Every 15 Minutes, 2007

The following is the letter I wrote for Rachel's "memorial" when she asked us to participate in the Every 15 Minutes program the year she graduated, 2007. I remembered writing it, but I forgot what I wrote and where I put the letter after it was sent back to us by the director of the program in our area that year, April Hines. I found the letter recently as I was rummaging through a suitcase that contains many of my old papers and writings.

The event was heartrendingly real, emotionally speaking, even though we knew our daughter would be returned to us, safe and sound, at the end. We barely got through it, and were only willing because Rachel was passionate about participating. Jill and I had already been through so much: As a teenager, Jill had been hit by a drunk driver and her two best friends riding with her, Paige Roark and Theresa Motta, were killed; my best friend, Erik Kolar, died from Leukemia when I was 23 and my own sister, Vanessa Alexis Elliott, was killed in a non-alchohol related single-car accident while she was living with me and Jill and our children. Death and tragedy were already too real for us. The things you do for love...

Rachel ~

We are old enough to know the worst things can happen. We always hoped and prayed it would never happen to us. But here we are…

Because of the tragedies of the past, we always knew we needed to love you now. If we were taken from you suddenly, we didn’t want to leave you wondering how much we cherished you, how truly special and beautiful a young lady we knew you to be, how very proud we are of your accomplishments and your character. But, now, it is you who are gone, and we are left to wonder… Did you know? Did we make the most of those precious, fleeting moments God granted us to walk this earth with you?

Rachel, we have been so blessed to be your parents. You could not, and you will never know the joy you brought us, just being you, just being our little girl. 

We promise you we will not allow the bitterness of this senseless accident poison our memories of you. This will have to be God’s work. Your future was so bright in our eyes, and you were so ready for it. We don’t understand how anyone, drunk or sober, could deprive you of it. Once again, we will have to trust in the wisdom and goodness of God. His promise that everything works together for good and our conviction that you are in a better place are our only consolations now. With His help, that is enough.

We love you, Rachel. If only we could say it to your face.

Mom & Dad

Independence Day

Elva Diaz was released from prison over a year ago, July 4, 2015. I wanted to write about it then but couldn't find the words. We always knew the day would come, that there was a date on the calendar somewhere that would forever mark the day of her release. I can't help but feel it is some kind of cruel irony that it turned out to be Independence Day.

By the State's calculus, Elva Diaz was credited with double time for time served of her 10 year sentence for Gross Vehicular Manslaughter. She spent over a year in county jail awaiting trial. So, after sentencing she spent 4 years in prison and was released on parole.

Hereafter, July 4th will be celebrated by Elva Diaz and her family as the day she finally paid off her debt to society for her crimes, was liberated from prison, and set free to begin a new chapter in her life. It means the end of the consequences she must suffer for taking Rachel's life. Elva's life will resume now much the same shape it had before the night of February 21, 2008. I'm still not sure what it means for us, but every year another celebration will be tainted with the memory of what we lost.

And that is just the way it is. And we, Rachel's family, must be learn to be satisfied and to let go of any desire for retribution. I still don't know what justice is, but I know that balance has not been restored. In a case like this, that was always an impossibility, though we may not always have acknowledged it.

The following is a transcript of text messages to and from a friend, transmitted on the date of Elva Diaz's release. The words of my friend are wise, and I have had over a year now to consider them. I'm not saying I am there yet, but they serve as a signpost for the way ahead...

7/4/15, 9:48 AM

Don't know if I told you, but Elva Diaz is being released today. They moved the date up to July 4th - Independence Day. Fitting for her but kind of a slap in the face to us. In any case, a new chapter begins...

Happy 4th!

7/4/15, 1:25 PM 

I hope this really does mark the end of a chapter for you both; say, the end of the Elva Diaz chapter. 

    If you never have to hear an update on this person again, if that chapter can start to close today, then this marks a kind of your Independence Day for you guys, and however she thinks of it is her own concern. 

    Goodbye, Elva Diaz. 

     

     And Happy July Fourth, my friends.

Sand Sculptures

Jill and I spoke at a recent Every 15 Minutes program for Biggs High School. Well, really, Jill spoke, and I sat and tried to hold myself together.

The kids who participated in the program are the good kids. Good kids aren’t the problem. It was obvious we were preaching to the choir. 

Rachel was one of the good kids. She wouldn’t drink and drive, and she wouldn’t let her friends.

Still: she was killed by a drunk driver. 

I’ve been over it thousands of times in my mind. There was nothing Rachel could do to prevent it. She did all she could do. There was nothing I could do to save her. That night Rachel’s life was in Elva Diaz’ hands… Only Elva didn’t know it. I’m not really calloused enough to claim she wouldn’t have cared, wouldn’t have acted differently if she had known. Alcohol made her stupid and careless.

What message from Rachel’s story could we relay to a group of good kids that aren’t part of the problem? We have no assurances. We can make no promises. We were at a loss for words. 

You can prevent yourself from killing yourself or someone else by driving while intoxicated, which is sufficient reason. But there is nothing you can do to prevent a drunk driver from killing you. I’m not saying there aren’t things that can decrease the likelihood. You can stay off the road. You can stay home. But people have been killed in crosswalks, on the sidewalk, people have been killed by drunk drivers while they were sitting in their living rooms.

You can pray for protection. 

But we tried that too, and it didn’t work.

