Living With Losses Caused by Drunk Drivers

Standing in Traffic

2011-12-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

December 11, 2011

Yesterday, I stood in traffic. I posed with a bride, a groom, and 3 other bridesmaids on the median line on State Street, one of Chicago’s busiest thoroughfares, half a block from the stoplight. With the historic Chicago theater as a backdrop, no doubt the photo will look amazing. But all I could think about as we shivered and smiled was how our lives depended upon the competence of the drivers whizzing past on either side.

Not only crazy people or bridal parties (or is that redundant?) stand on the center line. That is how my parents died. They were crossing the street to attend an evening church service at St. Barbara’s in Brookfield, the suburb where I grew up. They crossed at a spot where many churchgoers do, in a direct line from the church parking lot exit to the church entrance across the street. Unfortunately, there is no crosswalk there, despite the number of people who walk that way. I was told the church tried to get the village to add a crosswalk, but it’s only half a block from a stop sign, so the request was denied.

The man who hit my parents lived in Brookfield, and his parents belong to the parish, so he would have known people cross there. Not only that, but the crossing sits in between a jog in the road that has a stop light and a stop sign, so cars usually travel at a low speed.

On the night of January 22, 2007, traffic on one side of the street stopped for my parents, who had crossed half-way and paused in the median to wait for the road to clear. An ambulance driver, who later sped my dad to the hospital, saw my parents and stopped. A passer-by noticed they were smiling and holding hands. But the man driving to his home, which was only a mile away, who had stopped for drinks after work, didn’t see them. He didn’t stop. My mom died in the street. My dad died six and a half weeks later.

I didn’t see the crash. But even nearly five years later, the way that crash happened never leaves my mind as I walk to work each day. In downtown Chicago, construction is frequent. Saw horses, yellow tape, and barricades often block all or part of designated crosswalks, requiring me to edge around them, partially exposed to the street. I look over my shoulder, I scan the cars ahead of me and on the cross street, I check again, I check again. Finally, I walk, stomach clenching, holding my breath until I make it to the other side. I get angry with friends who walk with me and insist on crossing against lights, in the middle of streets, or where there is no signal. Of course, the idea that being in a crosswalk or abiding by the lights will keep me safe is an illusion, one in which we all indulge or we’d never leave our homes. Traffic laws provide safety only when people opt to follow them, and that only works when the people on the road are competent to make that decision and care enough to make it.

WGN radio personality Garry Meier was kind enough to speak at the annual benefit for AAIM, the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, as was Illinois Senator Carole Pankau. Garry likens drunk drivers to terrorists because you never know when they will strike. At first, despite my parents’ deaths, I thought this metaphor might be extreme. But then I thought about how I look over my shoulder, and I check, and I check again. And I never feel safe. Garry’s right. It’s not police enforcement that keeps roads safe at least some of the time. It’s that as a culture we believe that those laws, if followed, will protect us, so we follow them. If a person opts to violate that most important traffic law – refraining from driving while intoxicated – the others go out the window, along with the safety of any person in or near that driver’s path.

Until as a country we decide that drinking and driving is unacceptable, we are all standing in traffic.

Lisa M. Lilly

Author of Amazon Best Seller The Awakening

Will Tara Spencer’s mysterious pregnancy trigger the first stage of the Apocalypse? Or bring the world its first female messiah?

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"Thank You For Everything" (DUI Loss Entry No. 15)

2011-10-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

“Thank you for everything.” That is the last thing my mom ever said to me. Like a lot of mothers and daughters, we had some difficult times. There were a few years when she hardly spoke to me, as she was unhappy my boyfriend and I were living together (a little more unusual in the late 1980s than it would be now). But by the time my mom reached her 80s and I my 40s, we’d found a way to leave the hot button issues alone. She stopped asking if I was going to mass, I stopped trying to get her to understand what I believed and didn’t believe and why. I felt she was pleased I became a lawyer and kept writing and was doing well in the world. But I often felt she’d be happier if instead I’d married a lawyer and had kids. Perhaps partly because it would have given us more in common.

In the last few years of my mom’s life I really tried to find things we could do together. The last day I saw her, I read through and explained her and my dad’s insurance and social security issues, helped her balance my aunt’s checkbook (my mom’s sister lived well into her 90s, and Mom was handling her affairs), and shoveled snow. And so, after all the ups and downs and difficulties, when I left that day, my mom said, “Thank you for everything.”

