My Shawny boy

Stars collided in my vision as my natural instinct to breathe halted from the extreme pain in my side. A hot sautering iron split the skin over my ribs and precious air hissed out of my deflating lungs. Paralyzed, I struggled to breathe as the pain eased for a moment-

“I feel like I should be giving you dollar bills, you’re dancing all over my table so much!” Paul laughed, taking a break to refill the ink in his tattoo gun. I weakly laughed along, light-headed from lack of oxygen to my brain. Rolling off the table, I floated to the mirror across from where I was getting my first tattoo. A rose was inked into my right side from mid-ribs to hip bone with one solitary petal blowing away, “SDH” etched in its delicate surface.

Shawn David Huq.

I blinked away tears that had nothing to do with the pain caused by Paul’s tattoo gun.

Shawn is my brother Jarrod’s best friend. His spirit left its body December 12, 2007 but he will be with my brothers, friends, and me until the day we are all together again in paradise. I refuse to refer to his existence in the past tense.

In 2007 in the state of Virginia, there were 332 DUI-related deaths. In Michigan the same year, that number was 736. Shawn and two of his friends are now a statistic included in that outrageous number.

December 12, 2007.
My phone rang at 10:00 am the morning I found out. My dad was calling, which struck me as odd since he should have been at work. Curiosity tickled me, so I rolled over in bed and picked up.
“Good morning.” I greeted him sleepily.
“Shawn passed away last night. He was in a car accident.” Dad always cut straight to the chase, “We haven’t told Jarrod yet. You should come home after your finals today.”

My skin prickled, emotions threatening to explode through every pore. I went temporarily blind as my mouth flapped open and shut like a fish drowning in too much oxygen. I remember my heart thudding against my ribcage because it hurt, and it may have burst into a cranberry spray if milder forms of pain had not already weathered it into tougher stuff.

“Are you going to be ok?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“I’ll see you this evening.” Dad knows me best; he knew I needed time to process that blow.

The last two weeks of August 2007 alone, there were 18,000 alcohol-related arrests on the highways of Michigan.

Gone? How could he be gone?

Like a drone, I rolled back over and curled around my dog as the sobbing began.

I closed my eyes and saw two five year olds slinging mud at each other on a construction site. I remembered running through the orange soupy ground to meet up with my little brother and his friend, grinning as I took a flying leap into a hole dug for the basement of a house.
I re-lived December 7, 2003. Sherful, Shawn’s father, had suffered an aneurism while Jarrod and Shawn were playing in the living room of their house. The boys called my dad for help, but he did not get there in time to save Shawn’s dad. The pain of that loss coupled with this newest one tore through me like a hurricane.

I heard his and Jarrod’s maniacal laughter as they played pranks on each other and members of my family.

Shawn’s laughing face is in almost every major memory from my childhood.

Gone?

When Shawn was 14, his mom moved to Michigan and took him with her. The separation was hard on Jarrod and Shawn, who were like one soul in two bodies. Our parents and Jane, Shawn’s mother, discussed their sons’ depressions and decided to split the holidays.

Drunk driving is the #1 cause of teen deaths on our country today. “In 2005, 25% of teens killed in car accidents, which were between the ages of fifteen and twenty years old, were intoxicated at the time of the accident. That 25% is close to 5,000 teen deaths in which alcohol was a contributing factor.” (Teen Drunk Driving Casualties). The world today is a dangerous place, but it seems that the biggest threat to teens is themselves.

Winter break was starting early in Michigan that year. Shawn was supposed to be with us until after New Years, and everyone was antsy with anticipation for his arrival. Shawn’s room was ready and that weekend he was supposed to fly into Dulles airport.

Gone?

He had gone to a party, one last hurrah before flying to Virginia for a month. He drank too much. Chad, his step-brother, decided to drive Shawn and two other friends home. He also drank too much. Chad drank so much, in fact, that he didn’t see the 18-wheeler driving down the road when he crossed over the highway on his way home.

Gone.

Paramedics told Jane that Shawn was killed on impact; his BAC (blood alcohol content) was so high he probably never even woke up.

Gone.

I did not make it to my finals that day. One professor failed me for it. I didn’t care. I didn’t even want to go back to school in the spring. Shawn was not going to be coming to see us in a few days. Shawn was never coming to see us again.

I hated Chad, a hate that burned like nothing I had ever felt before. How could he? How DARE he take Shawn away from us! In that same accident, Chad had also killed his best friend and his little brother’s wrestling team mate. His BAC was two and a half times the Michigan legal limit that night, a stunning 0.2 (Lupo). In addition to the massive amount of alcohol Chad consumed that night, he also smoked marijuana. This coupled with the alcohol made him even more incapable of operating a vehicle. Why did their friends let them leave the party? Why didn’t anyone try to stop them? I had so many questions, but the answers didn’t really matter because none of them would bring Shawn back.

My brother didn’t know how to deal with his grief. He laid in bed for days, barely eating or speaking to anyone. It’s been two years since Shawn was stolen from us, and Jarrod still hasn’t resolved his anger at having his best friend ripped away too soon. Shawn was 16 years old; he had his entire life ahead of him. Fate is so cruel. Jarrod joined the Marines on a whim, and even though he scored high enough on his ASVAB to qualify for any job within the Marines he insisted on infantry. He told my parents he doesn’t care if he dies, as long as it happens while doing something worth dying for.

Chad received a 15 year prison sentence. He is eligible for release after seven years if he maintains good behavior. He is required to go to intensive therapy to cope with the guilt and depression he feels. When Chad gets out, he won’t have a home to return to since his mother is too sick with cancer to handle him and Jane refuses to let him back into her house. In court, he said that every time he closes his eyes he sees their faces. He doesn’t know why he survived when they died, but he does know he’ll never be able to live down the decision he made that night.

In 2007 alone, Michigan lost 732 teens between the ages of 15 and 20 because someone chose to drive drunk. Why are we doing this to ourselves? When will we learn? When will we stop killing ourselves or our friends and realize that sleeping it off in a car is better than trying to drive home?

Today, teenagers and young people have so much potential to work toward. We have more options available to us than many of our parents or grandparents did. Too many young people are robbed of their futures because of the terrible decision to drive drunk. It needs to stop.


My tattoo turned out beautifully. My brother and the three other boys in our tight-knit group of friends got inked for Shawn as well. December 12, 2007 changed us all forever. In one phone call we grew up, we faced the brutal reality of mortality. We lost a friend and brother, but we gained a passion for fighting to prevent this from happening to anyone else. Jane speaks in schools now about her only son and his friends. Every time she re-lives that night it tears her heart to pieces, but she tells us, “If it saves even one life it is worth it.” My friends laugh at me when I collect keys before a party at my house, but my brother always gives me a glance of support. I know he will back me up if anyone ever refuses to wait until they are sober to leave.