We could tell from their questions that most of the Biggs High School kids are Christians. We confessed to them our faith and our confusion, our anger and our sadness. They came up afterwards to console and encourage us. It was sweet and compassionate - a decent, human thing to do.

When Darryl Spessard shared the story of how the life of his precious daughter, Andrea, had been taken by a drunk driver with Rachel’s High School during the Every 15 Minutes event at Orland High School her Senior year, Rachel had reached out to him with compassion and sympathy. The very student that played the part that Rachel had played - the victim who dies at the hospital - came to comfort us as Rachel had done. 

Rachel was that exactly that kid. There he was, and Rachel was gone. I couldn’t help wonder what would happen to him...

We were asked what lessons we had learned. The assumption underlying the question is that there is some meaning, some greater purpose to Rachel’s death. 

What sprang to mind was Anne Lammott’s words from her book, Help, Thanks, Wow: “Any snappy explanation for suffering you come up with will be horseshit.” But that’s not what I said. 

I said something like, “I don’t want to leave the impression that everything that has emerged from Rachel’s death has been bad. We have learned some really important lessons, we have experienced some really good things, met some really wonderful people we may have not have otherwise. In many ways, we are better people than we might have been. But all these things have come at too terrible a price. We’d rather have Rachel.”

My answer was honest enough, I thought, but not too honest.

This I know: Life isn’t predictable or safe. Eventually, it will kill you.

I heard the mother of one of the victims killed by the bombing at the Boston Marathon say, “It’s such a waste.”

I know the feeling.

Since Rachel was killed I have been haunted by the fruitlessness of her life, the senselessness of her death - the tragedy, the waste of it. 

Her death was not only a waste of her life, but of mine. I don’t know if time is money - but it is life. I’m reading a book called, The Exquisite Risk, by Mark Nepo. He says, “...wealth is time, not money.” Time is the real, precious currency of our lives. 

I spent my time, my life loving Rachel, and now she is gone.

What do I have to show for it?

A sand sculpture erased by the tide. I kept the ocean to my back, forgot it was there. Perhaps I supposed this one so worthy and beautiful surely would be spared...

The question now with the tide coming in, is love a good investment?

I don’t like the way the way things turned out, but I’m still convinced time spent loving Rachel was not time wasted. I love her still. Grief is only love in distressing disguise.

I believe - and this is my belief - I’m not going to blow anyone up to prove its veracity: Time spent loving is life well spent. I believe love is never wasted.

The bargain of life and of love is death and loss. These are not unexpected contingencies. They do not and cannot present insurmountable obstacles to love. We do not cease to love because we know we will lose, anymore than we cease to live because we know we will die.

James Joyce said, “We have only this one short life in which to love.” 

The challenge of life is to find the courage to love in passing. To go, loving. To love and let go. There is no other way to love in this world. And no better way to spend whatever time we have left.

Storytelling

“There was another life I might have had, but I am having this one.”

Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go

It’s been nearly five years since Rachel was killed. Shortly afterwards, Jill and I had dinner with a couple who had lost their son nearly ten years earlier. I knew they knew how we felt because already the man had asked me questions I hadn’t told anybody were on my mind. The burning question, I think, for both me and Jill the night we had dinner was: “Will we ever get over this?”

From my current vantage point, I can see the foolishness of the question. Then, we hadn’t yet fully absorbed the reality of what we were facing: the rest of our lives without our daughter. We were desperate for hope from someone who had walked the road ahead of us. The couple answered our question as compassionately and honestly as they could. Ten years after his death, they told us, they still weren’t over the loss of their son. For as long as they walked this earth, they never expected they would be. The going get easier, but it never gets easy; the hurt gets better, but it never goes away. We should have known. They had learned to live without him, as harsh as that may sound. In Life of Pi, Yann Martel says, “You can get used to anything...isn’t that what all survivors say?” And while getting accustomed to the loss of a child seems at first unimaginable, undesirable, heartless even, it ends up, after all, to be sadly, horrifically...possible. Perhaps even necessary. Our hearts sank there at the table as we imagined the road ahead. We didn’t want to drink this cup, but drink it we would, together. A bitter communion. 

The man we had dinner with occasionally attended and preached at our church. He had formerly been an elder. I took his place on the board. The couple had ceased attending before Jill and I began. I don’t think we had met the woman before the night of our dinner. Though I never knew exactly why she quit going to church with her husband, it is reasonable to assume she had spiritual difficulties in the aftermath of her son’s death that made it impossible for her. They may have had some understandable and all too common marital problems. I detected some uncharitable attitudes about her and the choices they had made... 

In the days before Rachel’s death I thought of the man as a tragic and somewhat heroic figure. I admired him, but, of course, I did not envy him. I remember being always aware of his loss, even when it wasn’t explicitly mentioned or acknowledged. Like talking to someone behind glass. You can have a normal enough conversation, but there’s always that between you. Content to just admire and pity him from a distance, I never wanted to know how this man had managed to survive. Like most, I didn’t think I could. I recognized it could have been me in his shoes, but I was so shamefully relieved I didn’t have to wear them that I never wanted to tempt fate by getting too close.

I recently heard a radio broadcast of a Jewish mother who had lost her son to a Palestinian sniper. She said that those who manage to survive the loss of a child must choose to live. Is that what happened? Did I choose to survive? I don’t remember, not consciously, anyway. Many nights I would have been content to close my eyes on this world and wake up in the next… But there is always something that must be done in the morning.