The next night she and my dad were crossing the street and were hit by an intoxicated driver. My mom died at the scene. My dad lived about 6 weeks before he died.

Neither of my parents were much for expressing emotion. I knew my parents loved me because my mom always stocked a refrigerator full of food when I came over and clipped coupons for me, and because my dad insisted on giving me a ride to the train every time I visited, even though the walk was only a few blocks, and saved newspaper and magazine articles for me. When my dad was in the hospital, I came in during one of his speech and cognitive therapy sessions. This was after a couple surgeries. Before them, he’d been clear headed and understood what was happening, after he sometimes was confused and didn’t know exactly where he was and who was who. So the therapist asked him who I was. He said, “Lisa.” And she said, “And who is Lisa?” And he said, “My daughter and close friend.” It never occurred to me my dad thought of me as his friend, and that made me happy.

Of course I never expected my parents would die in a traumatic way, or so close in time to one another. But because they were in their eighties, despite their good health and history of longevity in their families, I knew they might not be with us much longer. So I thought a lot about wanting the time I had with them to be good, about not wanting to let past differences keep us apart, and about how I could best have a good relationship with them.

Not everyone gets the chance to hear kind words from, or say kinds words to, the people they love before they are suddenly gone. On an on-going basis I talk with people who lost children or spouses because one day someone else chose to drink alcohol and get behind the wheel.

We all have conflicts with people we care about, and we can’t always say something kind. Sometimes we’ll say something angry, and even if that is the last thing we say, it doesn’t cancel out or define a whole relationship. At the same time, it’s so easy to take for granted the great things about people, and life, and focus on the negative, on what we don’t like or would like to change. Every morning now, I ask myself, what am I grateful for? Often the answer is that I am grateful for someone being part of my life. I try to remember to tell that to whoever it is, whether by phone or email or in conversation. At first I felt a little awkward (I grew up in a family where people don’t talk much about feelings remember). And then I discovered it means a lot to others to know how much they mean to me. And whether it is the last thing I say to a person or one of many things, it makes life richer for both of us. For me, that has been the best way to live with loss and focus on what’s good and wonderful in this world.

Lisa M. Lilly

The Awakening ($2.99) by Lisa M. Lilly

Tara Spencer’s mysterious pregnancy alters her life forever. Will it also change the fate of the world?

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What God Wants (and Does it Matter?)

2011-08-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

At my dad's wake, people told me my parents’ deaths were “God’s will,” “God’s plan,” or “what God wanted.” Even when I was religious, I’d had trouble with that sentiment. Was it really supposed to be a comfort to believe God wanted my mother to die by being hit by a drunk driver? And wanted my dad to survive two operations and emerge from a week-long post-surgery coma, struggle to regain some function, and then die as well, uncomfortable, confused and in pain in a hospital bed?

One friend explained how a tapestry looks like knots and zigzags from the back but is beautiful and perfect from the front. This has never appealed to me – it can be used to justify humans doing awful things in the name of a mysterious greater purpose that only their version of god understands. Then my friend asserted all the pain on earth passes quickly compared to an eternity in heaven, so it doesn’t matter what happens to us here. That may or may not be so, but if I stab someone repeatedly I doubt that person would feel much better if I argued it I only did it for ten seconds. I’m not sure why a god who does awful things should get more leeway. Shouldn’t we hold our gods to a higher standard? And, regardless of the theoretical arguments about why an all-powerful god would cause or allow terrible things to happen, none of the things people said made me feel any better. Just the opposite, my whole being cried out against them.

The greatest comfort I found during the months after the crash came in a dream. My dad and I stood on the steps of the rambling house where my brothers and I grew up – steps my dad built out of scrap lumber when the original stairs wore through. Though he stood with me and alive in the dream, the crash had still happened, and my dad knew all about it. He said to me, “Sometimes these things happen. We don’t know why.” My dad was a very religious person, yet I believe he would have said exactly that to me.

