Drinking. No Big Deal, Right? by Lauren Yetra, 14, Medfield, Mass.

2003 Third Place Winner
Alcohol Awareness Contest
“What’s Your Message?”

Sponsored by: Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association

Lauren Yetra, 14, Medfield, Mass.
Freshman, Medfield High School

Drinking. No Big Deal, Right?

Drinking. No big deal, right? Wrong. Many people have learned though experience or through education the harmful effects of drinking alcohol. Personally, I learned from my best friend in high school, Ruth Singer.

I was a new student at Santa Monica Public High School; my father had been transferred from him job as the successful businessman in the family. This academic facility contained strange adolescents, most of which I would never understand. Nobody here seemed to care that I had just arrived from across the country. After a few weeks of seeming to be invisible, an outlandish girl approached and asked where I was from.

“Reeseville, Tennessee, what is your name? Mind is Ashley Kinheart.”

“I knew it was Ashley, I’m Ruth, Ruth Singer,” she spoke as James Bond would when introducing himself. From that moment on, I knew she was, as expected, an odd character.

“I am glad that someone in this school had the sense to introduce themselves. Y’all don’t seem to notice anyone here, I arrived about a week ago, and surprisingly you are the first person to even acknowledge my presence.”

“The people here are so, I can’t think of the word, judgmental. They see a beautiful redhead, who is thin and graceful like you, and observe only a newcomer. I moved here last semester, and they still see me as quite strange.”

Ruth was in fact a bizarre character; she had an odd aura surround her. She dressed in out of style clothes, her hair was directly out of the fifties, and oddly enough she never wore makeup; though she didn’t need it, perhaps she was aware of that. Ruth was always in shape because she was the star of the tennis team. All of these characteristics could be found within the core of her eyes; there was a gleam in them that never diminished, so I though.

In the weeks following this encounter, Ruth and I became close friends, and I found myself joining the Santa Monica tennis team. After practice, she and I would always hang out at my house. Something struck me as odd after a while, why weren’t we ever going to her home? One afternoon I gained courage enough to ask her. Ruth explained that her parents were alcoholics and she did not want me to be exposed to them after they had been drinking. “They come home and pour themselves vodka, than after that is gone they start in on either the beer or wine, and after that, it is whatever they have left in the house. At night, and in the late afternoon, it is scary to be around the house, that is why I sometimes hang around hour house, instead of mine.”

“Ruthie, they don’t ever hurt you do they? Sometimes when people…” I was interrupted. 

“Not usually. I mean occasionally something may happen in the form of violence, but I am okay, really.” At that moment I realized how different our lives were from each other. Ruth went home each day and wondered if her parents would be drinking when she arrived home, while I went home wondering what we were having for dinner.

Months passed and the two of us became the best of friends, and we always enjoyed the time spent together. But one day Ruth didn’t come to school, and she always came to school; she had never been absent before. After school that day, I traveled to her house to see if she was feeling better because I assumed that she was ill. When I knocked on the Singer’s door, no one answered. I stayed around for another hour to see if they would arrive home, but to my despair, they did not return. I trudged home through the rain, for now it was raining. This was a bad omen, I thought. When I returned home, I realized that the house was very quiet, and with four siblings my house was never quiet.

“Momma, where is everybody?”

“They went out with dad to get some ice cream.”

“First of all, why are they going to the ice cream parlor if it is raining out? Secondly, why is dad home at four o’clock in the afternoon? What is going on?”

“Sweetie, did you notice that Ruth wasn’t in school today?”

“Of course, I went to the Singer’s house after school to check on her and they weren’t home.”

“Honey, you had better take a seat, Mrs. Singer called me this afternoon with some pretty horrible news. Ruthie and her parents were in a devastating car accident last night. Her parents were under the influence of alcohol, and they crashed into another car. Are you okay. honey?”

What kind of question is that? My best friend had just been in a serious accident. “How is she?” I said through sobs.

“Mr. Singer was killed instantly on impact, sweetie. Mrs. Singer is in critical condition, and the doctors say that she will most likely pass over. Ruthie is in critical condition also, but she will almost certainly survive.”

“Oh my god…was the car they hit empty?” I said hopefully.

There was a gulp, it is never a good thing to hear one, I braced myself. “They hit a family coming home from the airport. There were five people in the car, three young children and their parents. The mother survived, as well as her youngest daughter, but the others all died on impact. The Singers hit them at eighty miles per hour, the other family was stopped at a stoplight.”

Suddenly, the sobs poured out of my eyes, my knees buckled and I fell to the floor. Once I had recovered, I asked to go visit Ruth and Mrs. Singer at the hospital. Upon our arrical, my mom and I traveled to Ruthie’s hospital room. “Ruthie, its Ashley, are you okay?” I had a hard time gazing at my friend for her left leg was broken, she was terribly bruised, her left wrist was shattered, and she had stitches all over the place.

“No, Ashley, I am not okay. My father was just killed, and he killed three others, and my mom will not survive her injuries.” The gleam in Ruth’s eyes, which I had treasured since the first day I had met her, was clouded over; she seemed like another person without it. I walked over and sat with Ruth for a long, long time until she fell asleep while holding my hand.

Mrs. Singer did not survive the deadly car accident and Ruth had now lost both of her parents to alcohol; she was now an orphan. My family took Ruth in with us until she graduated. She received a scholarship for playing tennis exceptionally well, and went to a very prestigious school.

Years later, My daughter, Susie, had an assembly on drinking and driving, which parents were allowed to attend. The speaker, to my surprise, was Ruth Singer; my best friend from so long ago. Ruth spoke about her past, and how alcohol had affected her life. When I looked into Ruth’s eyes again, the gleam that I had come to know so fondly was shining through once again.

© 2003 Massachusetts Medical Society