Predictably, Jill and I quit attending church. We made a valiant attempt to hang in there; we really did. But after some developments that required further commitment and demanded more involvement, we finally had a long talk in the hot tub and confessed to each other that we simply no longer had the heart for it. Though I still cannot articulate why, church had become more hurtful than helpful for both of us, and we couldn't stand pretending otherwise any more. We realized that we weren’t serving anyone, least of all ourselves, by staying there when we lacked any true desire. We haven’t been back to the last church we attended as an intact family since the end of last December. It turned out to be almost like an unintentional New Year’s resolution - except that we have uncharacteristically nearly perfectly kept it.  Our year without Jesus…

After writing that last sentence, I Googled it to see if anyone had written on that topic, and I found this blog post: https://rivercityrevolution.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/a-year-without-jesus/ The author speculates about the antithesis of a popular book from a few years back called, My Jesus Year. He qualifies his blog entry as merely “a thought experiment”, confesses how easy it would be to fall into the (bad, selfish, lazy) habits of “pretend atheism” and cautions people against actually trying the experiment for themselves at home. I have to admit, it’s scary how easy it is has been to drop the routine of a lifetime.

It would be an exaggeration, though, to say that Jill and I have lived like atheists for the last year. Practical agnostics, maybe. The truth is, God is still a central figure in our lives, even though we are less certain than we have ever been about who He is, what He is like, and what we can expect from a relationship with Him.

God and church are two distinctly different things. The Bible asserts that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Jesus, Immanuel - God with us - made an unqualified promise that he would never leave us nor forsake us. I learned from Oswald Chambers that because we lose our old idea of God does not mean we have thereby lost God, and the loss of our former form of belief and the birth of a realization more closely approximating the truth is perhaps always and necessarily painful and traumatic. Did we really believe the truth could be cheaply and painlessly acquired? Doubt is as undeniable and inevitable in this life as pain, loss, confusion, and disappointment. Christ felt abandoned on the cross, but I don’t believe even he ever really lost God. I don’t think that is possible. I hope not. When walk out of church, God inhabits the world we encounter outside the door. I really believe God is always with us, as near to and indistinguishable from our very breath and being. 

Dan Haseltine, the lead singer of Jars of Clay, recently blogged about his break with the traditional evangelical church. He said, “I have to believe that God is in our story.” It isn’t good enough for him or for me anymore to be told what to believe about God. We each have our own experience that has brought us to the place where we now find, or have lost, ourselves. Through no fault of our own we have fallen out of step with the rest of the parade. It wasn’t our plan. I was content teaching Sunday School every Sunday, preaching, serving as an elder. I would happily have remained in that place if I hadn’t been removed by forces beyond my control. Sometimes, surrender is the only viable course of action. Maya Angelou said, “...life...taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, (is) as honorable as resistance, especially if one (has) no choice.” 

If God is in our story, and our story takes where we do not want to go, then it is an act of faith to surrender and trust that God has something vital to teach us along the way. Nothing else makes any sense to me. Right now it’s the only faith I have. In Life of Pi, the main character tells the inquiring writer that he will tell him a story that will make him believe in God. It is his story, of course. How else could he know? Martin Luther, the original Reformer, said, “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also in the trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” I would add, he also writes it in our hearts and with our lives. How else could we believe?

3:31...

I lay with my eyes closed in the darkness, awake.

*

The day before I carried the obvious truth like a hidden wound, acting as if I could live with it, as if anybody could. We had lunch with family in my sister’s restaurant, Farwood Bar & Grill. Unless you already knew the story, you could not have guessed. And I did enjoy our time together, because I realize more than ever that every moment with those we love is precious. But I am living a double life: living with gratitude while carrying this grief. Maybe life is never simple, but always double, triple, multiple. I walked around all day, thinking, “Four years ago today, this was the last day Rachel walked this earth. What was she doing at this moment four years ago? What was she thinking? What was I?” Blissfully ignorant. Thinking it would go on like this forever, or something approaching it. That there would always be more time…

I had a dream or a vision, what ever you would call it. Rachel pulled up to the curb in her Honda. Jill and I were out working in the yard. I put down whatever was in my hand and walked toward her with wonder. Jill too. Rachel jumped out of her car and ran across the yard to meet us, beaming, delighted, I think, to surprise us. She had been gone a long time, and we weren’t expecting her. There was this beautiful moment of joy before the realization that she was really dead and I was only dreaming...

It always feels like a betrayal to be able to go on living. Those who know better will say that is unhealthy thinking. It is, I know. I turned 50 on February 6. Jill and I spent the weekend in the Anderson Valley to celebrate our 24^th anniversary. We took the long way home, touring the wine country just waking into spring, and stopped at a couple of unique places to eat we had seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. It was a beautiful weekend in every way. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was taking my leave, saying goodbye, likely never to pass this way again. I was painfully conscious that I was just passing through, that this strange and beautiful world...this life...doesn’t belong to me anymore, if it ever did. Though we mostly don’t behave like guests, but rather like we own the place and are trying our best to use it up, the truth is that we are only visiting here. But I suspect it is a dangerous mistake to let that keep us from forming attachments…

So, my birthday, February 6, was a Monday. We were stepping back into our routine after our extraordinary weekend. I wanted to be big about it, so I got out of bed as usual, made the coffee while Jill took her shower, and then sat in bed to read to her from the Daily Bible. As I read, a horrible awareness crept upon me: This was the passage we had read the morning Rachel was killed. I tried to read as if nothing was wrong, like I didn’t notice, but Jill stopped me to confirm the realization that was dawning on her, too. It was 5:00 a.m. and, after that, my day was already over...

