Spark

Thursday April 13th 2023 could easily be described as the worst day of my life. Before I explain why, I’d like to take a look back on the best years of my life. As a sophomore in high school, I met a boy at school who was bubbly and overly friendly. As a shy girl it scared me at first but he was able to get me to open up and eventually become a close friend. He was the one person other than my mom who was able to bring my “spark” out of me. As we started to hangout, we became more than just friends. Spending countless hours at my house doing homework, sleeping on FaceTime every night, getting food with my mom, and looking at the stars on my trampoline. While things may have not worked out relationship wise, we remained friends. Going into my Junior year of high school, I ended up having a class with him. Of all things it ended up being our ballroom dance class. Throughout the year, we were always dance partners and became closer friends than ever. After that school year we lost contact over summer, but into my senior year we began talking again. In February 2023, he showed up at my house one day just to say hello, he then started coming over every day after school as he had graduated a year before me. Things easily went back to how they were and we became more than friends again. I started to get busy with homework and dance competitions so we didn’t see each other as much. Even if we were simply snap chatting back and forth, my so-called “spark” was brighter than ever and I was simply so happy. Quickly April came, my birthday month, and on the 13th of April I left my second period excited to go to lunch with two of my closest friends. As I walked up to them, I heard one say “I can’t believe L*** died this morning”. I frantically asked her to repeat what she had just said, and to my surprise it was his name that came out of her mouth. She pulled up the news for me while my other friend showed me his Snapchat story that I hadn’t yet seen. His story was a video of him in the passenger seat while the odometer showed 180 MPH at 3am. Then I read the news article, stating that a car going 180 MPH at 3am that morning ran into a semi truck. Because of the shock I was in, I went to lunch, called my mom, and finished out the school day. This is the day my “spark” was ripped away from me. As the month went on, my 18th birthday felt insignificant, prom felt stupid, and my friends seemed to not even notice. I never imagined that the day in March 2023, he was leaving my house for the very last time. I knew everything about him, and yet I suddenly didn’t know where he was, how he felt, or what he thought. This felt a pit in my stomach causing that “spark” to fizzle out.

While he may have been the passenger, his friend that was driving had a record for bad driving and he still willingly got into the car. He had just gotten his license at 19, meaning he didn’t have to go through as much driving education as others who start the process at 15. No matter your age, everyone needs education on driving decisions and how the outcome can affect yours and others lives. If people of all ages were required to go through driver's education, deaths like his could be prevented. Making a decision to have “some fun” quickly became fatal for a 19 year old boy who had many people that loved him. By enforcing more educational requirements to become a driver, he could still be here. He may have made the choice to not get in that car with a driver whose license was suspended. Fitting in is something everyone at a young age wants, but life is too precious to take a risk. Youth seem to want to have fun driving, which is why I believe our youth needs to be educated on the effects of driving recklessly. I have always been a careful driver because as a child my father, who was a drug addict often, drove crazy with me in the car. This is a memory I had always remembered, influencing me to always drive safely especially when other people are in the car. By simply driving the speed limit(even at 3am), hopefully others will follow and make the smart decision to take their life into consideration. While I know this may not happen, and I may not be able to make a huge change, doing anything at all(including writing this essay) is to keep his presence alive. Throughout the months after April, I have begun to process the grief and disbelief that I wont see him again. It has been a painful summer as we would have spent more time together than ever, but I am able to look forward to starting my journey in college while still seeing him in the stars at night. I hope to find someone who is able to bring my “spark” back but in the meantime I will continue to encourage my friends and family to always drive safely and to never take a single moment for granted.