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This is a speech that I wrote about my aunt and what happened to her: I’m sure that just about everyone knows at least one person that drinks. I know that there are a lot of people that I know that drink. To tell you the truth, it scares me to know that so many of the people that I’m close to drink. What scare’s me even more is knowing that just about everyone that I know that drinks also drives while they are drunk. I know that you are probably sick of hearing this from everyone, but we are told this by so many people for a good reason. DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!! I’m not sure how many people are really aware of what can happen if you drink and drive. That’s one reason that I’m doing this. I am trying to make more people aware of what can happen if you drink and drive. One time drinking and driving could change your life forever. It could also change the lives of all the people around you. It will ruin your life if you get caught, or even worse, in an accident. I don’t know how many of you have actually had something happen to yourself or a family member or a friend because of someone drinking or drunk driving, but I have had all three situations happen in my life. When I was little I was around people that were always drinking and one day one of the people snapped and hit me for no reason. I was maybe 7 or 8 at the time, so I had no idea that that was abuse. When I was 12 one of my friends that lived in Wisconsin was going with her older sisters and her dad’s new girlfriend to our favorite swimming hole. When was ran across the road she was hit by a pickup truck, sadly, the driver of the truck was her dad’s boss. My friend died later that day. She was 9 at the time. In 2003, on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, I had a relative pass away from a drunk driving accident. I still remember my freshmen year in high school, when two of the seniors were in an accident that involved drunk driving. Why do I remember that so clearly? Well, one of the people that was in the accident is my brother’s friend and the son of a family friend. I remember during the variety show that year, the girl that was driving got up and spoke in front of the high school. She was still shook up about what happened and she was crying as she spoke. I know that what she was saying was very serious, so serious that I had started to cry. Her speech triggered back memories of the previous year. This is what I would like to talk to you about. I don’t want you to think that you can just block out what I am saying because you really can’t. This is something very serious that I’m going to tell you about, and yes, I am going to go deep into details in places. I’m giving you fair warning that some of the descriptions may be a bit graphic. On March 17, 2003, I lost a very close family member in a one car accident. It has devastated me since that day. My whole life felt like it was gone, my world was turned inside out and upside down. The loss of this family member changed my life forever. The lives of all my family members were changed that day. The lives of all the people that knew this relative were changed. That was the day we lost my aunt. My aunt was such a sweet lady. She took care of so many people. She didn’t care whether or not someone was rich or what race they were or anything. She would often give people money just to be nice or take in a friend or family member if the need came. She literally became my mother for 2 years. I was always with her and she took care of my little sister and me because my mom always worked at night. She was the one that got me back into school after I moved to Minnesota from Houghton. I thought of her as more of a mom than my real mom. My aunt was the greatest person I ever met. Some of my fondest memories of her are going out in the boat on the lake that she lived next to and going tubing behind the jet-ski on the lake. I also remember her going out on the four-wheeler all the time and going on snowmobile rides during the winter. The lives of all the people that knew my aunt were changed because of a stupid mistake that someone made. Because of this stupid mistake I lost my mom that I knew my aunt as and the person that I always turned to for help. The others lost a beloved friend, sister, daughter, aunt, mom, and wife. My aunt had been at a St. Patrick’s Day party with some friends. One of her friends took her keys and hid them in their purse. The friend turned her back on the purse to go and talk to someone and my aunt took advantage of the opportunity. She went through the purse and got her keys to the Jeep. Before anyone had noticed, my aunt was out the door and leaving the party. She has been about two miles from her house when she crossed the center line and crashed into a bunch of trees. It was pretty obvious that she had not swerved to avoid something because the tire marks were very gradual. She was going about 60 miles per hour upon impact. Her blood alcohol level was .16 when the accident occurred. My aunt ended up with terrible injuries from the crash. She broke her neck, and it that