Before I turned fourteen, I’d attended at least five funerals. I belong to a large extended family with aunts, uncles and even cousins 40+ years older than me, so death was something I learned about early on. Perhaps because of that and my Catholic upbringing, I am fascinated with themes of whether there is a god and, if so, what that god wants. I don’t subscribe to the authors’ view, but I read several of the Left Behind books. That apocalyptic series begins with people belonging to a certain Christian denomination being raptured away into heaven. The books then follow those left here on earth during the end times, some of them being tortured by beings sent by God because they’ve refused to accept God’s teachings. (That’s when I stopped reading the series; I found that world view too disturbing.) My first novel, The Awakening, focuses on a young woman who is mysteriously pregnant. Her pregnancy may bring the world its first female messiah, or trigger the Apocalypse, or have another meaning entirely. Throughout, as the main character, Tara, struggles to survive and protect her child, she searches for the purpose of her pregnancy. Tara is surrounded by people, including her own family, who don’t believe her, and others with completely conflicting views, some of them bent on Tara’s destruction, each certain he or she knows what God wants.

What does God want, if there is one? Perhaps someday I’ll find out, perhaps not. In the meantime, I’ve tried to stop asking why bad things happen and instead do things that might make the world a better place. Things like supporting Make-A-Wish, which sponsors wishes for seriously ill children (and sent my 11-year-old niece and her parents on a trip to see the Minnesota Twins spring training the spring before my niece’s death from cancer). Like volunteering with AAIM, a non-profit in Illinois that every day does its best to prevent further deaths from DUIs. Like offering a hand to hold, or a listening ear, to others in times of trouble. I don’t know if there is a god or if that god has a plan, but this is mine.

Visit the author's webpage at www.lisalilly.com

Stillness and Grieving (DUI Loss Entry No. 13)

2011-07-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

Asking “What if the worst thing happens?” is a great way to up the stakes in a thriller. Or help a client plan and pursue legal strategy. But it is not a recipe for a peaceful life. The same mind that helps me take every possible plot line or legal question to nth degree also imagines or replays painful and tragic events and ideas. For months after my parents’ deaths due to a drunk driver, I imagined the scene, which I’d learned about through police reports and witness statements. My dad’s body flipping over the top of the SUV that hit them, my mom lying in the road alone. My dad survived about 6 weeks after the crash, and even now, 4 years later, I flash back to holding his hand and telling him my mom died, or sitting in the straight back chair by his hospital bed with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece through his last night with us.

Before my parents’ deaths, I mediated fairly regularly, not as a religious or spiritual practice, but to help clear my thoughts. My practice was to focus on one word as I breathed in and out, letting go of all other thoughts. Eventually I simply focused on the breath itself. It rested my mind during the fifteen minutes a day that I sat, and also helped me focus more on whatever I was doing at any particular moment, rather than letting my mind run off in all directions (unless I was actually plotting a story or writing a legal brief, in which case I let it run). After the crash, sitting still, or only handling one thing at a time, felt impossible. To not multi-task – such as by eating while listening to public radio while paying bills – seemed like a terrible waste of time. Every free moment lost was a moment with my dad I wouldn’t ever get back. I also couldn’t handle stillness emotionally. I played the TV whenever I was home, I paced when I talked on the phone, I read and ate and ruminated about what else I could be doing for my dad or how angry or sad I felt all at the same time. To stop, to sit, to simply breathe to me meant opening floodgates of emotion I might never contain. Yet as I raced away from my pain and anger, it rushed back to me, overwhelming me.

About 5 months after my dad’s death, I took all my vacation time in one block. After visiting with family and friends, I spent a few days in Hawaii alone. Often I just sat on the grass, listening to the ocean, breathing salty air, and crying. At night, I stared at the stars spread across a sky darker than I ever see in downtown Chicago, and I cried. It was such a relief. No place to run to, nothing to do. Just the chance to be, to feel sad, to miss my parents.

I won’t say I felt wonderful from then on. I still struggled with grief, loss, anger, all the feelings that go with a traumatic loss. I felt ungrounded with both my parents gone almost in an instant. After that break, I still felt sad, angry, and afraid. But I spent just a little more time each month being with people I loved, doing things I enjoyed, and planning my future.

Recently, I started meditating again. And focusing on doing one thing at a time. I’d forgotten the peace it can bring. There are moments when it’s hard, when it intensifies feelings of sadness or pain. But it also means I am truly present for good feelings and good times too, rather than letting them rush past me in the scramble to juggle my law firm, my writing, my friends and family. I still miss my parents and always will, and still grieve for them. But I let myself remember the wonderful things about them, and notice how much of who they were exists in all the people who knew and loved them. Something I would have missed had I just kept running.

