Last night, as I often do, I was looking for some photos or video to create a Youtube and soothe the ache of missing AnnaLeah and Mary. I found a particularly poignant photo of AnnaLeah and another young girl, Bethany, in Michigan on July 30, 2007.
Along with our other kids, they were having some simple water balloon fun. What made it heart-wrenching was that, within 6 short years, they–along with Mary–would lose their lives in crashes.
I put together continuously-snapped photos into a fast-moving slideshow. Laughing & weeping at the result.
Just yesterday, truck safety advocates scored a victory when the Senate voted 56 -31 in favor of an amendment which halted a mandate to allow Twin 33s (longer double trailer rigs) on the roads in all 50 states. (Keep in mind that the issue isn’t out of the woods yet.)
Another advocate wrote a facebook post which commented on this and shared his mixed feelings:
“So we WON. Mind you this is a hollow victory in several ways. It doesn’t get our family members back or make them whole again nor does it make the roads any safer, it just keeps them from becoming less safe.
I’m feeling very weepy over this. It’s a win I guess but one we shouldn’t even have to fight.”
I have talked about this before. The bittersweet emotions that tend to follow what should be an upbeat moment or memory. Swallowing up the elation of progress or the happiness kindled by a recollection.
Life is forevermore colored by convoluted reactions. Tangled. Complicated. Tortuous.
The grief over loss never seems to resolve fully enough to result in lasting peace. How can it when the anger and frustration is continuously sparked by, not just the potentially-preventable circumstances which led to the loss in the first place (bad enough in itself) but, the ongoing apparent callousness which allows the senseless slaughter of human life to continue on our roadways–ad infinitum?
A vote based on a motivation to protect states’ rights to determine their own decision on Twin 33s rather than on a motivation to save lives. Really?! How would that make you feel in the wake of losing a loved one in a truck crash?
For me, it opens up the flood gates of grief and lets the loss well up all over again. Senseless. Incomprehensible. Distressing. Missing them dreadfully.
Lives cut short. For no good reason. AnnaLeah & Mary. How many more to come?
In these interviews, I expressed this anger and frustration. Why? Why hasn’t something been done–when it can be done?!
As I took photos of Jerry raking pine needles in our backyard today it triggered memories of the good times we had with AnnaLeah and Mary our Last Fall Together–as well as all the other autumns of their short lives.
It brings good but bittersweet memories as I remember all-too-well how they cannot be here at this time in this place to enjoy these moments. They had come with us to tour this house in anticipation of purchasing it the following spring–walking through this backyard which they never got to enjoy as their own.
And then it reminds me why I have thrown myself into this huge endeavor called Safety Advocacy. For some other mom who–I hope–will never know this heartache.
Thinking of families who are missing children who are not with them today. I am thankful that I can search from prior years (my how time passes) to find posts which help me remember the fun times with AnnaLeah and Mary.
I recently returned from a trip to DC where Jerry, Isaac, and I joined with other families who had experienced unexpected loss by way of devastating truck crashes. At the Truck Safety Coalition’s Sorrow to Strength Conference we shared our stories with one another, attended workshops to learn more about truck safety issues and how to advocate for change, as well as participated in meetings on The Hill.
One of the workshops was on the topic of grief and I had made the comment that what we all experienced in our horrific, tragic losses made the grief more complicated because of the anger and frustration we all too often feel when too little is done too late to save (other) lives. It is sometimes hard to move on fully with, as they say, “a new normal” when you witness the seemingly calloused and indifferent attitude toward what should be preventable deaths.
Supposedly its a risk you take when you choose to get on the road, you know. Or, changes would not be “cost effective.”
In any case, I wanted to share an article which I read last year. It helped me process my feelings of grief at the unexpected loss I have felt after discovering in 2010 that many of our family members face challenges we had never anticipated with a progressive hereditary peripheral neuropathy (Charcot Marie Tooth or CMT). What they tell us is that it is not life-threatening, but it is a life-changer.
I had searched online and found this interesting article about the grieving of parents with disabled children, which could be helpful for any grieving person–no matter what their loss, The Impact of Childhood Disability: The Parent’s Struggle, by Ken Moses, Ph.D.: http://www.pent.ca.gov/beh/dis/parentstruggle_DK.pdf
I just now re-read it and noticed this statement by the author: After working with parents of the impaired for many years, I have come to believe that I was given bad advice. I have come to believe that pain is the solution, not the problem.
That reminded me of something my 5 year-old granddaughter said earlier this year:
One day, Vanessa asked me (out of the blue), “Does pain fix sadness?”