Of course, I wonder about such coincidence. The day before, while driving through the wine country, different renditions of Amazing Grace had played back-to-back on the iPhone we were playing on shuffle through the car stereo. I asked Jill if she thought my smart phone was smart enough to know it was Sunday. Or maybe it was a sign?

We are haunted by the presentiment that maybe there is more to this life than the surface suggests. And tortured by the misgiving that maybe there isn’t.

The passage from Proverbs for that same day says, “The Lord directs a person’s steps. Why should we fret to understand every step along the way?” It’s true, I don’t know where I am going, so it is impossible for me to judge whether I am taking one true step in the right direction. Wiser souls would counsel me to let it go and simply let it be what it is. I’m not there yet.

Jill and I are reading Joan Chittister’s spiritual memoir, “Called to Question.” I am surely contorting the passage to fit my own interpretation, but she says, “Life is not about getting God. Life is about growing in God.” Presumably, we are all always in God, because there is no outside. She goes on to say, “We ripen. We learn. We hurt. We survive one thing after another. And we go on...in the end, we gain what we came to get...One way or another life batters us until we get the unavoidable. Sometimes we get it with glory; sometimes we get it in disgrace…” The God who is life inexorably teaches us. We learn what we need to know. We are not our own. We do not know who or what we are to become. We simply trust the process, and the God of life whom we can only hope controls it.

What kind of terrible faith is this?

The morning I woke up to that passage, I took it as a cruel cosmic joke.

That is the human problem, older than Job, with which those who suffer struggle: Is the God who guides the process loving, indifferent, or malevolent? Does God torture us for amusement? What are we to make of this mess?

The problem with my interpretation of events is that it flies in the face of the message of the passage. It is the passage in Ezra that affirms, “God is good. His faithful love endures forever.”

In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, does love really guide the universe?

I have come to the conclusion that I over-reacted. I don’t blame myself. One emotional law I have learned is that in the absence of convincing proof to the contrary (and, really, what is proof?), the most loving explanation is correct. I guess you could call it the benefit of the doubt theorem...or the benefit of faith. If God really is good, as I have heard and still, tremulously, believe, and really does love me with a love that endures forever and transcends time and circumstance, then it is just possible that reading that passage on my 50^th birthday was God’s way of telling me I am loved - in spite of everything.

As Theodore Roethke said, “I learn by going where I have to go.”

*

This morning, February 21, 2012, I awoke and kept my eyes closed in the darkness. When I finally opened them and looked at the clock it was 3:31 a.m. One minute after Rachel was pronounced dead four years ago. The beginning of the rest of my life…

“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.”

Theodore Roethke - “The Waking”

Snapshots Along The Way

Here are few snapshots of the past few months:

Jill and I went Christmas shopping, and had a pleasant enough experience. We decided to have lunch at Chili’s. At a table near us, a family was having a birthday celebration for their college age daughter. They sang happy birthday. Her name was Rachel. Of course it was…

When we traveled to southern California for Christmas we passed a car with a bumpersticker that read: “Freedom Isn’t Free. My grandson died for it!” In a way, Rachel, too, died for the sake of freedom: The freedom to drink and drive. No one celebrates her heroism, though. True, she did not choose her sacrifice or volunteer to put herself in harm’s way. With no greater protection than her blind faith in the goodwill of her fellow drivers, she took her chance, as we all do, every day. Now look at us. God bless America...

I get Google alerts for “DUI Homicide”. I don’t read them anymore. It is the same sad, maddening story every day. Nothing has changed. Rachel is dead. The world wasn’t impressed enough to change. How many more Rachel’s it will take until it does, I am too sick to reckon…

Two days before his 21^st birthday, our son, Erik, and his friend, Amanda (whose boyfriend Aaron was killed in a drunk driving incident), were rear-ended at an intersection by a 17 year old girl. The impact propelled his car into middle of the intersection. Fortunately, nobody was crossing at the time. His car was totaled, though. The driver’s mother, who carried the insurance, is underinsured and will not cover the cost of replacement. Happy Birthday! Jill and I were in Chico that night, going to see the movie, The Way, by Emilio Estevez, about a man who carries his son’s ashes as he finishes his son’s pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Erik didn’t have the heart to call us that night. He waited to call us in the morning until he knew we would be home from church. Another phone call. Another reminder of the fragility of life, of how slim the thread by which all our hopes hang...

No Christmas tree. No holiday music. A pile of cards stacked on the dining room buffet were the only evidence of the season inside our house. We didn’t have the heart for it, and because we were going to be in southern California, we had a good enough excuse not to make the effort. We put up a wreath and lights outside. Any casual observer would never know there was a completely dispirited couple making a show of life inside. True, it wasn’t as dreadful as it has been. I don’t know if we are showing signs of improvement, though. We were numb, indifferent, going through the motions. Merry Christmas!...

