2,555 Days

Its August 1^st again and it’s been 7 years since we lost them, that’s Two thousand five hundred and fifty five days give or take a few since I last saw Matthew and Ricky. Not one of those days went by without thinking of them.  It was a day just like this one with the sun out and blue skies above, what a nice day it was.

 I remember Ricky and Brian coming over to see if the boys and I wanted to play basketball and telling them that we would be going swimming later that day and them asking if they could come along. I told them that they could come with us if it was alright with their parents. When we left later that afternoon we had no idea that our lives would be forever changed that evening. The five of us packed into a little ford escort heading out for a night of fun at the pool. After getting there we made our way to the water and jumped right in and for the next few hours we had a blast, racing, diving and splashing around. We had invited some of our friends and family to join us that night but only my brother Albert came. Matthew, Patrick, Ricky, Brian and I spent the whole time there in the water having the “best time ever” as the kids would say. But nine o’clock came around and the whistle blew and we headed for the doors. I called home to tell Marisela that we would be home in a little bit as I was hanging up Matthew said that wanted to tell his mom about doing a flip off the diving board but I told him he could tell her when we got home.

  

We all piled into the car and headed to the corner store across the highway and picked up some snacks for the ride home, leaving the store we stopped at a red light right in front of the store. As we sat there I stared up at the light waiting for it to change, Ricky who was sitting in the front passenger seat was trying to get Brian to eat some hot Cheetos or something like it. Brian was sitting in the center of the back seat with Matthew to his right, behind Ricky with Patrick to his left behind me. As we all sat there in that little car waiting for the light to change we had no idea that those were the last few moments of the life we were living. The light turns green and I start to drive. In those next few minutes there was chaos, shouts and screams then there was silence.

 A drunk driver on the highway headed in the opposite direction had lost control of her vehicle went down across the median hit the opposing lanes of traffic and went airborne landing on top of our car crushing the roof down on us.

When the smoke cleared and the people that had stop to help were able to approach the car they found that Ricky and Matthew had been killed in the crash and that Patrick, Brain and I were critically injured.  

It’s been seven years since that day and the heartache and pain of losing them has never really left and sadly, in the last seven years nothing has really changed when it comes to people that drink and drive. Their still out there and an average of 1,100 Texans die each year in alcohol related crashes. 

Matthew and Patrick

Ricky and Brian 

 We have all had some form of tragedy strike our lives but it’s the one that you know can be prevented that are harder to take. Life has too many struggles in itself for us to add to it so never drink and drive.

Sitting On the Edge of the Grand Canyon.

A few years ago we took a trip; one of the stops was at the Grand Canyon.  We had stopped by the visitor center and got some information about what we were about to see. Making our way to the south rim we couldn't see anything from the trail we were on. when we finally got to the rim of the canyon, we were awestruck. Never having seen anything like it in person our minds couldn't grasp the concept of what our eyes were seeing. The sheer wonder of this sight just amazed us. After a few minutes I was able to walk to the edge of the canyon and look straight down. The view of this enormous canyon had my complete attention and for a moment all that was before me was all that existed nothing and no one else was there. That was an experience that one will never forget.  Along with encounters with the wonders of nature and moments of extreme joy such as the birth of a child or the day you wed the love of your life, these are the moments that cause you to fixate your total attention on the event at hand. For those few minutes or hours everything else has faded away.

Unfortunately this also happens when you experience the loss of a loved one. But this one lingers on, sometimes on the surface of our lives but most of the time it lies just beneath. Just like sitting on edge of the Grand Canyon it’s hard to see beyond what is in front of us.  From the moment we lost Matthew and Ricky the heartache and pain was tremendous, nothing was the same, yes we saw and even talked to those around us. But they were our children and now they were gone and the loss of them is devastating. Everything we did afterwards was just a façade of the life we live before. The impact it had on me, Patrick and Brain (the survivors of the crash) left us so deeply affected that you could see it on us aside from the physical injuries. It was the physical manifestation of the devastation of losing a son, a little brother and best friend that we could not see past leaving us with only memories and questions.  How could this happen to them, these two boys who had so much to offer this world.

 Matthew my son, my baby boy was so full of life and potential I knew him from the moment he took his first breath till the day he took his last and remember every smile, laugh and tear in between. Ricky the little boy from across the street, He was my friend. I meet him when he was around five or six, a little while after we move into the neighborhood. He was a good kid with a kind heart and a fluffy head. I watched him grow up into a young man with everything to look forward too. My boys and Ricky, his brother Petey and Brian (our neighbor from a few house down) gave me an excuse to be a kid again, we played basketball had water balloon fights, which almost always turned into cups of ice cold water fights. So when a drunk driver took Ricky and Matthews’s life it was as if a Grand Canyon of sorrow opened up in front of us.     