Lisa M. Lilly
Author of The Awakening

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CDXXY0

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-awakening-lisa-lilly/1104252756?ean=2940012849618

Taking Care of Yourself (DUI Loss Entry 12)

2011-06-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

My dad was in the hospital, struggling to survive, for six and a half weeks before he died. We planned and attended my mom's funeral during the first week he was in the hosptial, during which he had two surgeries, both on an emergency basis. Even when I was home to sleep, which was rare, I often couldn't.

The months that followed my dad's death were no easier. I felt overwhelmed by anger and grief, and by everything that needed to be taken care of, from my parents' home to the will to the hospital and doctor bills and insurance issues. I tried to go back to work full time (which in the world of large law firms generally means far more than 40 hours a week) a little too soon and had trouble handling the stress.

With all of that going on, I assumed that feeling exhausted and sometimes faint had everything to do with grief and lack of sleep and nothing to do with anything physical going on. I'd read that in times of grief it was good to go to the doctor for a check up, but I didn't. Part of it was I felt all the doctor could do would be to prescribe sleeping pills or some type of anti-depressant, and I didn't want that. Then, in the summer, I went to the doctor because I thought I had an ear infection. I was flying the next day and couldn't imagine getting on a plane with my ear hurting so much. It turned out to relate to my allergies and was fixed by a strong decongestant. But I also learned, because my doctor did a blood test to look for infection, that I'd become somewhat anemic. At my physical the previous year, my iron count was so good the doctor had told me I could stop taking iron supplements if I'd been taking them. Now she recommended them, and I was amazed how much better I felt. I still had some trouble sleeping, still felt sad and angry and exhausted at times. But the feeling of being dragged out all the time, the faintness, and most of all the overwhelming sense of hopelessness improved significantly. I mark that as the time when I started moving toward feeling better, though it was a long journey.

So if you are grieving, I hope you will consider seeing your doctor for a check up. Grieving may be affecting you physically as well as emotionally. And while not everything can be fixed, if it helps you just a little with all you need to deal with, it is worth it. I wish I had done that sooner. I feel like it might have made that first six-eight months just a little less awful.

Does It Get Easier Part II (DUI Loss Entry No. 11)

2011-04-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

One of the blessings in the past year is that when I think of my parents, the crash does not always come to mind. For years after it happened, my first thought about my parents was to imagine how my mom died in the street after she was hit, lying in the cold and snow. I'd imagine my dad flying over the SUV that hit them, landing in the road beyond. I'd remember how much pain he suffered during the six and a half weeks he was hospitalized, how hard he tried to communicate, how hard it was to make the decision to stop treatment and to say good-bye to him. In the first year, month after month, I went to the criminal court to watch the proceedings against the man who killed my parents. He was eventually sentenced to twelve years in prison. It was his third DUI.

Now those memories are still there, but other things come to mind. Fun things we did together, advice they gave me, what I valued about having been their daughter. Annoying things, too. (After all, they were my parents. We most definitely got on one another's nerves at times.) Perhaps that is the only real healing time offers. The ability to remember what is good and happy, even though the memories are tinged with the pain.

I know if my parents could have communicated with me during the years after the crash, they both would have told me not to dwell on the pain they suffered. My mom in particular was a very practical person. She didn't believe in focusing on hard times in the past, or dwelling on things you can't change that make you unhappy. I'm not sure I could have stopped doing that any sooner than I did. Now I feel like part of why I thought so much about that last moment of my mom's life, and those last 6 or so weeks of my dad's, was that it helped me feel connected to them in some way. If I could understand what they felt, what they went through, perhaps they wouldn't seem so far away. Or perhaps I could somehow slide back in time and magically change that night. There's no logic to that, but grief is not logical.

Now nurture my connection to them in other ways. I've framed photos from different times in their lives and hung them on one wall in my condo. I spend some time every week thinking about something about them that I'm grateful for and something I learned from them that has helped me in life. It does not bring them back, but it is a way I feel they'd be pleased to be remembered.

