I’m in the midst of preparations to attend a Sorrow to Strength conference in Washington DC. The conference, the first weekend in May, is put on by The Truck Safety Coalition (see http://www.trucksafety.org/) and is attended by survivors and families of truck crash victims. We spend a few days together talking about truck safety issues, lobbying on Capital Hill and remembering the people we’ve lost. It’s an oddly fun and sad experience all at the same time, and one that my siblings and I look forward to in a weird sort of way. It’s comforting to be with people that know how we’re feeling and have been through the same wide range of emotions, yet it’s hard to look around a room filled with people all hurting from the same experience. Especially when so many of our losses could have been avoided.

What really gets me the most is  listening to the stories on the first evening.  We all stand up and tell the short version of what happened to our family, the horrific events that led us to this conference room in a DC hotel.  You hear the stories, one after another, and so many of them are exactly the same; someone was struck from behind by a tractor trailer driven by a tired, inattentive, or sometimes drugged driver.  Usually a driver who had been on the road more hours than was legal, trying to make a buck, trying to support a family, trying to get by.  And now here we are, just a fraction of the 5,000 families affected like this every year,  in a room trying not to cry as we each describe “our” crash.  Regardless of the details most stories end the same.  Someone is gone.  Sometimes someone survives, but at such a cost.  Always the pain is there.   That’s what gets me mad.  And sad.  And what makes me go to Washington, to talk to Senators and Representatives, to their staff people, to the press.  To anyone that will listen.  To you.  Because so much of what the trucking industry appears to view as “collateral damage” doesn’t have to happen.

I know that I’m just one person.  But in that room this year on the first weekend in May will be too  many people, too many families, too many broken hearts.  For one weekend we stand united; we will have a presence and maybe someone will see us.  Maybe someone will listen.  Maybe, just maybe, we can begin again to make a difference.  We’ve lost family members, but we haven’t lost hope that change is possible.  Change can start with one person.  Dad believed that and so do I.

This trip is for you Dad.  Miss you.