Dispirited. I received an email invitation from the Abbey of the Arts to consider seeking out a word that would guide my spiritual direction for the coming year. The word that was given to me is: “dispirited.” Hardly encouraging. But true. I recognized the truth of it the instant I heard it, and, as I lay on my bed listening, I heard it all night long. So there was no mistake. It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. It’s necessary first to acknowledge the problem, to find the starting point, before we can take a step in the right direction toward wholeness. Jill and I have already begun to do that. I don’t know where it will end. By the grace of God, the grace of God…

Some of Rachel and Erik’s friends visited us while we were down south. There was a moment when two of Rachel’s friends were sitting on the sofa with a space between them, and I had the distinct thought: Rachel should be sitting right there in that spot, laughing with her friends, discussing her job, her school (no, she would be finished with school by now), her boyfriend (or husband, or child…)with them. I let it go. I tried to be thankful for the gift of the presence of those who were there in the moment. A step in the right direction. Still: How much more beautiful the world would be if only Rachel were here…

I had to get out of the house, so I revisited Mt. Rubidoux. I walked to the cross at the top of the mountain to watch the sun rise. I went seeking something, but I did not know what I wanted. Though I did not receive anything tangible, I did come away with the conviction that many other seekers have walked the same path up the mountain with a heavy heart. I found signs along the way...

The cross is a holy emblem that reminds us of a noble act and a sacred idea. But as I observed the birds, the coyotes, the people on the mountain that morning, I had to acknowledge that they were no less holy than the cross I had made the goal of my pilgrimage.

I am reading Charles Frazier’s Thirteen Moons. The protagonist describes a Native American he knew, called Bear: “Bear loved all the tangible manifestations of Creation as fervently as Baptists do King Jesus. It was not the spirit of winds, rivers, mountains, trees that he worshiped, it was the living things themselves.” The living things themselves... The phrase resonates. One of the things I have come to appreciate more painfully than I ever thought possible is just that: the unique and irreplaceable precious life of each individual. The holiness of life expressed in every particular. Rachel is just one of the billions of humans that have ever lived. There has never been and there will never be another. How is it possible to live with the loss of something so uniquely precious? That is what I am dying to find out…

STATEMENT

The following is the Victim's Impact Statement I made in Riverside Superior Court, August 5, 2011 in People VS Elva Diaz, convicted of Gross Vehicular Manslaughter and sentenced to the aggravated term of ten years. It was one of eight Victim's Impact Statements presented to the court on that day and one of 31 submitted in writing for the court's consideration. It is by no means the best.

Honorable Judge Mark Johnson:

My name is Steven Winebrener Elliott. I am the father of Rachel Amaris Elliott.

First, I want to thank you for presiding over the trial in such a fair and reasonable manner. I don’t say this to flatter or manipulate you in any way: This is simply the only opportunity I may have to express my gratitude.

Because of the way you conducted the trial, I have the confidence that you will justly sentence the woman responsible for killing my daughter.

During the trial, you recessed the proceedings for a morning so that a juror could accompany her minor daughter to the airport. You said more than once that you honored the juror’s request because you are a father of a 14-1/2 year old daughter yourself and would want to send her off personally if she were going on a trip on an airplane. From this, I know that you understand a father’s love for his daughter. There are things words cannot express. My love for Rachel is one of them. I am grateful that I have the confidence that you already know what Rachel means to me, because you obviously love your own daughter and can imagine the horror of losing her.

Your Honor, Rachel didn’t deserve to die. Rachel wasn’t sick. She wasn’t careless. Her death was not an accident. It was not her fault. It was senseless and sickeningly violent. Rachel loved life and made the most of it. I want to impress upon you and everyone else in this courtroom who never had and has now forever been denied the opportunity to know Rachel personally, the kind of person she was in life, and the precious daughter she was to me.

My wife and I tried to teach respect for the law, personal responsibility, compassion, and the value of hard work to our children, and we have tried to model these virtues in our own lives. Rachel learned these lessons well, and was a remarkably capable, responsible, and caring young woman. She knew even before she learned to drive that driving while intoxicated is dangerous to human life, and she worked hard to prevent it.

I am a family man. I don’t have a college degree. I have worked hard, long hours in construction all my adult life to provide for my family. The best I have to show for my efforts is a loving wife and two wonderful children. Now I have one.

I married the woman I love, and we decided to raise children together. We had just two, and God blessed us with first a girl and then a boy. Before the kids went to school, Jill, my wife, stayed home to care for them. It was difficult, but we managed to scrape by.

The night of June 23, 1989 was the most wonderful night of my life. I recognized instantly that Rachel was a miracle straight from the hands of God. I felt the weight of responsibility as I held her in my arms. I wanted to prove myself worthy of this priceless gift. I made it my life’s devotion to nurture and protect her.

Rachel was a precocious child. She began talking when she was only 7 months old, and, to my delight, her first word was “Da-Da.” Every night before I put her to bed I would take Rachel outside to say, “Good-night” to the stars. I would read to her, pray with her and for her, and sing her to sleep.

As she grew, Rachel continued to give me cause for wonder. She loved to sing, and had a beautiful voice. She was bright and beautiful and affectionate and a delight to everyone who knew her. When she was in junior high school, she asked me to baptize her. She revealed a tender, compassionate heart, a passion for justice, an incisive intelligence, and a native drive for achievement and excellence that we, her parents, only wish we could take credit for. Jill and I simply marveled at the outstanding woman Rachel was becoming in every way right in front of our very eyes.

Just like every other human being, Rachel wasn’t perfect. She was strong-willed and so intelligent that maintaining our authority as her parents was always a struggle. Sometimes we had to concede that she honestly knew better than we did. I always had the suspicion that the very traits that sometimes made life with Rachel difficult would eventually prove to be her greatest strengths. We tried not to break her independent spirit, but to foster in her a desire to use her power for good. We tried to encourage her to use the gifts and opportunities she was given to bless and benefit others.

