“True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.”
~Charles Caleb Colton

Val was such an idiot.
Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t hate Val, despite what observers might think. Val was an idiot, but he was a lovable idiot and he was my lovable idiot.
We’d been best friends since the first day of kindergarten, when he got my stolen blue crayon back from the bully of the class.
“But why did you go to so much trouble for my crayon?” I remember asking, furrowing my eyebrows as I held my hand out for the writing utensil and stared at the black eye the bully had given him for his troubles.
Val had grinned. “Because I’m a hero!” he’d boasted, shoving the crayon into my face.
I may have punched his unbruised eye for the invasion of my personal space, but that’s irrelevant. The point was, after that, Val and I were extremely close.
For example, I was one of the two people who could tell Val apart from his twin, the second person being Val’s twin himself. (Martin, is it? I was never formally introduced, so I don’t quite remember him. Anyway, that doesn’t matter.)
I was also one of the only people who Val felt truly comfortable opening up to. I knew all about his secret fear of ghosts, his worries about failing to help someone in need, and his insecurity about the one strand of blond hair that he could never smooth down.
I always managed to comfort him and assuage his worries, feeling almost like his father figure as I gave him valuable life lessons.
“Geez, Artie, you’re super wise!” Val would often exclaim.
Without fail, I would roll my eyes. “My name’s Arthur, and I know, you’ve told me already.”
My response would always send him into laughter.
As you now understand, Val and I were as close as brothers.
When Val’s twin knocked on my door Sunday afternoon, face pale and eyes wide, I didn’t know what to expect. I stood speechless as I was told the news.
Val died.
Val
Died.
Val … died?
I didn’t believe it. “You must be mistaken,” I said even as tears streamed down my cheeks. “Val can’t die. He’s…he’s…he’s Val. He can’t die.”
When the twin told me just how Val’s flame of life was extinguished, I felt as if a knife was slammed into my gut.
Apparently, Val had chosen to die; he had put the value of his life below someone else’s.
I couldn’t stop sobbing once I heard that.
He was such an idiot.

“Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was there the day my other half lost his life.
I watched it all.
I didn’t do a thing to save him.
I didn’t know how.
It was Sunday morning, with a little spattering of rain and a lot of excitement in our house. Val had been made pitcher of the school baseball team for the second year in a row, and he was parading his jersey around for our family to see.
He told me he couldn’t wait to tell his friend Arthur and our neighbor Kevin.
I smiled at Val’s childlike enthusiasm. After working so hard to keep his spot on the team, Val deserved it.
Of course, feeling a slight need to show off my own sports prowess (I play ice hockey at the nearby arena), I challenged Val to a little competition. We were brothers, after all. Some small sibling rivalry never hurt anyone, right?
Val, being Val, agreed quickly to my proposal, nodding his head vigorously up and down.
I told him the rules: I would attempt to hit a ball he pitched, and he would try to block a hockey goal I shot. Whoever succeeded would be declared winner.
Val laughed goofily, instantly confident. I think we both remembered the time that he had pitched a baseball right into my face, chest, and stomach respectively.
I laughed too, itching to send the ball flying into the sky and surprise him with my prowess. I had figured out the key: if you pretend the bat is a hockey stick and the ball is a puck, baseball is kind of like hockey.
Val raced out the door after grabbing his ball and mitt, grinning and motioning for me to follow him to the hockey arena.
I shouldered my hockey bag and followed, smiling widely with excitement.
But when Val got to the corner of the street, everything went downhill.
One of our neighbors, a little girl named Daisy, was playing with a red rubber ball when it bounced into the street.
Daisy skipped out into the middle of the road, reaching down to pick up her ball, when she slipped on the pavement, which was slick with rain, and fell onto her bottom. Daisy’s face screwed up, and she began to wail, sitting there directly in the path of any oncoming traffic.
“Daisy! Get out of the street!” her older brother Lucas called from their front porch as a car came down the road. He started to run down the sidewalk towards her, but it was clear he wouldn’t make it in time.
Val saw what was happening too. He quickly turned to look at me and smiled a haunting, knowing smile. I’m sorry, the smile seemed to say. Goodbye.
I opened my mouth in horror, rooted to the sidewalk, unable to move or scream as I realized what Val was planning to do.
As the car neared Daisy, the driver completely unaware that she was in the road, Val flung himself into the street.
In one swift movement, he pushed Daisy out of the way, falling hard onto the road in front of the car and taking her place. Taking her fate.
The car didn’t stop moving.
It ran right. Over. Val.
I watched it all happen. I saw as the tires crushed his neck and his legs, I saw his glasses crack as his face slammed down into the road, I saw the tears glistening in his eyes as he accepted his fate. Red, red blood spurted everywhere, bleeding into the gray pavement and splattering the black tires of the car.
Val flailed and shouted hoarsely, which turned into a scream as the car’s back wheels rolled. Right. Over him. One. More. Time.
He stopped screaming.
And just like that, it was all over.
The driver parked the car and jumped out, apologizing furiously when he realized what he had done and calling 911. Lucas collected up the terrified Daisy and carried her to their house, swearing profusely the whole way there.
I stood on the sidewalk, staring at my brother’s limp form, knowing in my gut that it was too late to save him.
I didn’t know what to do.
I knew I couldn’t stay there, with my brother laying in the middle of the road, trademark grin gone and cowlick subdued with sticky blood. The police would ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer and they would all smile that same sympathetic smile that would clearly be faked.
Dropping my hockey bag, I turned and ran.
When I stopped running, I found myself in front of Arthur’s house.
I told him everything, and he cried the tears that I still couldn’t release. Breathing was a little easier after that.
I waited until the next day to call Kevin.
My parents offered to tell him themselves, but I refused. They hadn’t seen been there. They hadn’t experienced the horror.
Only I had been there the day my other half lost his life.

“Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.”
~Steven Tyler

I absolutely hated Val.
Even when he was younger, he was really obnoxious and cheerful and always in the way.
I think I even gave him a black eye once when he tried to be all “heroic” and take back a crayon that I was borrowing from some nerd.
As we grew up, I realized, though, that the real problem wasn’t him. It was me.
I mean, I disliked the guy, but only because his demeanor got on my nerves. It wasn’t like he was evil or something.
Whatever.
Everything changed when Daisy fell in the middle of the road.
My little sister was so careless sometimes. Like sure, I was put in charge of her that day, but how was I supposed to know she would dart into the road? The blame wasn’t on me. Right?
Either way, Val earned my full-blown respect when he saved Daisy’s life and laid down his own.
I had no idea he actually meant all of that stuff about being a hero.
I couldn’t think straight after the car rolled over him. Honestly, how did the driver miss feeling the thunks of his tires? How did he manage to roll over Val not just once, but twice?
Even worse, what if that had happened to Daisy instead?
I admit, swearing comes pretty naturally to me. You can ask any of my friends, and probably even my teachers. It’s a bad habit of mine that I could probably stop if I really cared.
But that day, I honestly could not say anything that was not a swear.
Because I realized: why did I spend my days hating Val when he paid the ultimate price for Daisy? What a complete waste.
I absolutely hate myself.
I absolutely respect Val.

“Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.”
~Plautus

All I wanted was one day of peace.
Being a baseball coach at two high schools across town from each other, I was constantly driving back and forth, back and forth.
That fateful Sunday, I was driving back from one of the high schools, absolutely exhausted. The baseball season was just beginning and I’d had to drop off the jerseys for the year’s teams.
In the best circumstances, I’m not what you’d call a good driver. In drizzly weather, I’m completely horrible.
I don’t know why I’m saying this. It’s no excuse.
It’s no excuse whatsoever.
When my car jolted up and back down again, I thought it was a speed bump. I may have been going over the speed limit somewhat, eager to get home, so the extra jolts were expected.
I’m still not completely sure if I believe that.
When my back tires bumped up and down, I heard a long scream and the color drained from my face.
Jumping out of my car and seeing the damage, I just about fainted. Luckily, I managed to stay conscious and call the police.
“He’s dying,” I recall croaking out. “Val is dying.”
Then I dropped the phone to the ground, where it shattered.
I didn’t care.
All I cared about was the stillness of my favorite baseball players’ chest and the paleness of his face.
At that point, I think everybody had left the scene, and I was alone with Val. I pulled his head into my lap, apologizing again and again as tears slipped from my eyes.
I had known Val pretty well. He was an amazing kid, and not just in baseball. Val was optimistic, a “glass is full” kind of guy who could cheer anybody up within minutes.
Getting to place him as pitcher of the team for the second year in a row had made me proud—I loved mentoring Val and watching him improve.
And now his eyes were blank and unseeing and his head rested heavily in my lap.
I had been the one to end Val’s life.
It was all my fault.
I don’t think I’ve gone a day since then without thinking of Val just once. Every time I am reminded of him, it’s like a slap in the face.
If I had braked, maybe he would have lived.
If I hadn’t been so careless, maybe Val could have become a professional player and a loving father.
Avoiding his death could have been so simple.
But of course, I had been selfish.
I had wanted a day of peace.

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”
~Marcus Tullius Cicero

My life is not my own.
It’s nobody’s fault—just the way things are, a result of unfortunate circumstances.
I was 11 when I started getting flashbacks to the dreadful Sunday that changed everything.
I could remember a motionless body in the middle of the road and a long scream that echoed in my ears.
That year, I asked Lucas, who was visiting home from college, what had happened.
“Someone died,” Lucas said, clearly trying to keep some part of the story hidden.
“Who? ” I tilted my head curiously as Lucas stared at me with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Val Williams,” he answered finally. “His name was Val Williams.”
It wasn’t until four years later that my brother finally told me how exactly Val Williams had lost his life. I was absolutely horrified.
He died for me.
He died for me.
Val Williams gave up his life. For me.
I began feeling pinpricks of guilt each time I became happy or excited. Why did I deserve to be happy when Val no longer could?
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I told Lucas my doubts and he thrust a small strip of paper at me. There was a phone number scrawled messily on it.
Calling the number apprehensively, I discovered it belonged to Val’s brother.
After I explained everything and apologized for living when Val didn’t, Maurice Williams spoke up.
“Daisy, please don’t worry.” He sounded weary, his voice coming out a scratchy whisper. “The best way to honor Val’s memory is to make the most of his sacrifice…”
“And live my life.” I was stunned at how simple, yet fitting that sounded.
If I didn’t enjoy life, Val’s death would mean nothing.
After that, I understood. When I would experience something new, go somewhere new, meet someone new, it would be for Val Williams. Always for Val Williams.
My life is not my own. 

In loving memory of Val Williams, 1994-2010.

His heart was full of empathy,
He put everyone first.
Now his soul is gone and free.
His body in a hearse.
Let us sadly say good-bye
To our brother, neighbor, son.
We all thought he wouldn’t die,
But now his life is done.
Thank you, Val, for your sacrifice,
For which we are in debt.
Love had you pay the ultimate price.
May nobody forget.