What Good People Do When Bad Things Happen (DUI Loss Entry No. 10)

2010-10-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

Sunday I attended the annual benefit for the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists. Nearly everyone there had a loved one killed by an intoxicated driver, was injured by an intoxicated driver, or knows someone well who had one of those experiences. AAIM's deputy director spoke and said that we often hear the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" She prefers, "What do good people do when bad things happen?" The people in the room included victims who speak on AAIM's victim impact panels, advocates who help families through the criminal proceedings against the intoxicated drivers, police officers and prosecutors who do their best to eradicate drunk driving. Our celebrity speaker, Gary Meier of WGN, generously donated his time for the benefit. Looking around me, I felt so moved. Everyone there took tragedy and turned it into something positive, tried to ensure that no one else would be harmed or would die due to intoxicated driving. I hope that all my life I can remember to find a away to create something good from difficult circumstances.

Coping (DUI Loss Entry 9)

2010-04-03T15:18:00.001-07:00

I think back to the months and even the year after the crash. I wonder, if I could go back, what advice could I give myself about what might make that time less hard than it was. Maybe nothing. But I wish I had been able to let myself take a few minutes to try and rest. There was no rest in the sense of an undisturbed night’s sleep – so often I lay awake and cried, or ran through in my mind what I imagined had happened during the crash, or how my father struggled when he was in the hospital trying to recover. I don’t think I could have stopped feeling all of that, could have quieted my mind enough to really sleep. But perhaps I could have taken just five minutes an evening to have a cup of tea, or sit still and listen to music, or play my guitar. At the time, it seemed impossible. Any five minutes doing anything not absolutely necessary seemed like time I could not afford to lose from being at the hospital with my dad. And, after he died, it seemed like time I couldn’t afford away from catching up at work, and taking care of the hospital bills and my parents’ house, and getting the estate opened, all things that truly I didn’t need to do immediately, other than perhaps the work aspect. But it all felt so urgent, perhaps because I thought if I got those things done, I would finally have some peace.

It is normal, I suspect, when grieving or trying to care for a love one after a tragedy to feel that any time for yourself can -- and should -- be put off until later. But if I could tell my former self anything, it would be to at least try now and then to stop and breathe, to stop and sit. No terrible thing will happen because of those five minutes, and it might have helped me just a little.

Does It Get Easier (DUI Loss Entry No. 8)

2009-03-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

People ask if it gets easier as time passes from when your loved one died. It's been over two years now since the crash in January, 2007. My mom died at the scene, my dad in March, 2007, just short of his 89th birthday. I feel like I miss them more as time passes, maybe because the time since I actually was with them is longer. Also, the first year there was so much going on, and it was so overwhelming, that I was more stressed and angry and depressed. Now I feel less angry, less stressed, and happier overall, but I miss them more. I feel the loss more.

So does it get easier? For me, yes and no. Day to day life has gotten easier. The criminal part of the case is over, so I no longer go to criminal court every 3-4 weeks and see the man who did this and listen to the details of the crash and my parents' deaths. The hospital bills are taken care of, the house is sold, for about a year now life has been more "normal" in the sense that most of the hours of the day are not consumed any longer with things connected to my parents' death. So, in that sense, my life is more focused on the here and now, on the good things in it, and there are many, for which I am grateful.

But no in that I don't feel I'll ever get over the loss or the way they died. I still think about the pain they must have felt, and still tear up at odd times, even at happy memories. And I still struggle with what to say to people. Sometimes people joke about drinking too much or drinking and driving, and I can't laugh at that. Sometimes people who don't know what happened talk about their parents and ask about mine. And I am stuck on how to answer. Part of me wants to tell everyone my parents died because of an intoxicated driver, because I hope that will make more and more people be more careful. Yet, it seems inappropriate at times during a casual conversation to introduce something so painful. And sometimes it is too hard for me. I don't want to talk about it at that moment.

The Holidays Part 2 (DUI Loss Entry No. 7)

2009-01-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

I found the holidays harder this year than I thought I would. It is the second year without my parents. The first is a bit of a blur. I know it was hard and I also remember my friends all making sure I had enough to do for the holidays. So much that I felt a little exhausted and overstressed, and I feel it was better to err on that side than to not have enough to do.

