Its August 1st again and it’s been 7 years since
we lost them, that’s Two thousand five hundred and fifty five days give or take
a few since I last saw Matthew and Ricky. Not one of those days went by without
thinking of them. It was a day just like
this one with the sun out and blue skies above, what a nice day it was.
I remember Ricky and Brian
coming over to see if the boys and I wanted to play basketball and telling them
that we would be going swimming later that day and them asking if they could
come along. I told them that they could come with us if it was alright with their
parents. When we left later that afternoon we had no idea that our lives would
be forever changed that evening. The five of us packed into a little ford
escort heading out for a night of fun at the pool. After getting there we made
our way to the water and jumped right in and for the next few hours we had a blast,
racing, diving and splashing around. We had invited some of our friends and family
to join us that night but only my brother Albert came. Matthew, Patrick, Ricky,
Brian and I spent the whole time there in the water having the “best time ever”
as the kids would say. But nine o’clock came around and the whistle blew and we
headed for the doors. I called home to tell Marisela that we would be home in a
little bit as I was hanging up Matthew said that wanted to tell his mom about
doing a flip off the diving board but I told him he could tell her when we got
home.
We all piled into
the car and headed to the corner store across the highway and picked up some
snacks for the ride home, leaving the store we stopped at a red light right in
front of the store. As we sat there I stared up at the light waiting for it to
change, Ricky who was sitting in the front passenger seat was trying to get
Brian to eat some hot Cheetos or something like it. Brian was sitting in the
center of the back seat with Matthew to his right, behind Ricky with Patrick to
his left behind me. As we all sat there in that little car waiting for the
light to change we had no idea that those were the last few moments of the life
we were living. The light turns green and I start to drive. In those next few
minutes there was chaos, shouts and screams then there was silence.
A drunk driver on the
highway headed in the opposite direction had lost control of her vehicle went
down across the median hit the opposing lanes of traffic and went airborne landing
on top of our car crushing the roof down on us.
When the smoke cleared and the people that had stop to help
were able to approach the car they found that Ricky and Matthew had been killed
in the crash and that Patrick, Brain and I were critically injured.
It’s been seven years since that day and the heartache and
pain of losing them has never really left and sadly, in the last seven years
nothing has really changed when it comes to people that drink and drive. Their still
out there and an average of 1,100 Texans die each year in alcohol related crashes.
 |
| Matthew and Patrick |
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| Ricky and Brian |
We have all had some form of tragedy strike
our lives but it’s the one that you know can be prevented that are harder to take.
Life has too many struggles in itself for us to add to it so never drink and
drive.
