  Some days are better than others, like they are for everyone, but&nbsp; today is a good day for me. As of yesterday I officially became the newest chapter coordinator for M.A.D.D. (Mother's Against Drunk Driving). The closest chapter was 2 hours away until now. I've been working on getting the chapter started for a few months. My chapter application was finally approved and the state coordinator met with me yesterday.
This is a cause I have felt strongly about my entire life. My father was an alcoholic who came from a long line of alcoholics. How he never killed himself, or one of us or someone else is beyond me. Luck. Grace. Whatever.
In high school I had a good friend who was killed by a drunk driver. Then 11 years and 6 days ago a drunk driver changed the lives of everyone in my family. She hit my uncle, who was on a bicycle, and the ripple effects anr beyond what anyone could have imagined, even my uncle himself. The drunk driver broke my uncle's C-2 vertabra and now he cannot move from the neck down.&nbsp; Now I live in a ski town and drinking and driving is definately a problem. I'm not crazy enough to think I can save the world but I do believe I can make my little corner of it just a bit safer. I'll probably never know if I saved someone's life, that's all right, I'd like to think I did.
I wrote this story about 2 months ago. It's partly based on fiction but much of it is a degree of reality. Barbara Upton/Rhoat/Holup/Calato was the drunk driver that night and this story is for her and anyone else who gets behind the wheel after "having a few". I love you Jimmy. You are my inspriation, more than you will ever know. &nbsp; I Watched The first time I saw you was on a bright summer day.
You were with your kids, a son and a daughter at the local junior high school. Your son was 12 and played on the school’s baseball team, your daughter was 13 and clearly didn’t want to be wasting her Saturday watching her brother’s game. She would much rather be at the mall with her friends. They were both young and vibrant. I watched them laugh and play as you looked on, smiling at them from the bleachers where you sat, cheering on your son. I soon found out that on most weekends you did things with your kids’ school activities.
On weekdays you would go to work, run your errands or have dinner with friends. It was a pleasant life for a talented nurse. You had gotten your license for nursing three years ago, but I didn’t know you then. No, today was the first day. I heard you were getting married. I know I wasn’t invited but I went to the wedding anyway.
I slipped into the church and watched as you said your vows. I left before it was over though because to see you that happy hurt my heart. I was somewhat pleased when I found out you divorced a year later. I wish I wasn’t; pleased that is. When you got married again I was at the reception. I had taken a job with the hotel and spent the evening serving drinks to your friends and family.
Of course your daughter was only 17 so she toasted you with sparkling cider. Your son was 16 years old and tried his hardest to convince me to give him a beer. That wasn’t going to happen. You smiled from ear to ear and you and your new groom danced the night away. About 10:00pm I went out for a breath of fresh air and never came back. I know the party was scheduled to go on for a few more hours but I had enough of it.
I didn’t get the chance to talk to you. I never even picked up my check from the hotel for the hours that I worked. After all it was the only day I worked for them and what was a few hours pay anyway. A year later, in June, your son graduated high school. You looked so proud of him while you were sitting in the audience. He absolutely beamed with delight as the school principal handed him that parchment.
Like every teenager, it meant freedom. A few months later he was off to college. I can only imagine how delighted you must have been when he told you he was going to study Pre-Med. Two years ago your daughter got married. She was 21 years old and just finished with her Psychology degree. Your husband walked her down the aisle in her beautiful white dress, as you sat in the front row with a tissue in your hand.
Her new husband was a wonderful man. He had recently graduated law school and was sure to make a nice life for your daughter. You were so careful not to smudge your make-up as you wiped away your tears. Those memories will last you a lifetime. I almost said hello to you last Christmas. It was very cold here in New York and the snow was like a beautiful white blanket that covered the ranch style houses in your neighborhood.
I was about to get out of my car to go ring your doorbell when a blue BMW pulled into the drive way. Your daughter and her husband got out of the car, bundled up their new baby boy and went into the house. I was about to leave when another car, an older Toyota, drove up. It was your son and his girlfriend. First year medical students don’t make much money. I guess I let my curiosity get the best of me because instead of going home I got out of my car and walked slowly past the large front window of your house.
I looked in and could see all of you laughing and talking as you opened your presents. Last week I went into the Emergency Room where you work. There wasn’t anything wrong with me but I wanted to talk to you. I told the doctor about some symptoms I was faking and he decided I probably had strep throat since it was going around. He said the nurse would be right in with my prescriptions and discharge paperwork. It was no surprise when five minutes later you came in the room and asked me to sign your forms.
