Peer Pressure

My vision was blurred...my gate clumsy
Those beers sure did a job on me
Jim said “Let's go”, and opportunity knocked
If only I had known what was to be

“The keys are in it, Jim... let's go for a drive”
What his face said, I brushed aside
Then, "No"...but I was having none of it
Time for some peer pressure to be applied

“What a pussy you are, Jim”
And a look came to his eye
My challenge had been to his honour
“Ok,” he said...I had no idea the tears I would cry

My smile was intense, and his silence said it all
An unwilling passenger, along for the ride
With no clue where to go, I just followed the path
Laid out by fate...like being carried by the tide

He did one last thing before his demise
Perhaps he thought I was driving too fast
I still remember it like it was yesterday
Although forty years have now passed

As we drove along that cold dark road
Jim leaned over and across my chest
My seat belt was snapped into place
Why not for himself, is anyone's guess

In the distance, I saw our destiny approach
A broken-down car in the emergency lane
Time and motion slowed, as we slid across that road
Hitting an embankment...rolling over again and again

I was hanging by the seat belt Jim had secured
Jammed...along with hissing and the smell of fuel
I called out for him, but he was gone
Who lives, who dies, and who makes the rules?

The enormity of it all, I could not bear
Overwhelmed by grief, and the reality he had died
I prayed to God every night, “God please, take me instead”
Wishing it was a bad dream and we could again be side by side

But prayers are only answered for the deserving
I decided to join him, but the attempt failed
Forty years ago, yet I still feel the pain
Still wondering about his actions, and what it entailed

Was it me, or was it fate, who took him that night?
Crying tears of sadness, regret and shame
If I hadn't said to him, what I said that night
Was peer pressure to blame?

I still ask myself why he did what he did
Saving my life, but not his own
An answer never to be disclosed
Until years later I was shown

Twin girls, born so small they looked like dolls
And when I held them, my mind was blown
It dawned on me why Jim had saved my life
And why he had left me so alone

Because any change to our past
And our present wouldn't exist at all
I would never have held those girls
Or watched them grow so tall

When they had grown, I told them about Jim
About his sacrifice...so they might live
Our respect for him is immeasurable
Along with all the love in our hearts, we can give