This year I was busy, too, but took more time to reflect. My mom really loved Christmas. She used to make Christmas trees out of pinecones. Everyone in our family has them, sometimes more than one. She put her largest one up every year around Thanksgiving on a tray table in front of the picture window. From outside, it looked like regular tree with the lights and garland. She had other trees in almost every room of the house. A couple weeks before Christmas she and my dad put the big tree up. I loved all the ornaments. Mom liked to buy an ornament everywhere they traveled, so there were ornaments from a couple World's Fairs, from Disneyworld, from their trip to Europe. Then there were the ones the nuns made for her every year when she volunteered at the Bethlehem Infirmary. And ones we'd made over the years. I was so upset when I was little that Mom always hung my gingerbread ornament (which actually looks more like King Kong -- I was about 4 when I made it) inside the tree where it couldn't be seen very well. Mom was a little more concerned with aesthetics than sentiment when it came to the tree. It was beautiful, and was like looking at a history of our family.

We split the ornaments, so I have about a third of them. Last year it was hard to put them on my tree, but this year I really enjoyed it, despite feeling sad. King Kong is in the front -- so goofy he is cute. And there are the theater mask ornaments from New Orleans when my mom and dad went there on an Elder Hostel trip. And some Pluto ornaments and a whole lot of others I remember from when I was growing up.

This year I thought a lot, too, about Mr. Postulka, the man in prison now for killing my parents. It must be a terrible way to spend a holiday. A life. The only thing bleaker seems to me to be death. I believe there must be consequences for his actions. Yet I only feel more sad when I think of him. I am glad he is somewhere where he can't drive, but he's also somewhere where he can do nothing to even try to make up for what happened. Nothing can bring my parents back. But I wish there were some sort of release program where he could go out and work for groups either to help families who've lost loved ones or do other community service to try to make some positive change. Or even pay back the government what it contributed through Medicare to my dad's hospital bills.

The Holidays (DUI Loss Entry No. 6)

2008-12-03T15:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended a candlelight vigil the City of Chicago hosts to remember victims of intoxicated drivers. I am glad the City does that, and having Mayor Daley, and Anita Alvarez, Jesse White and other state and city officials there helped me feel that at least my city and state take this issue seriously. But so many deaths still occur due to impaired and drunk drivers. One of the statistics read was that 60% of fatal crashes over Thanksgiving were due to intoxicated drivers. Over 30% of the fatal crashes over Christmas are expected to caused by intoxicated drivers.

I wish everyone would be careful. I wish everyone who has a drink would forego driving. I wish no one's holiday -- and no one's life -- will be ruined this Christmas due to people choosing to drink and drive.

Not Just An Accident Part 2 (DUI Loss Entry No. 5)

2008-09-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

The other day I was out with two friends, both of whom were a tremendous help to me in the days and weeks after my mom's death, while my dad was in the hospital, and after he died. So they saw what I went through and how hard all of it was on my whole family. One of them told me about going to her nephew's wedding recently. She said she had 3 or 4 drinks over a few hours and was about to leave. Her nephew offered her another drink and she said no, she was driving. And he said she'd be fine. And she told him no, that it's really a hassle to have your license suspended.

When she told me that, I couldn't help myself, I said, "Or you could hit someone because you're impaired and kill that person." And my friend told me about a car accident where another driver merged into her car on the expressway, and neither of them was drunk, so accidents happen even when people don't drink. And I pointed out all the research that alcohol impairs people's driving ability and reaction time. And she just shrugged.

I felt such despair. If people who are otherwise caring and who have seen almost firsthand the effects of drunk driving simply refuse to believe that drinking alcohol increases the risk of a collision, how much hope is there for change?

I am convinced we need greater penalties not just for people who injure or kill others while driving drunk but for anyone who is arrested for DUI. If people knew they would lose their licenses for a year the first time they were arrested, and would lose their licenses forever the second time, that would seem more real to them than the risk of hurting or killing someone or themselves. There needs to be jail time for driving without a license after a DUI, too, otherwise people will just keep driving without licenses.

The Sentencing Hearing (DUI Loss Entry No. 4)

2008-09-03T18:59:00.001-07:00

The man who killed my parents was sentenced to twelve years. The crime of DUI resulting in the death of 2 or more persons carries a maximum sentence of 28 years. It is an 85% crime, which means the defendant must serve at least 85% of the sentence, unlike many crimes for which defendants only must serve 50%.

My two brothers, my sisters-in-law, and my nieces and nephews came in from out of town for the hearing. A number of my friends attended with me, too. It was a crowded courtroom and a long morning. Other court proceedings took place before ours. I read my victim impact statement, my brother Keith read his, and the prosecutor read my brother Tim's. The defendant's attorney asked me, while I was on the stand, if as an attorney myself I understood that his client had not apologized sooner for what happened because his attorney advised him not to. I said I understood that. I don't handle criminal law, but I assumed that most lawyers would tell their clients not to say anything about the crime to anyone except their lawyer.