And in her short life, Rachel did. I was always proud of her. I was never more proud than on the day this photo was taken. It was taken at her Senior Awards Ceremony. She literally received more awards and scholarships than she was able to carry back to her car by herself. We had to help her. I am not alone in my conviction that Rachel could have been or done anything she desired. Her gifts and abilities were matched with the drive and ambition that is essential to achievement. Sadly, some of the scholarships Rachel received that day had to be returned. She didn’t have time to use them.

A Victim’s Impact Statement is supposed to be about how I have suffered and what I have lost personally. But it is difficult to speak about my losses when I measure them against what Rachel has lost: Her life, upon which every other gift, right and privilege depends. Obviously, I have lost a daughter; a good daughter; my only daughter. I have had no greater joy in this life than being Rachel’s Daddy. As a husband and father, there is nothing on this earth I cherish more dearly than my family. I would gladly give my life for any one of them. I wish I could trade my life for Rachel’s. I wish I could have bargained for Rachel’s life as Elva Diaz has bargained for her freedom; I wish I could have defended Rachel’s life as Aimee Vierra has defended Elva Diaz’ freedom. The lives of my family are the only thing in this world I would not, under any circumstances, willingly give. Nevertheless, Rachel’s life was taken from her, from me, from this world, by a 28 year-old mother and former ambulance driver/emt who couldn’t be bothered or persuaded to find another way home after a night of binge drinking. It is so infuriatingly and tragically senseless...No excuse or explanation can change that brutal fact.

I want Ms Diaz to know something: Rachel might not have been alone in her car the night of February 21, 2008. Our son, Erik, was visiting friends down here in Riverside the night Rachel was killed. Before she left to visit the family of her junior high school friend in Corona, she invited my son and their two friends, Spencer and Emily Osborne, to go with her. By God’s grace, or dumb luck, they declined. Otherwise, Ms Diaz, the life-saver, would have been responsible for the deaths of four wonderful young people that night. She would have completely wiped out the work of the best 20 years of our marriage and left Jill and me with nothing to show for it but memories and ashes. She would have been responsible for the devastation of two families. When she refused to be dissuaded from driving home drunk from Sportman’s Bar, did she not care that it could just as easily have been her own child rounding the curve in the opposite lane of traffic? But it wasn’t her own child: it was mine.

The news that Rachel had been killed came on a day like so many other days, catching us in the middle of our routine. In many ways it was like we too were hit head-on by an SUV.

Imagine your cell phone rings as you are on your way to work in the morning. You are making the same drive you have made a thousand other mornings, past all the familiar landmarks. Thoughts of the day’s obligations occupy your mind. But this phone call is unlike the thousands of others you have received at times and places like these. Everything has changed for you; you just don’t know it yet. Your life as you knew it is already over. Every hope and dream you had of a happy and joyful future is dead. While you slept your precious daughter was dying. While you went about your morning routine, you had no idea that the life you built with the woman you love was already in ruins. Your little girl, the only one who called you “Daddy”, is gone and there is no bringing her back. You answer the phone and take the news.

Suddenly you are thrown into an unfamiliar universe. You have considered what your family would do if you were to die unexpectedly. But this possibility has never entered your mind. It’s not supposed to happen like this. People are sympathetic, but they need answers: What will you do with Rachel’s body? Will you have a funeral or memorial service? When and where will it be held, and who will officiate? Will there be music? What charities will you recommend as memorial recipients? Will you write an obituary? How will you summarize your daughter’s life? How can you? There are too many deadlines... Everyone you look at is confused and in pain. Everyone needs help, but you have nothing to offer, because you can’t even help yourself; you can barely function. And that was just the beginning of sorrows...

I have suffered in every way imaginable over the three and a half years since Rachel was killed. My father, wife and I run a small business. Three-fourths of our work-force has been crippled by grief and the financial and time demands of a fugitive hunt and this judicial process. I have suffered emotionally and spiritually, though I can’t begin to describe it: The light of my life has gone out, and I fumble in the darkness. I have been plagued with depression and mysterious, stress-related digestive disorders that have gone undiagnosed for almost 2 years. I am not the man I was. I believe I never will be.

Sometimes I glimpse a young woman with the sunshine glowing on her shoulders and the breeze ruffling the little hairs at the back of her neck. Her reality reduces me to tears - just the simple, miraculous fact of her life. Rachel was a real girl like that once. Rachel should be laughing in the sunshine, texting her friends, ordering take-out, falling in love. She should be.

One of the most devastating effects of Rachel’s death has been what it has done to the young people who knew her - our son, Erik, Rachel’s brother, especially. Rachel was the one who kept her friends out of trouble. When they would drink, she would insist on driving them home. She studied while they partied. She worked while they played. She cared while they pursued their selfish interests. When a person like Rachel is deprived of life and denied the rewards that come from her hard work and personal sacrifice, how do you rationalize it? How do you convince her brother, her friends, that it is still worth while to make the effort, to work hard, to be a good citizen? Imagine a 17 year old having to deal with the death of the person he lived with every day of his young life and having to face the rest of his life without his only sister who loved him fiercely. I can’t stand to think of it. He wasn’t even able to write a Victim’s Impact Statement.

