who
are affected by incidents like this everyone has a mother and father,
some have brothers and sisters, best friends and lovers. So really
the statistic for lives affected is somewhere in the hundreds of
thousands. If I asked you, as an audience, if you know someone who
has passed away in a vehicle accident; I would venture so far as to
say 80-90 % of you would say yes. What can we do to fix this?

It
all starts with a drivers ed and understanding that variables
are always going to occur on the road, and you must be alert and
ready to overcome any obstacle that arrives. But how do we do this?
First and foremost, wear your seatbelt, it was engineered to save
your life and it comes free with the car. Second, once the car is in
drive your phone should no longer be the priority, the road should
take its place. If something is so important that you need to use
your phone, pull over to the side of the road and put your hazard
lights on to make your call or text. This will save you and any
unknowing participants in a would be crash. Lastly, eliminate
everything that will distract you from the road because all the
things that are on your mind will be taken care of when you get to
them. The thing is you must get to them first, it starts with safe
driving and life will unfold as you exit your vehicle. Life happens
outside of the driver’s seat and that is where it should occur.

Be
present. In life you should be present to make the memories and
moments that last forever. In the car you should be present, to take
you to the next memorable moment. This doesn’t just go for the
driver it helps when the group in the car is present and can even be
place you make memories on a road trip. But with that there needs to
be an understanding that safety comes first above everything, you
should keep yourself and others accountable and do the right thing.
It’s your life and your actions can save a life, as well as, your
own life. Just make it a priority to be present in the car and in
life once you’ve put your car in park and step into the sunlight
and proceed to live your life.

Be
sure to pass on the word to others and educate them in the cause and
effects of distracted driving and in that effort, you might just save
somebody and inadvertently decrease the number of accidents on the
road. We couldn’t save the 34,000 and my friend Trace, but we can
save everyone else. It all comes down to making the effort to apply
safer driving practices. So be present in the car, so people like
Trace can be present in life. You will know you made a difference
when that 34,000 is diminished and we spend less time at funerals and
more time living our lives.

Thank
you for reading.

In
loving Memory of Mickey “Trace” Grubbs III