When I was in middle school hanging out by the local shopping plaza, I saw these two kids (a year younger than I) riding their bikes around. Don’t ask me why, but I had this sudden urge to talk to one of them. Just that one. But I had nothing to say. He was younger, I never seen him before, and he was with his friend I was with mine. So I just kept walking, and looking back every now and then as if making sure he’s still there; Okay.
A few minutes later this kid got hit by a car crossing the highway by the shopping plaza. People started running to his side, cars stopped, and at that point I was the furthest one away. My friend and I went over and saw a helmet on one side, a smashed bike on a completely different side.
Why did I have this ridiculous urge to talk to a complete stranger? Why didn’t I just say hi, anything, that would stop him for just one second before he got onto that highway?
I bring this up now because right by that plaza, for years, were flowers, stuffed animals, and crosses in his commemoration. But recently, when I drove past after not driving past for a couple of years, it was basically all gone with the exception of a few dried up flowers and a cross left over. Where did it all go? Why did people stop putting flowers there? Does the family still think about that day every single day?
I don’t think about that day every day. But I do every time I pass that post. It’s a memory for me at least of how I could have saved someone’s life if I just listened to myself a little more.
How many times did we have a gut feeling, or an intuition, and didn’t go with it? What if we could be saving someone’s life every day if we just said what we felt, did what we knew was right, followed the journey we were meant to follow? That day changed me. It breaks my heart to see that post bare and abandoned leaving behind a memory of someone who could have been 23 today, who never would have thought twice about that time he was riding around with his friend by the shopping plaza.