Your Honor, as a family man, I ask you to imagine watching your wife, your surviving child, and all the other family and friends who knew and loved your dead daughter suffering around you. There is nothing you can do to shield them from the pain. There is nothing you can do to make it better. You must watch helplessly as they fall apart. This has been the pitiless torture I have only just barely been able to survive. And, to tell you the truth, often, I really haven’t wanted to. What do I have to look forward to? I feel my best days, when my daughter and I shared this world, are behind me now. I will never again hear Rachel’s sweet voice, her laugh; I will never feel her little hand in mine; I will never smell the scent of her silky hair under my nose as I kiss the top of her head. I will never see the remarkable woman she should have become. I will never hold her children. I am the husband of a wonderful woman and the proud father of a fine son, and for that I am grateful. They inspire in me the strength I need to go on living. But I miss her. I always will...

Your Honor, I believe Elva Diaz deserves the most severe sentence allowable. She gave Rachel a sentence of death and those who love her a life-sentence of sorrow and suffering without the benefit of a trial. I reject the notion that Rachel died so that Elva Diaz could be taught a valuable life lesson. As a 28 year-old mother and former ambulance driver, she should have known better than to drink and drive. I believe Elva Diaz’ best service to society will only be as an example for others, as a caution against the foolish and heartless course of action she chose.

I trust Your Honor to do what is fair and just in the eyes of the law. I know that no judgment you make will bring Rachel back. That is the one and only thing I desire, and the very thing you are powerless to give. I will never see my daughter’s face again in this life. I can only hope there is another.

Thank you for listening, Your Honor. And thank you for your service to Rachel, to the community that loves her, and to this country in the cause of justice. God bless you.

SENTENCE

We thought it would be a huge relief when the trial had concluded. There was a month between the end of the criminal trial for Elva Diaz and the sentencing hearing on August 5, 2011. We had to be away for two weeks for the trial, and when we returned home, we found that we had a lot of catching up to do: the bills had piled up, the garden and the yard was overgrown, and the to do list had increased at work - urgent demands all vying for our attention. We found ourselves unexpectedly stretched thinner than we had been in long time.

To add to our distress, we were tasked with writing a Victim’s Impact Statement. We had known for three and a half years that the day would come when we would need to submit one. And we have dreaded the prospect for as long as we have known about it. How could we possibly hope to articulate what Rachel means to us? How could we describe the kind of person she was? How could we convey how her death has impacted us? Multiply them as we may, we knew mere words could never bring Rachel to life. Every attempt to capture her essence, the depth of our pain, or the quality and magnitude of our love is doomed to failure.

Sentencing. Making a sentence. A sentence is something meaningful - but it is also an artificial construct, a symbolic approximation of truth, an interpretation of reality at some remove. For us sentencing meant making a declarative statement of our love and our loss of Rachel, however inadequate it may prove to be

Our Victim’s Impact Statements were to be read and considered by the Probation Department for sentencing recommendation and by the judge for sentencing determination. We invited anyone affected by Rachel’s death to submit a statement. We never knew how much our words might influence the actual decision making process, but we hoped, at least, to impress upon those who read or heard them what we all have lost in losing Rachel. A surprising number of people - over 30 in all - submitted statements. Each one captured something unique about Rachel and her impact on the person who wrote it. Jill compared the final package we put together to a multifaceted jewel, each perspective revealing a slightly different aspect of Rachel - the whole an impressive thing of beauty. Reading them was an intense emotional experience for us, and we will treasure each one as a precious gift for as long as we live.

We were surprised both by who did and who didn’t submit statements. We don’t resent those who didn’t, because we understand the difficulty and futility of the task. Some people tried and never succeeded in finding words. Some people were silenced from the outset by the overwhelming impossibility of the task and never actually put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as the case might be). I sat down at the computer one Saturday morning with much fear and trembling, not knowing whether I would be able to find the words or not, fearing that I wouldn’t. I was nearly paralyzed with anxiety, panic increasing as each moment passed, trying not to entertain the idea of failure, powerless to banish the thought from my mind. I didn’t want to let Rachel down. Early on, as I had imagined the task, I fantasized about my statement being the best thing I had ever written (since it was without question the most important). But, mercifully, I realized that was unrealistic, demanding too much of myself, and I settled for just getting the job done with some degree of authenticity. I accepted that my words would be inadequate and that my love for Rachel could never be satisfactorily expressed. I gave myself the freedom I needed to hazard the attempt and to fail.

In the end, I did write a statement only four typed pages long. I can’t judge whether it is good or bad, adequate or inadequate. I was just relieved I would have something to read to the judge in Elva’s presence at the sentencing hearing. Jill’s statement was 12 pages long, and that was not enough to say all she wanted to say. Judge Mark Johnson was touched by the words of the eight people who read their statements in court, though, and it was clear by his bearing that he sympathized both with our loss and the difficulty of our task. To him, Rachel was as real as our pain. That he understood what we had lost is a surprising source of comfort to us. For that, more than anything else, we are grateful.

A sentence is finite. We understand endings. A sentence is a punishment with an end in sight. For Elva, the sentence put a period on the term of her punishment. It is, I suppose, ultimately a hopeful thing. There will be a predetermined end to the unpleasantness of the legal consequences for her crimes. Judge Mark Johnson sentenced Elva Diaz to the upper or “aggravated” term for Gross Vehicular Manslaughter. Ten years. Perhaps, in the bewildering calculus of the legal system, three or four years with credit for time served. Now Elva Diaz knows how long she will have to suffer.

