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Earn This

A young man in my town, I’ll call him Dan, recently crashed his car while allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol.  His good friend Evan was killed in the crash, while Dan and a third friend sustained non-fatal injuries.  All three boys were wearing seat belts. 

The three boys were high school seniors in their primes who were active in sports, the community and school activities and well known and liked by their friends.  All good boys who made a bad choice and suffered the profound consequences of their bad, but unfortunately, typical teen judgement.  As my thoughts linger on the subject, I find it difficult to comprehend the sudden loss and grief experienced by Evan’s family.  Evan is gone from this life and his family will have to learn to make a place for that absence in their lives because it will never go away even though their lives will go on.

Although Evan and his family have suffered the more severe consequence, for some reason, my attention keeps returning to Dan.  I keep trying to imagine his crushing guilt; profound grief for the loss of his friend, their futures, his innocence; his regret.  How can anyone process such overwhelming and inescapable emotions?  I am sure that his friends and family will try to comfort him by minimizing his culpability in the crash, emphasizing the role of fate and chance in the outcome.  They will try to help him cope because he after all is the one who has to live on.  But good people such as Dan are good because they have strong conscience and in his heart, Dan will wrestle with this for the rest of his life.

How does one begin to process such fundamental emotions?  What mental and emotional framework does Dan construct to create a liveable life?  How would I deal with this or counsel my child to deal with it?  What I do know is that life is never over for one mistake.  We are forgiven for our mistakes if we acknowledge them, express regret and make restitution.  Our character and our lives aren’t defined by what happens to us or by what mistakes we make, but by how we respond to them.  Recall the scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan where Captain Miller’s dying words to Private Ryan are “Earn This …”  Ryan went on to live a life that by all accounting was worthy of the sacrifices made on his behalf.

Dan has a whole life ahead of him and it is possible for him to live it in a way that will help him earn his own forgiveness and respect.  His life’s work right now is going to be deciding how to do that. 

What about the other teenagers and parents of our town -  what lessons have we learned and what changes are we going to make to respond to this tragedy and make sure it doesn’t happen again?  The three boys in the car had the presence of mind – even in their allegedly inebriated state – to put on their seat belts.  Obviously our culture has been more successful at attaching a stigma to unused seatbelts than to driving while senseless or allowing unauthorized and unsupervised drinking parties in our homes or keeping track of the activities of our teens. 

Our teens need to actively and confidently discourage and stigmatize drinking amongst their peers.  If we can make it unthinkable and unpardonable for them to say the N-word or awkward to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”, then we can make them think twice before taking an underage drink or getting behind the wheel drunk. 

Parents need to reacquaint themselves with their responsibilities by being more aware of the activities of their teens and the goings on in their homes when they’re not there.  The permissive parents who have been encouraging the drinking or excusing it as an inevitable right of passage need to acknowledge the tragedy and loss that it causes and change their ways.  If we can accomplish these things, Evan’s tragic loss will have accomplished something.