13. Trauma
When my dad was in high-school about 2 years after getting his license, he was driving home from school, It was a sunny day and the sun was in his eyes, all of a sudden ‘thump’ he realizes that he has hit a jaywalker, he gets out of the car and realizes that the person he hit was his high-school principle’s son, who in the few seconds has passed away.
He wasn’t arrested and the principal told him that ‘he understood, and not to blame himself because it wasn’t his fault’. My grandfather who was an alcoholic did the one good thing in his life for my dad and that was make him drive that car home, if it wasn’t for that I don’t think my dad would have driven again.
6 years of therapy later my dad was all right. We don’t talk about it, and no one in my immediate family told me about it, I heard it from my friend’s mother who went to high school with him and confirmed it with my mom. Driving with my dad now if he’s driving by smaller children you can see his hands tremble.