But it is not so for us. Our sentence is indefinite and continues on for as long as we can imagine the future. A run-on sentence. It never really makes a point, never reaches any sensible conclusion...

HOME ALONE - RABBIT HOLE

We are in the midst of the criminal trial. I can’t talk about that now, as much for discretion’s sake as because I am at a loss for words. We want to hear the truth and expect justice will inevitably result. But, somehow, it seems, the process is not that simple...

I want to step back a little. A few weeks. Jill was away for a few days, attending another of the many pre-trial hearings in southern California. I encouraged her to stay through the weekend with her father at the cabin in the mountains near Lake Arrowhead that he and his wife have recently remodeled. Janet, his wife, would be away for the weekend, visiting her daughters, and it would be an opportunity for the two of them to spend some time together. From the front deck of the cabin, they could watch mountain bluebirds flit among the branches of the pine trees that grow just out of reach and feed the tree-squirrels that come to beg for the peanuts kept handy for their frequent visits. Time with her Dad, a change of scenery, the beauty of the mountains and the fresh air - Time well spent is good for the soul.

So that left me home alone. What does a married man, whose children are grown or gone do under such circumstances? I don’t hunt or fish or bowl or play poker. I tried to catch up on some reading. I dared to attempt to write. I watched movies I thought Jill would appreciate missing. Jill is long-suffering in her tolerance of my film choices, but every saint has her limits.

I watched “Rabbit Hole”. The film is adapted from a play by David Lindsay-Abaire. It is about a couple, played by Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhardt, who are grieving the death of their young son. Not exactly a feel-good movie. The disc had remained untouched for weeks in its Netflix envelope. I couldn’t find the right time to suggest to Jill that we watch it together. I knew that Mother’s Day wasn’t the right occasion...

The title of the film comes from a graphic novel that the young man who had the misfortune to unavoidably run over the little boy is creating. The premise of his graphic novel is that ours is only one of many possible articulations of the multiverse. Nicole Kidman’s character forges an unlikely friendship with the troubled young man, drawn to him out of the communion of their shared pain. She likes the beautiful idea that somewhere out there another version of herself is happy and her son is alive and well, though she doesn’t really believe it. It is another example of magical thinking. We all do it. Sometimes a little willing suspension of disbelief helps.

I was as inconsolable at times watching the film as the characters themselves. As painful as it was to watch - which is, no doubt, a testament to the authenticity of the writing and the skill of the actors - I found it to be ultimately encouraging. The bereaved parents do find a way to move tentatively and hopefully forward, individually and as a couple. We can’t imagine how they can possibly survive, and yet, somehow they manage. It forces us to marvel at the resilience of the human spirit and the power of love to persist in the face of seemingly overwhelming devastation.

The film is faithful to the real experience of grief. It doesn't exhaust the gamut of possible responses, but it does touch on the big issues and difficulties that grieving people deal with. It is honest enough not to offer cheap and unrealistic prescriptions.

There is no way to predict how the loss of a loved one will affect and reorder one's life and relationships. It is an emotional tsunami.

Those who have walked this road understand. We surprise and disappoint ourselves and others by our reactions and the often bewildering strategies we devise to survive. Some people get stuck. Some try to numb their pain with drugs or alcohol or sexual indulgence. Some withdraw and isolate themselves. Some look to find help in the company of those who have walked the road before them. Some surround themselves with mementos of their lost loved one's life, and some need to rid themselves of the unbearable reminders of what they have lost. Some couples are driven apart. Some become closer. Some embrace the comfort to be found in religious faith, others blame God.

In the film, Nicole Kidman’s character’s mother has also lost a child. The circumstances of the deaths are vastly disparate (one was a little boy hit by a car, the other a 30 year old man who overdosed). This is a source of some friction between the mother and daughter - but they learn to accept the fact that they do share the stark and inescapable fact of loss. I share a similar bond with my mother, though the circumstances of my sister’s and my daughter’s deaths are not so different: they both died in car wrecks when they were 18 years old.

The two women have a crucial and poignant exchange in the basement of the family home while they are storing the little boy’s belongings away to make it less complicated to sell the home:

Becca: "Does it ever go away? "

Nat: "No, I don't think it does. Not for me, it hasn't - has gone on for eleven years. But it changes though."

Becca: "How?"

Nat: "I don't know... the weight of it, I guess. At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and... carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you... you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and - there it is. 'Oh right, that...' Which could be awful - not all the time. It's kinda..."

[deep breath]

Nat: "not that you like it exactly, but it's what you've got instead of your son. So, you carry it around. And uh... it doesn't go away. Which is..."

Becca: "Which is what?"

Nat: "Fine, actually."

A year or so after Rachel was killed, Jill and I had dinner with a couple who had lost their own son in a motorcycle accident 10 years before. They were still alive. We couldn’t imagine ourselves in their place, 10 years down the road, without Rachel. We didn’t want to. In those days, our grief felt like a mountain had collapsed on us and we could not possibly dig ourselves out of the avalanche. If we could find the strength to dig, we didn’t even know which was was up. Our only hope, we thought, was rescue. We couldn’t help but ask the same question of our friends that Becca asked her mother: Does it get easier? Is there hope for us, down the road? Their answers were similar: “It never goes away. It does become more bearable. The emptiness you feel in Rachel’s absence is itself a presence that will never leave you. As improbable as that may sound to you now, it is strangely comforting.”