Remembering My Friend

On Sunday, I read a news article on Patch.com about the horrific accident that claimed the life of three young people who attended or were attending Magruder High School on Route 108 in Olney.  It made me think of a friend who I lost 24 years ago.  Lisa Christ was a girl who I grew up with, attended elementary, middle and later high school with.  She had a fantastic fun filled smile, a bubbly personality and was a friend to everyone she came in contact with.  She attended Magruder High School with me and she died at age 16 in an auto accident not far from where this most recent fatal accident occurred.  While separated by nearly a quarter century, the similarities of both accidents are sobering.   After reading about this recent tragedy, I have not been able to put Lisa or her smile out of my mind. 

We both had warm and loving parents who were trying to raise us to be responsible adults.  We went through all of the assemblies about risk prevention.  We sat at lectures about decision making and how it could affect the rest of our lives.  We were taught about the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol abuse.  We were talked to by parents who had lost children and other loved ones due to drunk driving.  We watched videos in Drivers’ Ed that showed us the carnage that can happen on the road.  We thought we knew how fleeting life really was but in our youthful omnipotence, we did not.  Lisa, just like the three young lives that were extinguished on Sunday morning, was not the driver of the car.  I remember her funeral was attended by what seemed like the entire school and we all cried for Lisa on that day. 

It seems that every few years something happens to another Magruder student or recent graduate and multiple young lives are lost before achieving their potential.  Death is never easy to deal with and my heart goes out to the Magruder families who have been changed forever. 

In reading the article about this accident, I cried again for my friend Lisa and all the other young lives like hers lost on the roads near Magruder High School.