Unexpected Advice

Verity asks: I have a friend in Sydney who has recently been involved in a car accident which involved the death of a dog and a 2 year old child who is currently in intensive care. She feels the accident is all of her fault and it is a series of horrific events that led to the end result, most of which were out of her control.

Gordon, from Karlstad, Sweden, replies: All I can say is that she must live with it.

When really bad stuff happens, there is no easy out. Only time, and good friends, heals the wound.

Example: On a 36-hour pass before going to Korea, I went to China Lake with some school chums, for a dance at the Grange Hall. After the dance, pre-dawn, we were driving back to San Francisco, my friend Smitty at the wheel, when we came around a turn and hit a guy changing a tire in the middle of that curve. He died before the ambulance got there.

There was no question that it was not Smitty's fault. He, and I, were cold sober. The guys in the back seat weren't. The victim was drunk. One doesn't change flats in the middle of a sharp turn where bushes limit the view. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But It didn't help Smitty, who was a broken man (well, 18-year-old).

He was cleared of any wrongdoing, by the court. They sent him on to us in Korea. (That wasn't meant to be punishment. :-)

But he was broken. I think he was relieved when the Chinese dropped a mortar on him.

© copyright, 1998, Gordon Sorber and Verity Warn
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