A Virginia MADD volunteer victim advocate contacted me and we found that her son and my daughter shared the same obituary page. Her son passed from long-term results of an alcohol-related crash during his childhood. The volunteer victim advocate resided a few miles away and I became a MADD volunteer that late Summer in 2007. I learned that the value of life wasn’t the same across the nation so I decided to help a little more to make it easier for someone else. I would like to share that no amount of impairment by a substance is ok while driving, because threatening the safety of others lives is not right. One hopeful message I want to share with another victim or survivor is that they will eventually begin to cope. Coping doesn’t mean to forget nor forgive; there is hope to get through one minute at a time before the next.
“ ... it’s not the same as when we were all together as a family,
... I couldn’t listen to music for ten years afterwards ... ”
December 2022
29
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease