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I snapped out of my daze to a bright light, and a roaring sound. The light that intruded my bewilderment was a pair of head lights set to full brightness, and the noise I heard the horn, coming from the same car that the headlights emanated from…

2 Hours Earlier1

As I pulled up to the drive of our house I noticed immediately that there was something amiss. My fathers car, normally parked with care and precision was in an angled position in comparison to the rest of the drive, clearly placed there in a moment of hurry and distress. My mothers van, which should have been in front of my father’s car, was missing totally. On their own these would not have been all that strange, but if you add to them the fact that the front door of our house was left wide open, and my father was sitting on the front step, arms resting on his knees, head down, resting in his arms, it painted a picture of sorrow and Desperation.
I pulled into our drive quickly, parking hurriedly behind my father’s car. Almost before car was parked I had pulled the key out of the ignition, opened the door and was running up our drive. The sound of my door slamming shut made my father raise his head for a second, and for an instant that seemed like a lifetime his eyes met mine and I saw the depth of his sorrow.
As I reached my father’s side he stood up, the motion appearing to be tremendously difficult for him, not physically, but as I would soon learn as a result of the incredible loss he had just experienced. His head fell upon my shoulder and his tears soaked through my t-shirt. He whimpered something to me as he embraced me, and through the muffled tone he used I made out the words: “Mom, Brother, Highway, and Accident.”
He raised his head from my shoulder, looked me straight in the eyes again, and said, “They’re gone, Son!” The words took a lot of emotional strength for him to say, as if vocalizing the feeling made his acceptance of it final. His footing wavered for a minute, and I steadied him.
“Come inside, Dad.” The though of making such a stern command to my father would have been shocking to me in any other situation, but it was all I could bring myself to say, as an idea of what must have happened formed in my head.
We walked inside the house, 16 year old son supporting his father, and moved towards the couch in our living room. I sat my father down, mustering all the strength I could to not collapse on the couch myself. I left him there for a minute and went to the kitchen to get him a cool glass of water. My hands were shaking as the glass filled and I fought hard to steady it, not wanting to show my weakness to my father, fearing it would make him lose all hope.
He took the glass, and thanked me in a whispered voice. It was difficult for me to see him in such a state, but I understood how he must feel, and I felt I had to act strong in the face of whatever crisis had befallen our family. I sat beside him and put my arm over his shoulder, comforting, reassuring him, not pressuring him to tell me the story, despite my burning desire to know, until he was able.
It took him nearly a half an hour, talking intermittently between bouts of tear, to paint a picture of what had happened, and as he did my composure wore away, the hard realization of it sinking in to me.
My younger brother was, unlike me, an awesome athlete, and he excelled at any sport he tried. This summer it was soccer, he’d joined the local school team, and had immediately risen to the top of his team. My mother had been driving him to his practice today, which was held at a field about 10 minutes out of town. The exact reason for the crash hadn’t been determined yet, although some plausible ideas had been presented. In any case the driver of a car in oncoming traffic lost control of his semi-truck and it swerved into their lane, only meters in front My Mother’s van. The impact of the crash stopped the van in its tracks, and the momentum the truck had built up began to push my mothers van backwards. The van behind my Mother’s, also driven by a mom taking her child to soccer practice, slammed into the back of my Mother’s.  My Mother and Brother were killed instantly.
My father was about to speak again when the phone across the room rang. He looked up at me for a minute, and then nodded for me to go and answer it. I walked over and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Good Evening. This is the Police Department calling, “Is Mr. Cooper in?”
I thought about it for a second. “Speaking,” I replied.
The voice on the other end assumed a sympathetic tone, “I’m sorry for your lost Mr. Cooper, and all us at the Station would like to tell you that our thoughts are with you and your family.”
“Thank you.”
“We have conducted an investigation of the crash scene and determined the cause of the accident. The driver of the semi-truck appears to have killed himself just before he swerved into the opposite lane.”
The rest of the conversation isn’t clear in my mind. There was a lot of “I’m Sorry” and “Sympathies” exchanged. I don’t remember hanging up the phone, or even walking out the door and hopping into my car.
Who is that Driver to ruin someone else’s life just because his sucks. Didn’t he think about how what he did could affect other people? Now he’s ended his own life, my mother’s, my brother’s, and ruined mine and my father’s. Well, I’m not going to spend the rest of my life angry and bitter at him. I can just end my own life before the sorrow fully sinks in.
That was what went through my mind, as I drove out of town, turned down the highway and pulled my car over by the crash site. The sun had just set, and night was setting in quickly. I waited in my anguish for what must have been a full hour, until well after darkness had settled on the world, as it had in my heart. Still dazed, I turned off my car, opened the door, and walked out onto the highway.
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I snapped out of my daze to a bright light, and a roaring sound. The light that intruded my bewilderment was a pair of head lights set to full brightness, and the noise I heard the horn, coming from the same car that the headlights emanated from.
I was standing in the middle of the same highway that the crash occurred on, the same highway where my life was about to end on. A sick smile of satisfaction settled on my face, knowing that soon the pain would be over.
The Horn honked again, and as the car came closer to me, a new set of thoughts flashed through my mind, nearly the same as my first set.
Who am I to ruin someone else’s life just because mine sucks. How will this affect other people? Now I’ve ended his own life, and ruined my father’s. Why end my own life when I should learn to cope with the pain, and help my father continue his?
My eyes flashed to the shoulder of the road only five meters away, and back to the headlights of the car speeding towards me, standing ten meters ahead of it, and the look of horror in the face of the woman, and her son dressed in full soccer uniform. I leapt to the side of the road, eyes closed, hoping I could get out of the way before more lives were ruined…
Zak Didur2