It Shouldn’t Take Pain to Teach Responsibility

Earlier today, two of my very close relatives were involved in a very fatal accident. I woke up today hoping to have a good day only to have my sister calling me, crying about an accident. Being the emotional person that I am, I immediately started crying after knowing the people involved. My sister didn’t have much details and so I called my mom crying and and asking her what happened.

Apparently, she also just heard it from another family member and because those involved are very close to us, we weren’t given much details and that even drove us all insane because we didn’t really know much about everything. We just had to sit tight and wait for good news. Honestly, we’ve been emotionally overwhelmed this past week as a family because we had to bury a close relative over the weekend and now we have two of them fighting for their lives.

I was in so much shock I didn’t even know I was in public crying. In this moment, three things hit me. The first one is how I didn’t often tell these people how much they mean to me and that I appreciate them for all they do for me. The second is how I would live without these people. I couldn’t bear to think of it. You might think I’m not hoping for a positive outcome but I really am. I just happened to imagine life without them and I knew it just couldn’t be possible, at least not now.

The third one actually, is my reason for the post. Later this afternoon, we received news on what actually went down. So, they were actually travelling back home from a conference in another city early this morning, in good health and high spirits. And out of no where, a huge car behind them came crashing into their car. Why because that car didn’t ha be breaks. And whose fault is it that the car didn’t have breaks? The driver of course. And this happened on a road away from town. Before the ambulance could arrive to give first aid, a lot had already gone wrong. And I know that the driver who run into them run away as is the way of most drivers in Ghana.

This isn’t to say that accidents don’t happen often , they do. But this whole situation could have been prevent if this driver had just fixed his breaks instead of trying to manage a big truck on no breaks hoping he kills no one. After I found out about this who thing, I was talking to my mom about the choices we make as individuals and how much they tend to affect others- innocent people- at the end of the day.

Life is fickle. One day, we are here and the next day, we are stuck in a hospital bed, or even worse, dead. But this shouldn’t have to be because of someones wrong choices. We need to do better as individuals, if not for ourselves, then for the sake of those we put at risk.

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all images belong to me.

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