Lessons Not Learned

By 7:00 am yesterday, the news was spreading like wildfire. Both my kids were awakened by their cellphones - a highly unusual event, since their crowd spends most Sunday mornings sleeping. So we knew the news wasn't going to be good.

And we were right.

For the second time in nine months, a classmate was killed in a single car drunk driving accident.

Seb was one of those kids who was liked by everyone. But he had a problem that no one addressed. He was a big partier.

He had just turned 17.

The circumstances of his accident were almost a cliche. Drunk. Speeding. At night. Not wearing a seatbelt. Lost control. Crashed into a tree. Ejected from the vehicle.

It's a story that is repeated over and over in the United States every night. It barely gets a mention on the news. Ironically, it happens too often to be newsworthy.

And so, all yesterday, Seb's classmates gathered to console one another and to share stories about what a great kid he was. An impromptu memorial was conducted at church. Last night, about 60 kids held a candlelit vigil at the place where he died.

As parents, we resisted revisiting the standard lecture about drinking and driving - opting instead to wait until the immediate sorrow cleared... Until the message could be absorbed.

I think every one of us went through the same list of questions in our minds... Where were the parents? How did he get the alcohol? Why didn't a friend stop him from driving?

It's easy to be critical of the circumstances when the tragedy happens to someone else. Until you've raised teenager's, you can't appreciate the challenge. You hope that your lectures are heeded. You hope that the kids can't get their hands on booze. You hope their friends would take away his keys. You hope that everyone would learn from the tragedy.

But it seems not to be the case.

I mentioned that this is was the second time this happened in the last nine months.

The very same story played out last January. And that time, the victim was Seb's best friend.