Dead - at 17 (part 1)

I have given a lot of thought to writing this. I had a hard time deciding if I should or not. If I could or not. But it's that time of year again. Two years and 2 days ago, we lost a great young man. For no good reason at all. His death was so wasted. His life - just gone. I lost a piece of my soul that night, and I barely knew him.

It was 11:34 that night. My son was out with a couple of his friends after they all got off work. I don't want to use anyone's real names in this writing. It just doesn't feel right. Two years and two days. We are all still so raw. Life has gone on for us, but it will never be the same.

At 11:34 one cold January night, I was getting ready for bed. My husband was in Seattle visiting my brother. When the phone rang, I knew, I just knew, it wasn't going to be just any phone call. Looking at the caller ID, I could see it was my son, "Ben". My heart felt like it was in my throat.

When I said, "What's wrong?" A voice said, "We've had an accident. There's been an accident, and "Amir" isn't moving, Mom."

It was only then that I really knew it was my son on the line. He sounded so different. I asked if he, my son was alright. He said yes, but repeated that Amir wasn't moving. I asked where they were and he gave me the location. It was only a couple of miles from our house. I told him I would be right there. I didn't want to waste any time asking too many questions when I knew I could be there so fast.

On the short ride there, questions were swirling in my head. What had happened? How had it happened? Where they in Ben's car or one of the other boys. And most of all - why wasn't Amir moving? Was he knocked unconscious? Please God, just let him be unconscious. I crossed a bridge and a shadow stepped off the curb to wave me to stop.

I jumped out of the car. I was relieved to see that Ben looked okay and that his best friend since they were ten years old was there and unhurt as well. Ben and "Aaron" both stood very still.

It was dark on that part of the road, I guess there wasn't much of a moon that night. And it was cloudy. I went down an embankment where I could see part of a car. I looked back at the boys. "Where's Amir?"

Ben spoke up. He said, "Mom, you're standing right beside him."

"What?" I looked down and then I could see him, in the darkness, under a tree. The tree that had shattered his car into hundreds of pieces. I knelt down beside him and whispered his name. I reached my hand out to touch his back. What struck me, was how completely still everything was. How utterly quiet. There is a certain feeling around death. Somehow, your soul recognizes that feeling. I knew he was gone.

Amir was laying on his stomach. It was so dark. I could see his torso, from his waist to his shoulders. And that was all. I'm not sure, but I think his head was under part of the car. What was left of the car.

I turned and looked up at the boys. The young men I had so proudly and lovingly watched grow up. I had told them to stay up on the sidewalk. They were looking at me strangely. Almost like they were afraid to hope. But they were looking at me, the grown up, the mother, waiting for me to say something. I kept thinking, "Where are the police?"

I walked back up the embankment. I noticed both kids were shivering. I wrapped my arms around both of them as best as I could. I held them tight. "Come on, let's get in the car and wait for the police. Where are your cars?" They motioned to a parking lot up the road next to the building. Amir and the biggest part of his car were between the tree and an office building.

Both boys got in the back seat of my car and I turned the heater up high. I was thinking, "Where in the hell were the cops? Damn it. Just hold it together - for the boys. Hold it together."

I turned and looked back at them. One of them asked me if Amir was going to be alright. I looked them straight in the eyes - and I lied. "I'm not sure. The police and paramedics should be here any minute." I just could not bring myself to say the words. It's such a hard word to say when it is someone you know. Someone so young. Amir was two weeks away from turning eighteen. The boys were Senior's in high school. Set to graduate that June, 2008. But not Amir. He was dead, at 17 years old. Dead. It is so hard to say that word, so hard to accept it and what it really means.

"What happened?" I had to know, but at the same time, they both seemed so stunned and confused. They seemed so different from the two funny, thoughtful, intelligent boys I was used to. And they seemed - angry. Nothing in our little sheltered suburb had ever prepared them, or us for anything like this.

Ben said they had waited for Amir to get off working at his job at a health food grocery store. Then they had all met at Bennigan's for dinner. The three of them. They wanted to go see a new movie, but since they had all worked pretty late, they had plenty of time to eat. It turned out they had too much time. They sat in the restaurant, just like they had many other times. They ate, joked, told stories. Like so many other times. But the restaurant must have been a little crowded and been waiting for them to finish so others could have their table. These were three sensitive and kind kids.

