In the Spring of 2000, I was a 16 year-old sophomore in High School. I had a great life. I was in a band, had a promising future in competitive swimming, a girlfriend, and many friends! Stephanie, the girl I was dating was the first girl I truly loved and I was her "first kiss." But life seen through my teenage eyes was depicted differently.
I am a life-long Catholic and at that stage in my life I was beginning to see both people and God in a different light. For a reason I have yet to understand, I believed that although God created as he did in the Book of Genesis, he left his creations on their own and is therefore not a part of the present world. I also took original sin one step further; believing that people were inherently evil and in-compassionate. It was up to the parents of children to instill in them a sense of goodness. In addition, I started drinking and although I didn't drink much, it was just another bad decision in a series of choices.
God would soon tell me how wrong I had become.
At the end of May, My family left for the Odyssey of the Mind World Competition in Knoxville, Tennessee, and my Grandparents were staying at our house to watch me. On June 2nd I broke up with Stephanie so that I could pursue L. Looking back, I'm deeply ashamed of my past behavior, but have learned from my mistakes and plan to teach my 3-month-old son that his father has faced death because of his poor decisions.
My good friend "S" recently got his drivers license and had asked me if I wanted to go to the festival that was downtown. Since final exams were the following week, my grandparents told me to make sure that attending the festivities would be ok with my parents (since I needed to be studying.) I called my dad's cell phone and he said that I could go downtown as long as I studied the following day. Naturally, I said that I would study. Little did I know was that my mom was in the background shaking her head.
S picked me and "B" up that evening. We ventured downtown for a fun evening! After a night of eating elephant ears and seeing local bands perform, we found our way back to the parking garage. As we approached S's 92' Ford Taurus, I ran up ahead and called "Shotgun!" That single word sealed my fate as my life would ultimately change within the following hour.
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