Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: grief


by 8 Comments

Working in the nation’s capitol

Sunset in Washington DC

Sunset in Washington DC

The sun is going down, glowing pink on the condos and office buildings near our hotel. I wish I was just a tourist here. I wish I was going to spend tomorrow taking pictures of monuments, going on tours, walking leisurely through Georgetown. But that’s not why I’m here this time. This time I’m here to work.

Day one preparing for this weekend’s conference is complete. Speeches written, calls made, agendas discussed and revised. Tomorrow is another day as we nail down more details.

As those of you on Facebook know, I fell while crossing the street on Sunday and scraped up my knee on one leg, twisted my ankle on the other. So I’m icing the ankle every night and hoping that by the time I need to walk to meetings on Capitol Hill I’ll be able to walk without a limp.

Such is the life of a middle-aged person not looking where she’s going. But I’ve got my eyes focused on truck safety issues as we work through this week. I look forward to the volunteers that will be arriving on Friday. I know we will be noticed. I hope our message is taken to heart by a few more politicians and that we can start to see movement toward safety in upcoming bills.

I hope you will send good thoughts our way as we begin again to climb the very big mountain in front of us.

Talk to you tomorrow, dad.

Talk to you tomorrow, dad.


by 20 Comments

Never quit

From our 2013 conference.

From our 2013 conference.

Soon we’ll be on our way to Washington DC again. Many of you know that I volunteer with the Truck Safety Coalition, a nonprofit group that works to make changes in regulations and rules governing commercial trucks in an effort to make the roads safer for all of us. And you know that I do this because my dad was killed by a sleepy semi driver back in December of 2004.

Eleven years ago my family’s life was changed forever. It seems like a hundred years. It seems like yesterday. And for four days every other year we are immersed in it, totally focused on the issues and the emotions. We will join other families next weekend, other scarred, hurting families, other people that want their loss to mean something. You can read about our last conference in 2013 at my blog posts here, here and, if you read only one, especially here.

During our time together we are safe to express our continued grief regardless of how many years have passed. And we are able to provide support to the new families who have unwillingly joined our painful club. It’s a long, hard road we’re all on, a complicated argument, a difficult fight that we face. The odds of a group of ordinary citizens making inroads in a system influenced by campaign contributions by the American Trucking Association are low. But we’re a noisy group.

And we aren’t going to quit.

Because the people whose lives were lost, and those whose lives were forever changed, deserve to be heard. We are the voice for those that can no longer speak and we make sure they are not forgotten. In their honor we work to keep everyone safer, those of us on the road as well as the drivers of the commercial trucks.

Stay tuned.

For you dad.

For you dad.


by 8 Comments

What gets reported?

This morning you’re waking up to breaking news about a horrible movie shooting in Louisiana; a gunman killed two people and injured nine more before killing himself. The details, minute by minute, are being discussed with great urgency. It is pointed out that this is the third mass shooting in the past month — the Charleston church, the military shootings and the theater shootings last night.

It’s all horrible and demands our attention.

What you won’t see discussed on the morning news is that around midnight last night in Indiana traffic was slowed in a construction zone. A semi didn’t slow, hit a car from behind, then another semi. Five are dead, including a child. You won’t see an urgent discussion about the spike in truck crashes that has occurred in the past year or that these crashes have gone up in each of the last four years.

I don’t understand why one story is newsworthy and the other is not.

This is one of the problems we face while fighting for safer roads; the fact that no one is noticing the deaths of individuals, usually one by one, across the country. Five people died in Indiana this morning. They died horrific, violent deaths. Why doesn’t that make anyone in the news pay attention?

Death caused by a truck is just as random as death caused by a deranged shooter. Maybe more. Death by truck doesn’t pick out a certain race or ethnicity. It doesn’t care about gender or sexual preference. It doesn’t even care about your politics.

Death by truck can happen to anyone, anytime.

They say the President was notified of the theater shootings as he traveled overnight to Africa. You can bet no one is calling him about the 5 people that died a few hours later on an Indiana road.