Once in the parking lot of the restaurant, they knew it was still too early for the movie. They each had their own cars because they had all gotten off work at slightly different times. Amir said he knew a street that was a lot of fun to drive down and he would show them where it was. Amir loved to drive.

Ben wanted to speak up, speak out and say no. But over the years he had always been the one to hold back and sometimes the other kids gave him a hard time about always being so careful, so good. So, on that fateful, tragic night, Ben didn't listen to the little voice inside his head. He ignored the tiny hairs that stood up on the back of his neck. This time, this one time, he thought, the hell with it. I'm not going to try to be the voice of reason this time. And that's what he has the most trouble living with now. The why's, the what if's.

And so, each boy got in their cars. Aaron had the nicest, newest car. And then Ben. Amir's car was not quite up to par with his friends. His mother was divorced from his father. She lived with Amir and his younger brother, John. Their father was from Pakistan, and since the divorce he had moved out of state to work. He keep in close contact with his sons. He and Amir talked on the phone every morning while Amir was on his way to school.

Finally, at about the same time, the police showed up and so did Aaron's father. He checked on the boys and then went to talk to the police. He came back to the car and told the boys that the police wanted to talk to each of them.

Aaron asked his father about Amir. He said, "Yeah, he's dead." I knew it, and I'm pretty sure the boys did too. But to hear it out loud, Oh, God it hurt.

He got in the car with us and told us that the police wanted to investigate the scene more thoroughly before talking to the boys. They asked us if we could park in the parking lot where the boys had parked their cars. They asked for the boys car keys, so that they could search their cars.

Aaron's Dad asked what had happened. They told him about dinner and having to wait for the movie. He asked if they had been racing and they said no. But freely admitted that they had been having fun driving faster than normal. There wasn't any traffic on the road that night. It was still a fairly new road, going through a bunch of corporate buildings, connecting to our small town.

At some point, having been on the road before, I think Amir thought it would be funny to step on the gas and speed off from the other two. Kind of an "Eat my dust" kind of thing.

Aaron had been behind him and said he saw Amir's car start to fish tale, as if it hit ice or something. Then he just saw the car kind of explode.

Ben said from where he was, behind Aaron's car, all he had seen was sparks shooting up into the night sky. Aaron said, quietly, " Hey Ben, did you know that just thirty minutes ago we were still all at the restaurant, having fun?" he motioned at the clock in my dashboard.

For some reason, I felt like I had to do something quickly before someone (Me?) got hysterical. I said, " You know what? That means he probably hasn't gone far yet. Let's say a prayer for him while he is still near us." We all closed our eye's and somehow I found myself leading them in a prayer. I have no idea what I had said, but it seemed to work, to make us all calm down a little.

Then the police came to the car, they wanted to question each of the boys, separately. Ben got out of the car and so did I. They looked at me questioningly. "He's only seventeen, I want to be with him." I had seen too many TV shows where cops twisted things around and put words in people's mouth. I wasn't about to let that happen to my son.

Seeing how I handled it, Aaron's Dad followed suit. It turned out, that after they found out there were no drug's or alcohol involved, the police we talked to, seemed to feel sorry for the boys. One of them said it could have happened to anyone of them or us in our lives. Who hadn't gone "Joy riding" at least once in their life? Amir had simply lost control of his car that night. The night he lost his life.

It was about 4 a.m. when we finally got home. Aaron's dad had told me that the reason it had taken him longer to get there was because his wife, my friend, had gotten hysterical when she heard about it. He had to try to calm her down because they had two younger children. And he thanked me for how well I had handled everything.

I was shocked. Was he talking to me? I didn't realize that I had handled anything at all. On the inside I was just trying to hold it together. I couldn't believe it didn't show.

When I got home with my son, I gave him a sedative. I know. I broke a rule. You're never supposed to share medication. I had sedatives because sometimes I suffered from panic attacks. It had been a while since I needed one, but I knew I needed one that night.

I knew Ben would never be able to sleep that night without one. He and Aaron text each other a few times. Aaron told Ben that he didn't know what to do. He wanted to talk to Amir, one more time. I can't remember if he said he text Amir or left him a voice mail. But I knew they did't want to let him go.

We finally fell asleep. Me and my somber, angry, shocked son that I had never seen before.

I'm going to end this Hub at this point. However, I feel there is more of the story you need to know. I'm a pretty new  hubber, so I don't even know if there is a maximum word count.  But to finish what I can of this story, what needs to be told, I'll start a part two and just call it "Afterwards." I hope that is okay with the powers that be.

Drive safely, KT