You smiled at me so nicely. I almost wished you had recognized me. Of course, why would you? We had never actually met before. You mentioned you had been a nurse for thirteen years and this was the worst strep season you had ever seen. You tried to be comforting as you saw a tear running down my face as I looked at you.
“Don’t worry sweetie,” you said, “you’ll feel right as rain in a couple of days.” I wonder what you would have done if I told you that I was fine and my tears were from a completely different kind of pain. I wish I could get past it. This afternoon I ran into you at the local coffee shop. You remembered me from the Emergency Room. I’m sure you thought our meeting there was a coincidence but I knew you liked to go there on your days off and read the paper. You invited me to sit with you and I accepted.
You started telling me about your family and all the wonderful things they had done and accomplished over the years. You told me about birthdays, holidays and how close you all are. After about an hour you asked me about my family. I took a deep breath and told you about my uncle who on this very day 10 years ago was riding his bicycle when he was hit by a drunk driver. He is now a quadriplegic. It means he can’t move his arms, legs or any other part of his body now because he is paralyzed from the neck down.
Many times he can’t even breath on his own. I explained how at 37 years old he had to learn to live again because he couldn’t dress, groom, bathe or even feed himself anymore. I let you know how every winter we fear for his life because his weakened immune system leaves him very susceptible to pneumonia which is the leading cause of death in quadriplegics. How he went from a happy and active family man to a divorced dad who lives in a nursing home and only gets to see his children when they come to him. He’s 47 years old and lives in a place where everyone around him is in their seventies and it will always be that way for him. I told you about my two cousins.
Both are girls and the older one is in college now and the younger one will graduate high school this year. You remember graduation don’t you? After all you were at your son’s. Unfortunately my uncle won’t be at his daughter’s graduation, nor will he be able to walk them down the aisle at their wedding, or even watch them open presents on Christmas morning. Just a few of the things parents look forward to. Then I told you about my grandparents who for the last ten years have never gone on a vacation for fear something would happen to my uncle while they were gone.
They also felt as thought they didn’t have the right to travel and enjoy their lives since my uncle no longer had the ability to do the same. These are two people who should be retired and enjoying their golden years traveling and spending time with their grandchildren. Instead my grandmother has been on anti-depressants since the accident. The stress and strain of the accident and trying to keep everything together finally caught up with my grandfather and deteriorated his health so much that he passed away last year. It was then that I saw the tears in your eyes and the sadness in your face. I don’t know what you were thinking but if I had to guess you were probably sorry you had asked me about my family and trying to figure out how to gracefully get out of this uncomfortable situation.
Still, I thought you should know about my mother. My mom and dad moved to California in 1975. Although they were no longer married my mom loved California and decided to stay there. When the accident happened she wasn’t in a position to move back home, so since then she had taken her vacations every year to go back to New York. It was the only way she could see her parents and brother. She was angry at the drunk driver, as anyone would be, and then she would get mad at herself for being angry.
She was hurt that her parents wouldn’t come to California to visit her because they felt they had to stay by my uncle’s side. I mean my uncle wasn’t their only child after all but sometimes she felt as though they forgot that. See the accident not only cost my mom her brother, it also cost her parents. She too has been on anti-depressants for the last ten years. Finally I told you about my sister and myself. Neither one of us know our cousins very well.
The drunk driver changed the dynamics of our family and that opportunity to get to know them was ripped away from us. My sister and I suffer our own psychological traumas and depressions from all of this. A deep sadness and loss you could never understand. Neither of us has faith in the judicial system. Why should we? When the state of New York tried the drunk driver none of those of us effected were there.
The state decided that adequate punishment for destroying the lives of all these people was a $600.00 fine and loss of driving privileges for one year. See at the time the drunk driver was a single parent and the courts felt anything more severe than that would be an undue hardship on the family, after all it was an “accident”. At that point I stopped talking. It was all sinking in for you. A few more tears fell from your eyes. I’m sure you had no idea what to say because you couldn’t even look at me.
It was then you realized that our meeting was not by chance. I knew who you were. I know who you are. You’re the lady that destroyed the lives of everyone I loved. You were at the bar that night, you voluntarily drank yourself into a drunken state, you knew you had too much to drink, you pulled your keys out and put them in the ignition of the car, you started the engine and pulled out onto the road knowing very well you were too intoxicated to drive, then you hit my uncle. So my question is this….
How exactly was it an “accident”? &nbsp; Written By Apollo Garcia 