So that’s where we live our live just a few steps away for this canyon of sorrow and we just go about our lives accustom to it presence. So the other day when I got a call out of the blue from old friend from church, he had been my boys Royal Ranger leader( it’s like the boy scouts but in a church setting) I didn't think anything of it other than it was a call to say hey. We exchanged greetings and then he told me that he was getting ready to move and was going through some old boxes. In one of the boxes he found some old pictures from church and as he went through them he found a picture of the boys from the Royal Ranger troop. With a choked up voice He said “Matthew is in it”, then came a long pause. With tears welling up in my eyes and through the silence he conveyed this message to me “I remember him, I loved him too and I miss him.”  At that moment I realized that he was not speaking to me from some far off place but that he too was sitting on edge of this canyon. He was experiencing some of the same hurt that I was.  The call was a reminder that although we as the parent, spouse, sibling or child may be experiencing the loss of a loved one firsthand, we have to remember others lost them too. So as you sit on the edge of this great grand canyon of sorrow and you can't see beyond it remember to look to your side and see that there are others with you and so am I.

Edward

Manslaughter to Murder

Over the last few days I read two articles on Mysa.com, one was

A decade later, probation still stings for officer's widow

and the other

Drunk driving can be murder

Both by 

By Craig Kapitan, Staff Writer at the Express news/ Mysa.com

 Both of which involved a drunk driver killing someone. One was the case of Mrs. France Ford who killed Mr. Lawrence Belcher in 2010. She was charged with murder for killing Mr. Belcher while driving drunk, most would say that the murder charge is excessive but the reality is that what Mr. Ford did, she did knowingly.  Getting behind the wheel of her car and deciding to place herself and others in imminent danger. She knew from previous arrest that what she was doing was deadly. Having been arrested twice before she must have attended alcohol awareness classes and may have even heard firsthand account of how deadly drunk driving can be if she attend a Victim impact panel. With all the information and knowledge she gained for her past experiences she still decided to drink and drive and in doing so killed Mr. Belcher. There was no reason for her to get into a car after she had been drinking.

In the other case a drunk driver (Simon Cordova) fell asleep at the wheel and struck Sgt Paul Rangel personal car which lead to his death a few hours later. Cordova was tried back in 2002 and was given probation. What I see is wrong with that is that he knew that he was drunk and that he should not been driving and admitted as much by saying that he tried to sleep it off. This was not an accident or mistake which intoxication manslaughter states as a reason for the death. Although he was intoxicated he knew what he was doing because of his initial effort to avoid the action.

 Take a look at what the Texas penal code says in regards to intoxication manslaughter.

Sec. 49.08.  INTOXICATION MANSLAUGHTER.  (a)  A person commits an offense if the person:

(1)  Operates a motor vehicle in a public place, operates an aircraft, a watercraft, or an amusement ride, or assembles a mobile amusement ride;  and

(2)  Is intoxicated and by reason of that intoxication causes the death of another by accident or mistake.

The Definition of       

•   Accident is: An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
•   Mistake  is: An action or judgment that is misguided or wrong:

Neither of these drunk drivers accidentally or mistakenly caused the death of there victims by reason of their intoxication, they both made conscious decisions to drive.  

  

Everyone by now knows that drinking and driving shouldn't be done. There are ads that run on TV, radio and on the web warning of its dangers, along with the alcoholic beverage industry that encourages its consumers to act with responsibility (at least in their ads.) Therefore the words of that statute for intoxication manslaughter would only apply if a person had never heard that it is not only dangerous but deadly to drive while intoxicated. And that same person had never been intoxicated before the incident that caused the death of someone. So anyone choosing to commit the act of driving while intoxicated and by choosing to commit that act causes the death of someone would not fit this definition.  It would not apply to a person who had ever been charged with DWI or even public intoxication or gotten an M.I.P. Due to the fact that most of those that are charged and/or convicted with those offences are often required to attend an alcohol awareness class and/or a victim impact panel.  Anyone with a previous DWI arrest would knowingly commit this crime and therefore know firsthand how deadly this act is and would NOT have done by reason of  intoxication so by accident or mistake but by knowingly acting recklessly. This would change the degree of the crime from Manslaughter to Murder.  

Those are my thoughts,
What do you think?


Edward