A Serious Public Service Announcement

If you ever drive, read this.

If you ever drink and drive, read it again. Then hand your keys over to someone else, or get a designated driver, or quit drinking.

She's someone I know from LiveJournal. Her sister died this week, and she is in agony.

I am grieving this week for Diane, whose death in a car accident had nothing to do with drinking. But I know what kind of horrific pain we've all been going through for six years because she fainted at the wheel of her car on her way to work one Saturday morning.

I am also grieving for Antony, whose memorial service will be tomorrow. No, no drunk driving there — Antony hated alcohol, didn't touch the stuff.

But I know what loss feels like. I know how easily someone 40 or 22 or any age at all can just die, even without the lethal combination of a few exciting chemicals and a speeding mass of steel and plastic.

We take so many things for granted. Just living. A drink or two. The privilege of roaring down the road at whatever speed the engine can reach. The solid integrity of a car at rest. But you can lose the first and the last all too easily -- just combine the ones in the middle.

There is enough grief in the world. Don't add any more.