I know that I'm one of the lucky ones. Although life afterward definitely hasn't been easy, I know God gave me a second chance. Even in spite of the doctor's reports, I can do everything that anyone else can except play contact football... when I get my head knocked around it really hurts. Anyway, I'm currently in school in an attempt to get my life on track while taking care of myself and my apartment.
-I really wish that everyone in this world could see what being intoxicated behind the wheel can do to a person, no matter how graphic. And not only that, I wish people could be exposed to what life is afterward following one of these alcohol related injuries. To be limited in what was once so easy to do, to need help when you go to bathe yourself, to be treated worse than a little kid when it comes to your rights as a person and that by your own family. To know what it's like to be in a wheelchair in public in light of all the stares from others. To be misunderstood by friends who were once your close companions. And above all to know the loneliness that eats away on the inside when you're left to yourself with the questions about that night that can never be answered.
I only wish people had a better understanding of the hell the victims of these accidents are faced with after everything else fades.
I know earlier I said that I was one of the lucky ones. And I only wish that I could somehow comfort those worse off than I. You see that night, at the Endymion Mardi Gras parade I only drank a little out of my sister's cup before her date took us joy riding afterward. I know that I wasn't even the one drunk, I mean, I was only fourteen.
But that night changed my life forever. Thank you -Ian Glapion