The police officers and detectives involved in the arrest for the DUI that led to my parents' deaths were there, as were the ones involved in the defendant's previous DUI arrests. They sat in the jury box. It made me feel better that they were there. I know it probably is part of their job to attend, and yet it still helped me feel that it made a difference that my parents were killed, that people in the police force cared about what happened and wanted to be sure this man could not keep driving and putting other people's lives at risk.

The defendant's attorney played a DVD of a former boss of the defendant who said what a great guy he was. He also submitted a lot of statements from customers of the defendant. He sold and serviced wheelchairs, and possibly other medical equipment, and people said how friendly he was and how he would stop by on his lunch hour and visit or sometimes not charge for parts if the person really needed them and couldn't afford it. It told me he was a good salesperson, but not anything about his character. I don't know what sort of person the driver is, only that he was arrested three times for drunk driving in about five years and he caused my parents' deaths. Nothing else seems relevant to me.

At the same time, our statements talked not only about our personal loss, but about the type of people my parents were. All the volunteer work they did and organizations they belonged to. There were some really nice newspaper articles about them. My parents rarely told my brothers and me while we were growing up that we should volunteer our time or donate to charity or help people out whenever we could. They just did those things and we thought that's what everyone did and so that's what we did, too. It means a lot to me to have been raised with those values.

While I appreciate that we got the chance to talk in court about the kind of people my parents were, I feel sad that so much in our justice system depends not on the crime, but on who the victim and perpetrator are. If two drug addicts were hit by a drunk driver, chances are there would be fewer articles written about it and less outrage about it, and possibly a lower sentence for the driver. Yet the crime would be the same, and the driver would pose just as much threat to the rest of society. It raises the question -- is one life worth more than another? Are there people that we as a culture just aren't as concerned about dying? Similarly, are there people we are less concerned about putting in jail?

Not Just An "Accident" (DUI Loss Entry No. 3)

2008-08-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember what word the chaplain used in the Emergency Room. But it seems to me he first told me my father was crossing the street and was hit by a car. He explained how severe my dad’s injuries were, and that my dad was in emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding in his pelvis. I asked about my mom, because I hadn’t been able to reach her after I got the call that my dad was at Loyola Hospital. I was told she’d been hit, too, and died at the scene.

As I sat in the tiny room off the ER, waiting to find out if my dad would get through the surgery, along with everything else, I felt bad for the driver. I imagined how awful I would feel if I were driving and killed someone.

I’m not sure who told me the driver had been drinking. It might have been the Brookfield police chief, who came to the ER that night. Later I also learned the man had driven away from the scene, running a stop sign while doing so. And that this wasn’t the first DUI.

These are the types of things that make "accident" a hard word to hear or use for many people who've been injured by or lost loved ones to drunk drivers. The driver who hit my parents had a DUI years before that resulted in supervision. Then, two days before the crash, he was driving drunk and hit a utility pole. He damaged his own car, but didn’t seriously hurt himself or hit anyone else. When he hit my parents, he was driving his brother’s Geo Tracker. My mother was pulled under the vehicle and was dragged, my father flew into the air, hit the hood or roof, and landed at the side of the road. The crash caused multiple pelvic factures, tore his urethra, tore his diaphragm so that his other organs started poking through into his lung area, and head trauma. He suffered a mild heart attack due to the collision. One doctor called it a miracle that the heart attack didn’t damage his heart. He was eighty-eight and in amazing shape before he was hit.

At sentencing, the driver’s attorney argued it was an “accident.” He didn’t say “just an accident,” but he might as well have.
As Twyla, one of the victim advocates at Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, says, an accident is when you slip and fall on the ice. Drinking and getting into a car is a choice. This man knew what could happen, what was likely to happen. His drinking led to a collision two days before. And it's hard to be a living, breathing human being in the U.S. and not know consuming alcohol affects driving ability.

The driver was sentenced twelve years for the “accident.”

How People Helped Through Hard Times ((DUI Loss Entry No. 2)

2008-08-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

As awful as it was to lose my parents, and to watch my dad struggle to try to recover, the people around me renewed my faith in love and human beings. So many of them – friends, co-workers, strangers, professionals – went out of their way to be kind and do whatever they could to help.

