Lives Cut Short

I’m not an outspoken person. I’m the sort who weighs my words for fear of offending someone. I don’t want to make anyone angry. I don’t want to risk having people dislike me.

Over the years, I’ve had a number of friends who were very outspoken. A person willing to speak her mind, to defend her position without backing down and to let loose with the occasional curse or piece of clearly offensive humor, garnishes a certain amount of respect from a retreating personality like me.

Before I began work at my current job a little over five years ago, I worked for a small printing firm. With fewer than a dozen employees, we became a tight-knit group. We developed inside jokes. We socialized away from work. We visited each other’s homes. We celebrated each other’s successes. We mourned each other’s losses.

During those years, my closest friend was LB. LB and I were very different and perhaps we were drawn to each other for exactly that reason. Or perhaps it was nothing more than the fact that we spent 8-10 hours a day in each other’s company. LB was one of those outspoken people. She said what she thought without consideration to what those within earshot might think. LB liked to hang out at biker bars and date guys who wore leather, turquoise jewelry and tattoos. LB was a bookkeeper and she was excellent at her job. She had a head for numbers and, not being the emotionally soft, fearful to offend, mush pot that I am, she didn’t mind calling those past due accounts to pressure them to pay up. I liked LB. Even after I left the company, we continued to stay in touch and get together with her after work.

After a while, living in different states and no longer working at the same place, we stopped socializing. The last time I saw LB was just last year, in January 2005. The printing company where we’d worked had gone out of business. Always the party planner, I decided to organize a reunion of former employees of the company. We met at a restaurant down the street from our old workplace. It was a fun night.

I emailed with LB for a short time after the reunion, but we eventually fell out of touch and I probably haven’t heard from her in a year.

I was driving to work this morning, only half listening to the news on the radio. They were talking about a hit and run which happened over the weekend. Several friends had just returned from a St. Patrick’s Day celebration on Saturday night. They were standing in the front yard of one of the group members, chatting before heading back to their respective homes. A car sailed across the center line and plowed into the group. Two people were killed; the others were injured. The car drove on.

The newsman on the radio was announcing that the hit and run driver had been found and arrested and was due in court at 10:00 this morning. He identified the name, age and home town of that hit and run driver. All the pieces fit, however the last name is common in this area. Surely it was a coincidence and my outspoken, wise-cracking friend would be having a great time fielding the curious phone calls today. I made a mental note to check the story on-line when I arrived at work, but the day was busy and I forgot.

Something made me remember it around 3:00 this afternoon and I called a friend and former co-worker from the print shop. “Did you hear that story about the hit-and-run driver?” I asked.

“Yeah," he said. "I saw the story in yesterday’s paper.”

“You don’t think that was our LB, do you?” I asked.

He paused and told me there had been a photo of the woman arrested in yesterday’s paper. I keyed in the website to the local newspaper, expecting to have to drill through the archives for yesterday’s write-up. Instead, there was her photo on the cover page.

It said she was on probation for a 2005 drug possession charge. What drugs? LB was a drinker and a partier, but I’d never seen her do any sort of drugs. She didn’t even smoke cigarettes. The article painted a very unflattering image. I'll make no excuses for her. I hold one of those public opinions that is thoroughly disgusted by what she did. She drove into a group of people, killing and severely injuring them, and then drove home and went to bed.

But I looked at the photo and remembered that she’d been to my house. We talked girl talk and shared secrets. We were very different people, but we’d shared a lot of moments together. We’d been close friends once.

LB will likely never see freedom again. She’s never been married. She’s never had children. She’s still in her 30s, but her life is essentially over.

At the risk of sounding like a public service announcement, think about that before you get into a car after you’ve downed a few too many.