Me: “Well. . .?”
Vanessa: Runs off to play. . .
I don’t know. Will the pain which I am going through eventually “fix” my sadness? Is the pain a process–or at least a signal or indication that a process of healing is taking place? If I were not feeling the pain, would it be harder to complete that process? Will the pain ever lessen?
I have also known real peace in this season. It also comes and goes–seeming elusive. Comes mostly when I am focused on the promises of God–in word or song–like the song I sang at their funeral, In Christ Alone. I really believed it then and I believe it now. It just seems in stiff competition with the real pain.
I was glad to see that Jerry and Isaac had an opportunity to tell our story themselves for the preparation of videos which I just discovered are now posted on the Truck Safety Coalition’s website:
Just yesterday, I read a facebook post and comments by some of the TSC family members. They were commenting on how hard it was to get back into things after the conference in DC and how they struggled anew with the grief and sadness. It reminded me of how thankful I was for the comment made several times at the conference that we will not tell each other, “Get over it.” It is such a complicated grief; we will never fully get over it.
But, with hope, we will carry on because we know that someday we will see their face again:
How did you react when you heard our crash story? I have been thinking about that a lot this week.
On Saturday, we heard other crash stories at Truck Safety Coalition’s Sorrow to Strength conference in Arlington, Virginia. It is hard to hear the same problems with truck safety over and over again and know that too many things are not getting any better. Yes, we heard of the successes over the years. But some of these families have been advocating for safer roads for over 20 years–including for safer underride guards.
On Monday morning, Isaac and I met with Russ Rader at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s DC office. We discussed some of the details for the Underride Roundtable that we are planning with them for May 2016 at their Ruckersville, Virginia, conference & crash testing center. I am getting excited as it is getting closer to becoming a reality.
We arrived early for our meeting and, while we were waiting to start, we sat in the reception area, drank some water, and watched the video loop which they show on a wall monitor. I have seen many of their crash test videos before but learned many new things. It had my attention.
Later that afternoon, Isaac and I joined other Truck Safety Coalition volunteers for meetings at DOT with FMCSA and NHTSA. As we got off the elevator, Scott Darling, FMCSA Administrator, pointed out the framed photo collage of truck safety victims (a fraction of the total number) which was presented to them in 2009. FMCSA staff see it every day as they pass by on their way to work.
The next morning, when I woke up, an idea came to me: create a video loop (which could be updated) of crash victim stories and raise money to put it on monitors throughout DOT. I told Isaac about my idea and he said that it should be on The Hill as well.
Then, as we headed for our meetings on The Hill, we encountered rush hour traffic at the Metro. People piled into the first train that stopped and it was so full that they were packed like sardines and the door couldn’t even shut until the riders pushed themselves closer together.
The woman just in front of me, who was a regular Metro commuter, commented that one time she had seen someone’s backpack get stuck in the door. We continued to talk and, after getting on the next train, eventually got a seat next to each other some stops later.
She asked me about the buttons on my lanyard:
When I told her that two of my daughters were killed in a truck crash, she had tears in her eyes and held my hand. Imagine the power of our story and the impact it could have on the future of highway safety.
I want the faces and voices of once-alive truck crash victims and their surviving families to be seen and heard daily throughout Washington, DC. And then just maybe we will have their attention so that, armed with facts and figures and reasonable solutions, we will be able to bring about dialogue to solve trucking safety problems which take into account the needs of the industry without unnecessarily sacrificing the lives of our families.
My family has been through a lot in the aftermath of our truck crash on May 4, 2013. They each have their own story (some more closely-guarded than others). I was surprised but pleased that one of our sons was able to take the time to express his thoughts in the form of a Comment on our Vision Zero Petition a couple of hours ago.
Isaac said that I could share his comments here:
Isaac Karth, NC
about 2 hours ago
“Three years ago, I was sitting in my apartment, working on my class projects, when I got a phone call that turned my world upside down. My family’s car had been hit by a truck, and I was the first person that the hospital was able to reach. There was a lot of confusion; no one knew where my two sisters who had been in the back seat of the car had been taken.
“I had a pair of dice in my pocket that day, the same pair of dice that I had when my father called me later that evening with the news that my sister had died in the crash. Humans are bad at estimating probabilities. A one-in-a-million chance sounds rare, but that’s close to the odds the NWS reports for being struck by lightning, and 330 Americans are injured that way every year. It’s rare, but it happens. In probability theory, it’s called the law of large numbers. If you roll the dice often enough, or for enough people, the dice are going to come up as ones at a predictable, measurable rate.