A year after the crash, a dear family friend, folksinger Mark Dvorak and friends of his, the band Thursday’s Child, agreed to perform at a concert I organized to raise funds for the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists (AAIM). The night was special in so many ways, including the wonderful songs, the many people who attended, St. Barbara’s Church, which donated its space, and the fact that my mom and dad had supported Mark’s musical career early on, something he always remembered and was able to talk about during the show.

The night of the concert was bitter cold and snowy, yet we had over 100 people there from all parts of the Chicago area. A man named Ryan who had witnessed the crash attended. I had seen his name on the police report but didn’t know until later that he was the one who identified the vehicle that hit my parents. He stopped that night to tell me that he’d seen my parents crossing the street just before the crash. They were arm in arm and he said they were smiling. He felt that they looked happy. He left shortly after that, and my sense is he attended and donated the suggested amount mainly so he could tell me that. It meant so much to me to know that my parents looked happy in those last moments. And that someone cared enough to seek me out and tell me.

After my dad’s death the Chicago Tribune ran an article about the volunteer work my parents did. A woman I didn’t know sent a note saying that she’d read the article and it inspired her to increase her own volunteer work. She wrote that she had not known my parents personally, but she was sure from what she read that they were wonderful people and that they had made a difference in the world. I’m tearing up as I write this. It was so kind of her to send the note, and it came at a time when I so needed to find something positive to hang onto.

Things that friends did for which I’m forever grateful: Adela called people she knew and many she didn’t know to tell them about first my mom’s and then, six weeks later, my dad’s funeral arrangements. We have a large extended family on both sides and our family has many friends, and this was invaluable. She also, on a day’s notice, baked a casserole large enough to feed 10 for family members from out of town. Mindy drove me around to run errands that just seemed overwhelming to me when my dad was in the hospital and I hated to be away from his side. Andrea sent me a list of things she might be able to help with, and that in itself was a blessing, as it lessened the amount I had to think about. I ultimately asked her to help me take down my Christmas tree, which had still been up on January 22 when the crash happened, and I didn’t take down until late March. Steve not only loaned me his car almost every weekday to drive to the hospital after work, he then took a cab or got a ride to the hospital to drive me back home, knowing how tired and stressed I felt. These are only a few of the things friends did and offered to do, and it meant the world to me.

The world is full of amazing, kind, wonderful people.

When It's Always Three A.M. (DUI Loss Entry No. 1)

2008-08-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.”

That's how I felt after the crash that killed both my parents. The driver was drunk -- it was his third DUI.

It happened on January 22, 2007 around 7:30 p.m. in Brookfield, Illinois, in front of St. Barbara's Church, the same church where my parents got married 51 years before. My mother died in the street. My father was taken to Loyola Hospital, and for six and a half weeks he struggled to live. I worked when I could, slept in waiting rooms, got up in the middle of the night to be sure I saw him again before emergency procedures. My brothers came into town and we spent the week driving from intensive care to the funeral home to St. Barbara’s. We chose a coffin and mass cards, music and readings; we met with interns and specialists, nurses and hospital chaplains. We tried to honor my mom and be there for my dad.

Much as I appreciated everyone who cared and wanted to know how my father was doing over the next weeks, I grew to hate the phone. Every moment on the phone was a moment away from my dad. People so wanted to hear good news and the good news was, for an eighty-eight old year old man, my dad was doing amazingly well. One doctor referred to him surviving the crash and two surgeries as miraculous. But the injuries were severe, and eventually we agreed to stop treating him. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

An acquaintance who heard about my father’s death sent an e-mail saying, “At least you will be able to get on with your own life now,” and I didn’t get in touch with him again until six months later. I knew he was trying to find a bright side to an impossible situation, but I just didn’t know how to respond to anyone who didn’t understand that I would have sat at my dad’s bedside for months, years, or forever if that would have made a difference.

Most difficult for me were those who insisted everything happened just as God wanted it. The idea of a god who wanted my mom to die in the street, who wanted my dad to struggle through surgeries and pain and frustration, who wanted my nieces and nephews to lose their grandparents in such a terrible way, made me want to smash the world to pieces. I told those who said it that I knew who had been driving the car that hit my parents, and it wasn’t a god. It was a drunk driver.