Those Left Behind: Their Suffering Will Go On Until…
The fool or the fool following the fool… Which is more foolish?
I'm getting extremely aggravated, a little pissed you might say. Selfishness has become an American Hallmark, magnified by an intense feeling of entitlement and the word "Deserve" has become a microcosm of every spoiled rotten American brat exemplified by pop culture and even mainstream news, which is only a version of reality TV, and a shadow of what it used to be when the news was simply the news.
My latest fit of rage (if you will) is again directed at professional sports and in specific… The National Football League. Pro football players, whether they like it or not have become a model of the dreams that young American boys place at the top of their wish list growing up in a nation of "me first" has become the paradigm of thinking that I believe is deteriorating every aspect of the American experience and it envelops every native-born American and every immigrant that comes to America with dreams of amassing personal wealth and free opportunity without investing in the present or future of a nation that offers these free opportunities and liberty.
The frustration that I'm feeling right now is sparked by professional athletes that ignore every bit of responsibility that goes hand-in-hand with the privilege of a rare and wonderful opportunity to live out their dreams of being professional athletes and becoming incredibly wealthy bringing on the chance to make indelible marks on our communities, our society and our legacy as American difference makers or at least the chance to be one.
Somewhere along the way, being a professional athlete has resembled more a right, rite of passage, or some kind of ordained liberty by players born with a unique set of skills separating them from the huge majority of us that do not possess the talent, physical stature or instincts to play pro sports at the highest level. Pro football as well as college, high school and even Pop Warner Little league, takes a lot of work to become better than most, and for the NFL players the work in preparation for their craft takes an enormous amount of focus and discipline to be one of the best and to be worthy of wearing the jersey for one of the 32 professional football franchises in the US.
Now, for some inexplicable reason, players believe that they're entitled in some way to play football and to be compensated with an incredible amount of money combined with endless opportunity for fame, notoriety and the other special treatment that often goes with this great privilege.
Just last night, at approximately 2:45 AM on a freeway in Irving Texas, two Dallas Cowboys football players (Josh Brent [driver] and Jerry Brown [passenger] chose to get into a motor vehicle, stupid drunk and drive on the same roads as other Texas citizens speeding far beyond the limit on this particular freeway. They made a choice and the choice turned out to be foolish, tragic and self-centered; Jerry Brown was killed and now Josh Brent must live with the lonely reality that he killed his best friend. But this is not a new story, not in the least. In the United States, there is a drunken driving fatality every 52 minutes and currently 28 NFL players with arrests for Driving Under the Influence of a mind altering substance in 2012. This is an epidemic like cancer, HIV AIDS and heart disease. Only drunk drivers causing "drunken driving deaths" is an epidemic with a 100% prevention rate and there are no innocent offenders unlike other epidemics. However, people decide to roll the dice with their own lives and the lives of others every day and the results are often unthinkably tragic. The only other results stem from pure stupid luck and relying on luck is a lousy way to avoid a problem that should never have become a problem in the first place. If there were anything fortunate in this story, it would likely be that this was a single car tragedy, not involving innocent drivers on the same freeway as these two drunken fools who believe the law doesn't apply to them.
28 NFL players arrested for DUI's in 2012
Another sad truth about driving under the influence of alcohol is that not everyone is fortunate enough to die after being devastated in an auto accident. Understandably, those left behind to mourn the ridiculous and unnecessary loss of a loved one are left to carry on with the pain that seemingly has no cure and sometimes people suffer until their day comes when they leave this world. Instead of merciful death, some victims are permanently paralyzed, or badly burned, or with amputated limbs, or head injuries leaving them unrecognizable to those that love them. Those people are left behind to live the lives of tragic disabilities; physical, mental, emotional, involving economical sometimes left to suffer great pain for the remainder of their lives because someone was so selfish their needs to drive themselves home was more important than anyone else's liberty to live life with an able body or mind. These horrible accidents don't just affect those involved directly in the horror of all motor vehicles crash. These accidents are like pebbles or boulders in a pond, leaving ripples that continued to affect everyone directly and indirectly involved with those who suffer from the selfish act of driving under the influence of some kind of mind altering substance. Many times, they results leave a victim hideously disfigured and so disabled they can never take care of themselves again without the assistance of another for even the most intimate and private tasks that a person must do on a daily basis.
Not everyone dies from these acts of narcissistic evil. Make no mistake, choosing to drive drunk is an act of evil, it's not just the serial killers, terrorists and child molesters who do evil. The motive may be different, but the results are just as tragic.
I guess I'm just a little bit in a rage, and why shouldn't I be? I keep thinking that something will happen terrible that will change it all and everyone will see exactly how horrible it is to drink and then get into a car, which might as well be a "death machine" and drive. I watched an Oprah Winfrey episode a few years back that I'll never forget, and ironically, I can't even drive a car. The story was about a beautiful Hispanic woman, named Jacqueline Saburidio. She and her two friends were simply driving home after a night of good clean, sober fun in 1999. A 20-year-old drunk driver in Texas decided to drive home rather than call a cab or a friend. The drunken young man drifted over the center line and smashed head-on into Jacqueline's car killing her two friends on impact, but Jacqueline was pinned in the front seat and burned. Firefighters said that she had a wall of fire deflecting off the twisted engine hood and torching her with white-hot flames for nearly 3 minutes. This wall of flames melted her hair, skin, nose, ears, eyelids and everything else from her waist up. She lost all of her fingers leaving stumps for hands and blinding her as her eyelids burned off in the Inferno. She woke up in Galveston hospital, blinding hallucinating. She still has no ears, nose, hair, breasts and most of her mouth has been charred leaving her to look like something out of a horror film. None of this was her fault, yet she is left with the pain and the despair forever, not to mention all the people that knew her still have to come to terms with such an insidious and horrific thing. She's regained a very small amount of her eyesight and has had hundreds of surgeries to try to replace some of the skin on her body and the physical therapy just to learn how to breathe, eat, drink and care for herself. Her father had to put eyedrops in her eyes dozens of times a day because she had no eyelids to blink. He had to watch his 20-year-old daughter suffer as she still suffers today and yet Jacqueline only allows herself to feel self-pity for five minutes a day. Five minutes a day… That's it. How's sorry for himself does Josh Brent feel now that he has killed his best friend Jerry Brown? How long will Jeremy Brent's self-pity last and how many minutes per day will he allow himself to feel the pity that Jacqueline denies herself because of her unshakable character? There was nothing special about the man that crashed into these three friends, driving down the road completely unaware that there was a 20-year-old young man who decided his needs were more important than anyone else's that night.
Jacqueline Sobaridio; The result of another's selfishness and stupidity.
Yet, still… People in America drive drunk every day, thousands of them if not more. What will it take and how many people need to suffer before the punishment will truly fit the crime? A better question, is there even a humane punishment to match the crime? What does that say about us if we create a punishment that truly fits the crime of ruining other people's lives? I guess we'll see, but the NFL made a small fuss about Josh Brent and Jerry Brown driving drunk at 2:45 AM on a night they were supposed to be preparing to play a football game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Brent has been released from jail on a $500,000 bond and has been invited to the funeral services tomorrow for his close friend Jerry Brown, dead at 25 years old. This year to date, there have been 19 players arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. How many drove impaired and were lucky enough to make it home without injuring themselves or others, or worse… Dying because of it or killing an innocent victim our victims, unlucky enough to be on the road with a drunken driver?
What will it take and was all the selfishness worth it and more importantly… Why can't we seem to learn from the unnecessary tragedy, loss and grieving of others?
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