This is Distracted Driving

I held my breath as my brother, Denny, opened the back of his SUV. He had told me that it wasn’t as bad as he expected, but still… Suddenly, there it was, the bike that Patrick had owned for most of our marriage. The bike that he rode through all kinds of weather. To work, for exercise, towing a bike trailer to pick up the girls from daycare. So many years. So many miles.

My husband seriously had the body of a Greek god. He was a fanatic about working out. I never noticed a bit of fat on him, not even a beer belly, though he definitely would have earned that. He was a faithful Catholic but working out was his second religion. I know I’m repeating myself but I can’t tell you how ironic it is that he died while working out. Ironic and unfair. And so preventable.

The front half of the bike looks the same to me. Well-worn but definitely Patrick’s. I notice the seat and laugh. No self respecting cyclist would put their rear on that saddle! But Patrick was the anti-cyclist. He didn’t need all of that fancy stuff. Just two wheels, pedals and maybe some gears. In cycling, his ride would be referred to as a “beater bike”. He did occasionally commandeer some of my gear, like the expensive headlight with the external battery that apparently didn’t survive or wasn’t found after the collision.

The rear wheel looks like an accordion. Exactly what you would expect when a car runs into it. I stare at it for a minute and then turn to bury my head in Denny’s shoulder.

There are also three envelopes, all marked with evidence tape. I open the envelope with the phone first. I take it out and it doesn’t look familiar. I’m surprised that it’s unfamiliar and then I see that it says Verizon and I realize it’s not his phone! In the same instance I realize whose phone it is and I quickly stuff it back in the envelope. Hopefully they still have Patrick’s phone. The second envelope is a water bottle. I wondered which bottle he had taken but I never took inventory. I suspected it would be one of mine and it was, a bottle from America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride at Lake Tahoe. The last envelope was a part of his reflector that didn’t look at all familiar, just a random item you might see on the side of the road.

Denny takes pictures of the bike and sends them to me later. I will add them to this blog after I’ve had a chance to warn people. In one there is an illusion of a normal bike since the tire has retained its shape outside of the twisted wheel. I comment on this to Denny and he says “rubber holds its shape, like a memory of what it should still look like”.

This is the result of distracted driving. It doesn’t matter what the distraction is. When you are distracted enough to run into a person on a bike, or walking down the street, or in another car, the result is the same. The driver did not have alcohol in his system. He clearly had meth in his system but no one really seems to know how much meth is too much. How much meth does it take to make you impaired? According to California there is no clear definition for drug impairment. Personally I don’t think you should drive when you are impaired by any substance. Maybe someday the law will agree.

I firmly believe that meth and other activities interfered with this driver’s sleep and ultimately he fell asleep at the wheel, which is also distracted driving.

So, do me a favor, in memory of Patrick and the countless individuals who lose their lives every year, if you are too drunk, or high, or sleepy to drive, get an Uber or Lyft. Call a friend. Walk home. Do NOT get behind the wheel. And when you do, put your phone down and pay attention to the road. Don’t make someone else experience this.

We are hoping to use the image of his bike to spread awareness about all kinds of distracted driving. Stay tuned.

This drug is bad!

Prior to Patrick’s death, methamphetamine was something I rarely thought about. I knew that thanks to all of the meth heads we now have to wait in line at the pharmacy to get the really good decongestants. That is about the only impact it had on my life. Then, on that day, it suddenly became a regular intruder into my thoughts and life. And every time someone mentions it, I think, “Meth killed my husband!” I don’t say that out loud because it would probably make him sound like a drug addict! The man would not even take an aspirin!

The further along I get in my counseling education, the more I realize that meth is going to be ever-present in my life. It’s just that big of an issue. And even though I told myself I would never work in substance abuse, I think that God has different plans for me.

Tonight was my third night of training for Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). I thought I would be advocating for kids from abusive situations. I definitely will be but the majority of the cases will more than likely have a connection to drug abuse. And meth appears to be the drug of choice. Parents who become addicted to it are more than likely going to end up doing something that causes their children to be removed from their home.

I have become a fairly unemotional observer of life. I can’t let a lot of feelings out at once. But tonight, listening to stories of how meth caused so much heartache in families, I did shed a few tears. Can I just say that it is incredibly unfair that my husband, who never touched illegal drugs, was killed as a result of another person’s meth use?

I think that I’m going to hear meth mentioned over and over again. I don’t want to become immune to emotional reactions when I hear it. I want to take that pain and channel it into something positive. I am trusting that I will eventually know what that is.