I’m not taking away anything from the mass shootings, certainly this is an issue that requires our attention. But violent death is violent death, no matter what its cause. A mass shooting in a theater is no more important than a mass death by truck. It deserves the same media coverage, the same attention, the same concern.

The Senate is debating a bill today that will increase the length of double trailers on trucks. If you are not in favor of longer, heavier trucks traveling the roads, perhaps following your family’s car, call your Senator right now, and tell them you oppose all anti truck safety measures in the DRIVE bill.

They’ll know what you’re talking about, even though many of them just don’t want to hear it.

11:48 July 24: Please call your Senators and ask them to support two amendments to the DRIVE Act: The Feinstein-Wicker Amendment which will require a safety study to be done by the DOT prior to making 33 feet trailers (up from 28 feet) allowed on all state roads, and the Markey amendment which would take out the pilot program allowing 18-20 year olds drive cross country in semi trucks. Each state has two senators. You can find your Senator’s phone # here

Thank you very much for your support. It means the world to me.


by 18 Comments

Hard hit

Stormy times

Stormy times

The safety of everyone on our roads and highways took a big hit last week. The Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act of 2015 (S. 1732) passed out of the Commerce Committee and is headed to the full Senate complete with all the anti-safety aspects that we fought to extract. The ability for a truck company to hide safety statistics from the public, to allow the hiring of 18 year olds to drive across the country (some states had higher minimum ages, but this will now be overrun by federal law), creating more hoops for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to jump through in order to mandate higher insurance requirements, all of these and more are still included in the bill. Every amendment presented by a safety conscious Committee Member lost by one vote, or by a voice vote. Every amendment offered by a American Trucking Association supported Committee Member passed.

The voting was straight down party lines.

I don’t understand. If you’re elected by the majority of people in your state, but you’re only going to vote the party line without listening or even considering another opinion, what’s the point of discussing anything at all? If you can’t listen to the safety concerns of many of your constituents, if you can’t let the overwhelming evidence sway you even the slightest toward safety, if you are more concerned about your campaign contributors than the safety of regular citizens, well, then there is no hope for the future.

I’ll be honest. It has been a difficult few months. It’s hard to look forward and figure out what the next move is. Obviously the next move is to call Senators when S1732 gets to the floor of the full Senate. But sill, it’s been so discouraging. It would be easy to just let it go. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re wrong. Maybe this is what the population wants…larger trucks, younger drivers, longer driving hours, the public shouldering the expenses when a crash occurs…if so, so be it.

I was driving this morning, looking for a photo challenge shot. Out in the cornfields of rural America I had all sorts of negative thoughts bouncing around my brain. But as I drove the dirt roads, past farms and small towns, other voices started to push their way into my brain. Voices of the families. The sons and daughters, wives and husbands, siblings, grandparents, and parents of those we’ve lost. I remember saying years ago that if we saved one life my family would be even, and my sister responding emphatically that no we wouldn’t. We’ll never be even, never be whole, no matter how hard we work.

But that’s no excuse for giving up. It’s no excuse for abandoning those who can no longer speak, no excuse not to expose the horrors and the grief, no excuse not to push for change.

By the time I made my way back home I had taken a deep breath and begun thinking about what’s next. There is more than one way to approach safety. If we can’t get it done through Congress maybe we can get something done through the DOT. And if the DOT can’t get anything done then maybe we go straight to the big trucking companies. We’ve already done that with one, that company realizes that safe can be profitable. Maybe we just have to spread that word. Meanwhile we still provide support and advice and love to the families who have been forever changed by truck crashes, one family at a time.

We lost big time this month. But we won’t give up and we won’t go away. There’s only one way to move and that’s forward.

Did I get the photo I was looking for? You’ll have to wait and see.

Clouds around every corner.

Clouds around every corner.


by 7 Comments

WordPress Photo Challenge: Symbol

Symbol: a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.

symbol

In some cultures a person visiting a loved one’s grave leaves a memento, sometimes a pebble, to show they’ve been by. To symbolize their love, their loss. I shot this at our small and historical local cemetery.

You can see other representations of the idea of symbol at the original post, or visit a few of my favorites here, here and here.

What symbols do you see in your own life? Want to share with us? Just post a photo and link to the original post.

