*Link by Blaze
BlogSista:
You ARE Accountable.
May 24th, 2011, 10:45 AM | 
Author: 
Sometimes I don’t really stop to consider just exactly how much someone means to me until I hear about someone else dying. I wouldn’t know my arse from my elbow in this world if it weren’t for the close network of friends and loved ones surrounding me. Without my besties, nothing would be worth much of anything and I’d be so bloody lost I probably wouldn’t bother anyhow.
Over the weekend, while I was out letting off steam with my tag team, someone I used to know didn’t have such a great night. In fact; he never made it home. He was taken from this level of existence by a drunk driving incident and nothing can ever bring him home to his kids.
I don’t drink and drive, hell I don’t even drive. I wouldn’t drink and drive if I did drive, it’s touched my family all too deeply in the past and I’ve seen the havoc it can wreak on others. When you get behind that wheel and you kill someone: you didn’t just kill them, you killed a piece of every person who ever knew them or cared about them. When you make that choice to get in that car with alcohol in your blood–you’re taking people’s lives into your own shaky hands. You and only you are responsible for making that decision.
He won’t be going home to his kids or his girlfriend or his dad ever the fuck again; my old school friend. He’s gone and nothing can ever bring him back. He’s gone because someone decided they were okay to drive and they weren’t. They most certainly were not. His friends will never again post a silly photo of themselves acting ridiculous with him. His girlfriend will see his broken body in her dreams, his children will think of screeching tires and flashing lights whenever they think of their daddy for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes it takes a tragedy to let us realize how fortunate we really are. Please don’t let a friend get behind the wheel, don’t let a stranger get behind the wheel, don’t you get behind the wheel. Go out, get smashed, dance your fool ass off, take as many ridiculous pictures as you can but please: call a taxi or a sober friend. Beg a ride if you have to, do not get behind that wheel and take that risk of killing yourself or someone else.
G. Troy Bridges *
1974-2011
Posted in 
Tags: 
**he was a very loved man. He had his flaws, he was real though and that’s what made him special. I hadn’t seen him in a few years but I knew him well, we were friends since grade 7. We used to live in adjoining apartments over in the North End for a time and when all the kids were away, either he or I would have friends over and then people would just show up and we’d end up opening our apartment doors together and having these huge fun gatherings.. He had a laugh like something out of this world, when he was in a good mood he was infectious and when he was pissed, you knew it. He’d have fought to the death for a friend and he’d have given the shirt off his back to help a man down on his luck. Troy was a good man despite all his problems and he will be missed within his large circle of friends and loved ones. I didn’t go to his viewing and I won’t go to his funeral but I will raise a glass to him and pledge to never forget. He was old school all the way.
My condolences again. There’s no way to prepare yourself for something like this.
Tragic Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 1:38 AM
@X. Dell, there’s just been too damn much death of late.
X. Dell Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 11:13 AM
@Tragic, True. But not yours. For that, I’m thankful.