wasn’t bad enough, she broke her ribs, every single one of them, and not just broken, like cracked, but broke right off of her spine. That’s how bad the accident was. The accident occurred around 11:00 p.m. Central Time. The Big Fork EMS didn’t even respond to the call until half an hour after they first received the call. They had been in the middle of a St. Patrick’s Day party when they got the call and decided to finish eating before they responded to the call. They said that half an hour made a difference in whether or not my aunt would live. Sadly, my aunt passed away. She was pronounced dead at the scene. My dad took the phone call that night. He didn’t tell my brother and me until the next day after he got home from work. I still remember that day quite well. My brother and I had just gotten home from school and my dad had just gotten home from work. My dad walked upstairs into his room and a few minutes later he called to my brother and me to come up into his room. Everyone got quiet. My dad took a deep breath and said, “Your mom called last night. Aunt Lisa was in a car accident last night. She’s dead.” Then he started to cry. I didn’t believe it at first. I wouldn’t let myself believe it. I told myself that I would never believe that something like that would happen to my aunt. Not now, not ever. When my dad started crying, I realize that it was reality and I just started to cry. I hugged my dad and we just stood there and cried. That day happened to be a day that I had volleyball practice, so my dad told me that he didn’t think I should go to volleyball. We called my grandma’s house because that’s where my mom was staying and there was no answer, so I called my uncle Bill to see if he might know where they were and he gave me my uncle Arv’s cell phone number and said that the family had gone out to dinner. After I got off the phone with my uncle Bill, I called my uncle Arv’s cell phone and got a hold of my mom at the restaurant. We talked for a few minutes and then she promised that she would call as soon as she got back to my grandma’s house. A few hours later my mom called and told us when the funeral was and we even made plans to go to Minnesota for the funeral. I had told my dad and grandma that I was going to go for a bike ride. I went up to the school and talked to my volleyball coach and let her know why I was missing practice and that I wouldn’t be there on Thursday for practice because we were leaving right after school Thursday to go to Minnesota because the funeral was that Friday. I also talked to a few of my friends and asked one of them to get any work that I missed for the days that I was going to be gone. The next day I talked to my teachers and told them what was going on and after school I went and talked to my other volleyball coach and told him that my brother wouldn’t be in class that Friday and that I wouldn’t be at practice on Thursday. I explained why we were going to be gone. That night my mom called and we talked for a while and she told us that she couldn’t handle us at the funeral without our dad coming with us. My dad was not able to the time off, and wouldn’t have anyways, so we weren’t able to go to the funeral. Thursday came and when I showed up at volleyball practice my coach was surprised and asked me what I was doing there, so I told him that plans changed. Friday was the hardest day for me knowing that the funeral was that day and I wasn’t there for it. To this day I still wish I would have gone to the funeral and paid my respects and said one last good-bye. I wish I could have gone so that I could have some closure. I have only been at the grave once since she died. We went the year she died on her birthday and lit candles and let them burn down by her grave. I’ll tell you this much. That day was the hardest day of my life. That day reality hit me. I finally saw for myself that I wasn’t dreaming. I burst out crying and hugged my mom. Everyone else was able to pull themselves together and not cry, but I couldn’t because I felt like I had a sword shoved into my heart and I finally felt like I was back in reality again for the day. Later that day we went out for dinner as a family and I saw my cousins for the first time since their mom died. We spent the whole dinner talking about memories and laughing about all the funny memories we have of her. To this day I still cry because I miss my aunt so much. My life just isn’t the same. It hasn’t been since the day she died. I still want to call her for advice, I still expect her to call on holidays and flowers from her on my birthday and I still expect my grandma to be waking me up on my birthday because my aunt called. I miss doing all the things that I would do with her when I was visiting her, I miss everything about my aunt. She was only 37! I don’t want any of your families to have to go through with mine did that night and there after. No one should have to go through that. That’s why I’ve told you all of this. I want you to remember this if you ever decide to go out drinking and if you ever decided to go out drinking, don’t drive, no matter how much you drank, if you just have one drink, still don’t drive.