xoXOJaYMeEhOXox

the daily life of a dork
2002-08-30 07:21:59 (UTC)

heres mai story i wrote for english class- i wonder if neone will read it

Jaime Dollaga
Mr. Harmon
English 12, per 4
29 August 2002
Sometimes I Wish It Was All a Dream
News
Two Roseville teens killed in crash on Highway 65:
Incident second triple-fatal on Highway 65 in last month
By Lois Gormley / The Press-Tribune
Two Roseville teens and a Citrus Heights woman were killed
late Saturday in a head-on collision on Highway 65 at
Galleria Boulevard.
Minh Cong Nguyen, 19, and his passenger Ryan Christopher
Matthews, 18, were traveling north on Highway 65 at a high
rate of speed at about 9:20 p.m., weaving in and out of
traffic, said California Highway Patrol Officer Larry
Blevins.
As the 1991 Toyota Corolla neared the Galleria Boulevard
exit, Nguyen apparently lost control of the car and hit the
brakes.
The brakes locked, causing the car to slide across the
center divider and into southbound traffic where it struck
a 1995 Volkswagen Jetta head on.
The driver of the Jetta, Lesley Ann Suthard, 20, was
pronounced dead at the scene.
Nguyen and Matthews were both taken to Mercy San Juan
Hospital for treatment of their injuries but Nguyen died
later Saturday night.
Matthews died on Sunday.
Investigation into the collision is still in the
preliminary stages but there is nothing to indicate at this
time that drugs or alcohol were involved.
Early reports that Nguyen was involved in a speed contest
were incorrect, Blevins said.
Instead, investigators believe he was driving at high
speeds in an attempt to catch up with friends in another
car ahead of him, he said.
When I read the words on the paper tears welled in my eyes
because I knew that the accident had been real. It was not
a lie, not a joke, not a rumor, but I wished it was.
Someone that I had knew and was my friend died last
weekend. I kept telling myself in denial that it was not
true, people don’t die when they are so young, especially
someone I knew, but the words were there. No matter how
many times I told myself that the death of my friend
wasn’t true there was no bringing him back.
Monday morning I went to school (not wanting to be there
of course) when I noticed one of my friends who had
graduated the previous year in the middle of the quad. I
walked around more to make sure it was my friend so that I
wouldn’t end up scaring some stranger by saying hi to
him. When I was sure, it was my friend I made my way to the
quad to find out the reason of my friend’s visit. Upon
approaching him I noticed a strange seriousness to him,
which is not normal to his usual upbeat attitude. Something
was wrong, but I was not sure what; I had to find out.
"Have you seen Alicia?" my friend asked and I replied that
I had seen her this morning, but I didn’t know where she
was at the moment. I asked what was the matter and his eyes
began to water. It was then I knew that something clearly
was wrong, my friend didn’t cry unless something happened
that the world would fall apart. In a way, maybe it did.
"I came to tell you that Minh died last weekend."
I didn’t know what to say; I couldn’t speak. There
couldn’t have been anything he had said that could have
been worse in that moment. In disbelief I told my friend to
stop lying. Then I looked in his eyes. He looked tired, in
pain and in a certain way older, as if he had just aged in
years from when I had seen him a couple days before. There
was no way he was lying and the news hit me and I felt the
weight of it as it sunk into my mind. The words repeating
over and over again in my mind " he’s dead, he’s dead,
he’s dead..."
Finding out that someone that I had known (and had seen
not too long ago) boggled my mind. It was all so permanent,
we would never see him again, never see his smile, never
hear him laugh again. I had never felt that way before,
actually knowing a person and finding out that they had
died. Sure I had been to funerals for family members
before, but the ones I had been to were mostly relatives
that I had never met before. For all I knew, in my own
little teenage world, nobody I knew ever died. The thought
of someone I knew dying had never even occurred to me until
then. Thoughts in my head went in overload and I was ready
to break down by the end of first period.
Of course, I had to tell Alicia (my best friend) the news
because my other friend had asked me to tell her what had
happened. How do you tell someone that one of your friends
died? Especially your best friend, who you don’t want to
hurt and you don’t want to make them cry. I knew I had to
do it though, because she deserved to know. Minh was her
friend too, and no matter how much I knew it would hurt her-
there was no way around it. I told her what happened and
her reaction was what I had feared would happen- she burst
out in tears- and I didn’t know what to do.
We went to the office to talk to Mr. Faranato because I
obviously couldn’t have handled it myself. There was
nothing I knew that I could say to make her stop crying. I
don’t think it would have been good if I made her stop
crying because that would just be making her hold it all
inside. I tried my best to hold the tears inside, because I
was the strong one, I felt I had to at least be strong in
front of my friend and hold back my tears. The longer I
could hold them back at least she would think that I had a
hold of things, but of course I didn’t.
The office seemed a lot colder than normal when we walked
into the students entrance, but I might have been imagining
that since inside I felt cold and numb. TA’s and office
staff were looking at us both with puzzled looks on their
faces as I lead my friend to the guidance counselor’s
office. When we arrived in his office and had to explain
the reason of our visit I opened my mouth to speak, but my
voice came out so small that I don’t think he heard me. I
tried again to speak, but my friend told him that our
friend had died, her voice choking in tears.
For what seemed like hours we sat in the counselor’s
office as he tried to calm my friend and explain to her how
it was ok to feel cry and feel that way. At times I
couldn’t hear the words that were coming out of his
mouth. I wasn’t intentionally trying to zone him out, I
was just too shocked and emotionally overloaded that I
wasn’t responding anymore. For a while I was stuck in a
dazed state until I looked at my friend. She had been
crying the whole time. In that instant I lost all control
of my emotions and the tears that I had been holding back
all morning just came out.
The tears were like a release of all the emotion, pain and
sadness that I had hiding inside. Crying in front of people
was something that I feared. It revealed too much of my
feelings for the world. There I was for the world to see,
but for some reason I was not afraid this time. Mostly due
to the fact that I had my friend crying next to me, but
instead of feeling embarrassment of the nakedness of my
emotions I felt relieved. It was like finally exhaling
after holding my breath so that nobody could hear me
breathe. No more suffocation, no more holding it in- I was
crying.
My best friend and I went on later that day and of course
we cried more after that, but not being alone made it a
little easier. We even tried to remember some good times
when Minh went to our school last year and some funny
moments. It’s all part of the healing process according
to Mr. Faranato to remember times you had with a person
that you have lost. I still can’t be happy every time I
think of Minh, but after a loss things take time. I don’t
know if I’ll be ok tomorrow, in a week, month, or even a
year from now. There is no way to change what happened and
I accept that. The last couple days have been a nightmare
that I wish I would wake up and see my friend coming by to
say hi. I’ve woken up, but I’ve realized that it
wasn’t a dream.




Ad: