This isn’t your typical “Don’t drink and drive” letter. I’m not going to sit back and lecture you on how it effects your driving or how bad alcohol is. This is an article that physically breaks my soul to write. I can only hope that through this you can understand just how imperative it is to not drink and drive because it will completely flip someone’s world upside down.
You always think “That would never happen to me and my friends” and as cliché as that sounds, its true. I never thought it would happen to my friends, but then the world completely stopped for me in one single phone call.
Samantha and I have been best friends since 6th grade. She was my drive most of the time. She always kept me going and was always there to hold me up through the weird middle school phase. We learned how to and how NOT to do our hair and makeup together…We laughed on nights until we cried.. and we were ALWAYS into some kind of trouble. Samantha was the sunshine for me. Our friendship will forever hold some of my very favorite memories.
As time went on and life began we grew apart for a while, but like all true best friends we started to get close again after we started college. As our friendship was starting to grow in a whole new way I got a text from her around 9:30 on March 12, 2016 saying “Hey girl, I miss you. Let’s hang out soon.” Little did I know that only a short few hours later a drunk driver would hit her head on and forever rock the world of Samantha and the people around her.I woke up to the text message from my dad. I called him and Sam’s mom answered the phone with a voice I had never heard her have. She told me that I needed to come down because “it was bad”. I got to the hospital as fast as I could and as I went up the elevator to the trauma unit I thought my heart was going to stop beating. I didn’t want any of it to be true and I was constantly questioning God. “Why?” “Why Samantha?”
I walked back to the trauma unit and was shaking with fear. As I walked around the corner I recognized her dad standing above her holding her hand but the girl lying unconscious in the bed I didn’t recognize. She wasn’t my Sam. She was a girl that had been brought to the lowest point because of someone else’s poor decision. I had never felt a rush of emotions so fast. I was sad, mad, and scared all at the same time and I don’t think my brain could keep up. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry while I was standing with Sam but as soon as I walked away I broke down.
The weeks went on and I didn’t miss a single day at the hospital. It was a roller coaster all the time. Sam had her good days… but with the good came the bad. I went back and saw her a lot. They had put her in a medically induced coma so every time I would go back I talked to her just as if she was speaking back to me. I talked about stories and laughed at the memories we had. And when time came for me to go home I was always devastated to leave her side. I didn’t know if Sam would be there the next time I went back to see her so every time I would say bye to her came with a flood of tears.
Most stories like Sam’s don’t have good endings. She was a special case though. She is the biggest fighter I know and wasn’t about to let this man’s awful decision affect her opportunity of living life to the fullest. So she fought.
I saw it every day. The little steps felt like milestones to me. When she squeezed my hand and opened her eyes and smiled that sweet smile at me and our other best friend it was almost as if that was God's way of telling me "She is going to make it."
She is still my best friend to this day and continues to try to get life to be back to “normal”. But life probably will not ever be normal again and that’s okay. Because Samantha is a story. She can be the light to someone else. She can be the light for you.
So please think about how much you can effect a person’s life when you get behind the wheel drunk. Do not let that be the baggage you carry around forever. And to the people who don’t drink and drive… Love your friends and family because you never know the moment they can be taken away from us.
Sincerely,
the girl who almost lost someone she loves
