Grace was smiling and waving as she stepped off the bus. She looked both ways and started skipping toward me, but in an instant she was gone. Grace was lying on the ground almost 100 feet away. She cried out in pain for her mother and begged for someone to please help her.
Within a few minutes Grace had died, her mother having just reached her side. I stood in silence, watching as my 13-year-old aunt passed away. I was only four years old, but the memory of that day still haunts me. I have dreamt about it and relived it many times. Today was one of those days.
My daughter and her friends had just headed out for school, and I was leaving for work. We reached the crosswalk at the same time, so I stopped my car for the kids to cross over. My daughter was walking in front of my car when a vehicle from the other direction came zooming through the crosswalk.
I can only feel extremely blessed the girls hadn’t reached that side of the crosswalk yet. I honked and yelled at the lady driving to slow down and pay attention, but she was in too much of a hurry to care.
It took me a few minutes to gather my composure – I had been transported back to the day Grace died. My heart was slamming in my chest as I thought how close I had just been to watching my daughter receive that same fate.
My mind fast forwarded to the days following Grace’s death. The woman who’d been too impatient to wait for the school bus to move had surged out around it, not seeing Grace as she crossed the street. The woman was arrested and charged with drunken driving. She had an abundance of prior speeding tickets. She had sped through school zones before, had run red lights and committed various other traffic violations.
Grace’s death tore my family apart. My grandparents retreated within themselves. My uncle, a 16-year-old kid at the time of the accident, began abusing drugs and alcohol in an effort to ease his pain. He felt if he’d only picked her up from school that day, she’d still be alive, never admitting to himself Grace loved riding the bus home because of the cute boy who sat in front of her.
My mother and her two other sisters felt they could do nothing but stand on the sidelines watching the events unfold in front of them; there was no consoling my grandparents. It caused a great divide in our family.
It was years before the family healed. But it wasn’t years for the woman who’d killed Grace; she was set free with a fine for driving recklessly and under the influence of alcohol. That was it. She could live her life. She could hold her children.
I have always taught my daughter to be careful crossing the street. In all honesty though, it still scares me to watch her do it; that shadow of a day so long ago still hovers over me. And it burns me up to see people speeding through our housing area.
I’d be a hypocrite if I said I’d never had a lead foot. I’d guess we are all guilty of speeding, but through housing areas and near schools, it is especially important to slow down.
All the housing areas in the KMC are experiencing the same growing pains right now – construction on top of construction. With the expansions and new housing, everyone is dealing with cramped parking, extra traffic and detours through different parts of the neighborhood each day. This only adds to the hazards for our children as they play, and as they walk to and from school.
As parents, it is our responsibility to protect the children – not just ours, but everyone’s children. We are a community, we are a family and we have to look out for one another. Slowing down in the housing areas and around the schools will help protect our children from the unthinkable.
To this day when I visit my grand-parents, I always visit Grace’s grave. I put pictures of my daughter there. I tell her all about what’s going on in the world today, and I cry. I weep for the loss of a young life so full of promise and for someone I thought hung the moon. And I can’t help but think what those extra seconds that woman could have spent driving more carefully would have meant to my family.
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Grace was smiling and waving as she stepped off the bus. She looked both ways and started skipping toward me, but in an instant she was gone. Grace was lying on the ground almost 100 feet away. She cried out in pain for her mother and begged for someone to please help her.
Within a few minutes Grace had died, her mother having just reached her side. I stood in silence, watching as my 13-year-old aunt passed away. I was only four years old, but the memory of that day still haunts me. I have dreamt about it and relived it many times. Today was one of those days.
My daughter and her friends had just headed out for school, and I was leaving for work. We reached the crosswalk at the same time, so I stopped my car for the kids to cross over. My daughter was walking in front of my car when a vehicle from the other direction came zooming through the crosswalk.
I can only feel extremely blessed the girls hadn’t reached that side of the crosswalk yet. I honked and yelled at the lady driving to slow down and pay attention, but she was in too much of a hurry to care.
It took me a few minutes to gather my composure – I had been transported back to the day Grace died. My heart was slamming in my chest as I thought how close I had just been to watching my daughter receive that same fate.
My mind fast forwarded to the days following Grace’s death. The woman who’d been too impatient to wait for the school bus to move had surged out around it, not seeing Grace as she crossed the street. The woman was arrested and charged with drunken driving. She had an abundance of prior speeding tickets. She had sped through school zones before, had run red lights and committed various other traffic violations.
Grace’s death tore my family apart. My grandparents retreated within themselves. My uncle, a 16-year-old kid at the time of the accident, began abusing drugs and alcohol in an effort to ease his pain. He felt if he’d only picked her up from school that day, she’d still be alive, never admitting to himself Grace loved riding the bus home because of the cute boy who sat in front of her.
My mother and her two other sisters felt they could do nothing but stand on the sidelines watching the events unfold in front of them; there was no consoling my grandparents. It caused a great divide in our family.
It was years before the family healed. But it wasn’t years for the woman who’d killed Grace; she was set free with a fine for driving recklessly and under the influence of alcohol. That was it. She could live her life. She could hold her children.
I have always taught my daughter to be careful crossing the street. In all honesty though, it still scares me to watch her do it; that shadow of a day so long ago still hovers over me. And it burns me up to see people speeding through our housing area.
I’d be a hypocrite if I said I’d never had a lead foot. I’d guess we are all guilty of speeding, but through housing areas and near schools, it is especially important to slow down.
All the housing areas in the KMC are experiencing the same growing pains right now – construction on top of construction. With the expansions and new housing, everyone is dealing with cramped parking, extra traffic and detours through different parts of the neighborhood each day. This only adds to the hazards for our children as they play, and as they walk to and from school.
As parents, it is our responsibility to protect the children – not just ours, but everyone’s children. We are a community, we are a family and we have to look out for one another. Slowing down in the housing areas and around the schools will help protect our children from the unthinkable.
To this day when I visit my grand-parents, I always visit Grace’s grave. I put pictures of my daughter there. I tell her all about what’s going on in the world today, and I cry. I weep for the loss of a young life so full of promise and for someone I thought hung the moon. And I can’t help but think what those extra seconds that woman could have spent driving more carefully would have meant to my family.