Two young people in my little community
have left us in recent years.
“Dennis” was in his mid-20’s and was riding
a motorcycle on a highway adjacent to my neighborhood. He may have been in a
hurry, and was possibly exceeding the 60 mph speed limit, as it was his
birthday, and he was due to meet his parents, relatives and friends at the
parental home.
Suddenly, Dennis failed to negotiate a
slight curve, ran off the highway, over a sidewalk, and into the front of a
steel fence which bordered a gated community. He was pronounced dead at the
scene. It was broad daylight, and neither darkness, nor drugs or alcohol
contributed to the accident.
A few years later, “Gail,” the only
passenger in her automobile, was driving down the same highway, and, like
Dennis, failed to negotiate the same curve, ran over the same sidewalk, side-swiped
an oak tree, and slammed into that same steel fence. The time was about 3am and
she was apparently coming home from work at the time. I was peddling 10 miles a
day during this season of my life, and I just happened to peddle my bicycle
past the accident scene just minutes after Gail was med flighted to a trauma
hospital. Of course, there was a myriad of emergency vehicles at site of the
one car collision. Sadly, Gail, passed away shortly after the helicopter
reached the hospital.
Oddly enough, though several years had
transpired between the two accidents, Dennis and Gail had crashed their
vehicles a mere twenty feet apart, and apparently for much the same reason, (or
lack of a reason).
Pt. 2
An oval state highway accident plaque
marks the place of Dennis’ passing. It is a simple memorial to his having lost
his life at this particular location. Just a name and a date, but it is stark
for its simplicity and message.
A large cross, made up of colorful
artificial flowers, adorns the scarred little oak tree which Gail’s automobile side-swiped
that night; before crashing into the fence. Just below the cross a cardboard
and tissue paper sign has been tacked up. It is inscribed with one word,
“Gail.”
As someone who has experienced eight
or ten “near misses” during the course of my relatively long seventy years on
this planet, it grieves my soul to see young lives snuffed out on our highways,
and the countless other places young men and women, boys and girls have
succumbed to premature deaths. There’s just no accounting why some, like me,
have been given chance after chance to continue living out their destinies,
while too many other lives are snuffed out “first time out.”
In the case of all these unfortunate
young people, it almost seems like a “providential lack of providence,” as I
like to put it.
Where ever you happen to be when you
are reading this story wouId you pause a moment to remember and memorialize
Dennis and Gail, and all the young men and women in the world like them?
One of my distant relatives, a very
famous individual, also died in a traffic accident at a relatively young age.
And at her funeral a song was sung titled, “Candle in the Wind;” originally
written for another famous woman who died years earlier.
Dennis, and Gail, and Diana, and
Marilyn, and all the other young people who left us before their time don’t
deserve to be forgotten. And those of us who have been left behind should devote
our best efforts to living out our lives in a fashion which honors the
potential which was so rudely stripped away from them.
by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending
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