“The IIHS reported that in 2013, there were 10.3 deaths from motor vehicle crashes per 100,000 people. That’s about one-in-ten-thousand, way more likely than one-in-a-million. And, unlike other leading causes of death, this is an entirely human-created problem, one that didn’t exist two hundred years ago.
“Automotive safety has been improving over time. But it is still one of the leading causes of death in America. Curing cancer, one of the other leading causes, is expensive and difficult, requiring research just to figure out if it is even possible. In contrast, for motor vehicle deaths there are many cases where we already know simple ways to reduce motor vehicle fatalities, such as effective underride guards, and we have promising research for even more.
“We shouldn’t settle for one-in-ten thousand, or even one-in-a-hundred-thousand. We should strive to be better than that. Human lives shouldn’t be a nickel and dime proposition. Even low chances of death are still too high. I shouldn’t have to roll the dice every time I need to leave my house. I shouldn’t have to wonder, every time my family is out on the road, if today is going to be the day that they roll too many ones again.”
A photo of Mary age 5 taken by her big brother, Isaac
Isaac wrote this facebook post on June 19, 2013, in memory of his sister AnnaLeah:
To all the creative people: I recently lost someone close to me. She didn’t know how creative she was and how talented she was becoming, but I did. She didn’t think that she would be able to live up to her siblings. She doubted her talent. She was embarrassed when anyone read her writing. But she kept reading, writing, making.
She was one of the people I relied on to find out about new books. I was counting on her writing the kinds of books I wanted to read. I didn’t realize how much I was expecting from her future until it was gone.
Every death is an irreplaceable loss, but that doesn’t mean we stop living. The absence left behind can’t be filled in this life. That’s all the more reason to build a monument to her memory. I can’t replace her life or her lost works, but I can create my own. They will be different than what could have been, because they’ll be my creations instead of hers. I can’t be her. I can be myself. My works can reflect the life and the hope she believed in, because I have the same hope. I am not justified by my merits (or by hers). I can do my best and no more. That won’t be enough, but it will be right.
To the writers, the readers, the makers, the designers: keep creating. The night will be long and the shadows of your doubts dark. Don’t let that stop you. When you think your work isn’t good enough, it’s a sign to keep going. Your work won’t justify anyone, least of all you, but every creative act that introduces something good to the world is an act of love to those around you.
In memory of those we have lost, and in love to those we have now, I ask you to continue. Keep creating, keep making, keep doing. This is the service you have been given, to love all of creation by creating.
After Isaac signed the Vision Zero Petition and wrote his comment, he shared it on facebook with this message:
“We’ve made it to over 5,000 signatures, which is pretty nice given that we started last Tuesday. Looking at it, it struck me that number is still less than the number of lives lost this year to vehicle crashes.”
I always find this hard to sing in church — today was no exception. We sang it at my dad’s funeral and at AnnaLeah’s and Mary’s.
Two sisters sing Children of the Heavenly Father together. They have sung it many times and could do it in their sleep. This has special meaning as the duet is sung with a background of photos featuring their two younger sisters who are now, truly, with their Heavenly Father.
Children of the Heavenly Father Safely in His bosom gather Nestling bird nor star in heaven Such a refuge e’er was given
God His own doth tend and nourish In His holy courts they flourish From all evil things He spares them In His mighty arms He bears them
Neither life nor death shall ever From the Lord His children sever Unto them His grace He showeth And their sorrows all He knoweth
Though He giveth or He taketh God His children ne’er forsaketh His the loving purpose solely To preserve them pure and holy
Lo their very hairs He numbers And no daily care encumbers Them that share His ev’ry blessing And His help in woes distressing
Praise the Lord in joyful numbers Your Protector never slumbers At the will of your Defender Ev’ry foe man must surrender.
Mary loved to play. Life was to be enjoyed–at every opportunity.
Lately, I have been taking morning walks and have discovered a wonderful frisbee/disc golf course. There are numerous “tees” around the city, and I only came across a small portion of them.
Part of the course was in a wooded area. Walking there filled me with peace but also with a knowledge that Mary would have loved it and might even have taken on the challenge with me of doing the whole course someday. That will never happen now.
The other day, my grandkids had fun walking a wee little bit of the Rocky Mount frisbee golf course–using their foam rocket launchers instead of frisbees. We all had fun. But their grandma simply doesn’t have Mary’s imaginative playfulness or youthful exuberance and spontaneity.
And here is a video showing some disc golf technique. I can just see Mary watching this on her computer to figure out how to improve her frisbee throwing skills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ozihP00AA