It’s an interesting concept to try to capture visually. I look forward to seeing what you find.


by 6 Comments

There’s still hope

Last week I let you know about an amendment attached to an important bill in the Senate Appropriations Committee that would make our roads more dangerous.  Senator Shelby from Alabama offered the amendment replacing 28 foot double truck trailers with 33 foot double trailers.  The 33s would be legal across the country, even in states that have shorter limits on the length of truck trailers.

If you followed the fight on the Hill or comments attached to that post you’ll know that the Shelby amendment passed by one vote.  So 33 foot trailers are now in the bill that will be considered by the full Senate when everyone gets back to Washington after the 4th of July break.

This was a big disappointment for our group who are working hard to make our roads safer.  We believe that 33 double trailers are not as safe as 28 foot double trailers which are less safe than single trailers.   I’ll be honest.  We took a couple days to feel discouraged; but this week we’re back to work.

Now that our Senators are home in their districts for a few days we are visiting their local offices, talking to their staff about what happened in the Senate Appropriations Committee.  We’re talking about the dangers of 33 foot double trailers and  passing out statistics, studies, and personal stories.   We’re asking the Members to please vote for any amendment presented that would remove the 33 foot double trailers from the bill, and if that doesn’t happen to vote NO on the entire bill.

Really.  Vote NO on the bill in it’s entirety.

Voting no on an important bill that is necessary to move our country forward is counter intuitive for us and the Senators alike.  But aside from the trucking issues within this bill there are other controversies as well.  It’s possible the bill will not move forward.  It’s possible it will move forward but not in the present form.  It’s possible we will win this battle because of other problems, other fights, that we aren’t even aware of.

We don’t know.

Yesterday husband and I drove an hour to meet with the regional managers of our two Senators .   I’m always nervous when preparing for a meeting with our Congressional members.  I don’t know why.   I guess because we grew up looking up to these people and they still seem intimidating.  And I suppose I’m also nervous because I’m asking such important things of them; things with such huge consequences.  Of course I shouldn’t feel nervous, I’ve never been treated with anything but interested respect.

That’s a lesson in itself.

On our way down to the big city I saw a State Trooper SUV from the commercial truck inspection team that had pulled over a truck.  That always makes me smile, because I’m glad inspectors are out on the road.   I know that one in five trucks pulled over for inspection are taken out of service because the vehicle is too dangerous to be on the road.   I took the sighting as a sign that everything would be OK at our meetings.   And as we got close to the city I saw a big orange truck, my sign for dad saying hi, and I knew for sure things would go well.

And they did.

I had dad’s picture in my folder, looking up at me, reminding me why we were there.  And because we weren’t in crazy busy DC we got a lot of face time with the regional managers.  Both asked good questions, engaged with us, told stories of their own and seemed genuinely empathetic.  They will pass our opposition to the 33 foot double trailers in the Appropriations Bill on to their Senators.

We did the best we could to convince them that safety has to come before profits, that longer trucks are less safe.  That everyone is in danger, including the drivers of the trucks.   We listened, too, to their concerns about the bill, about truck safety, about commerce.   The only way to a solution is to understand the other side.

Whatever happens now I can say we did the very best we could.

To those of you in the States, have a wonderful 4th of July  holiday weekend with family and friends.  Stay safe if you’re on the water, if you’re watching fireworks and when you’re on our roads.

We want you all back safe and sound come Monday morning.

 

 


by 19 Comments

Truck update

I want to take a moment and bring you all up to date on the assault on safety happening right now in Congress.  It’s happening quietly as summer blooms and everyone has other, more relaxing, things on their minds.

Let me explain.

Congress is trying to finish up on an Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2016.  It’s a huge bill and one that has to be resolved soon.  The House has already put together their version and now it’s over on the Senate side.

You might remember I talked about the House amendment that would “de-fund“ the study (mandated in a previous bill) that would determine if the minimum required level of liability insurance a commercial carrier has to have is enough.  The level is currently at $750,000 and hasn’t been updated since 1980 even though medical costs have skyrocketed since then.  We fought to get that amendment taken out of the House bill, but it was approved by a wide margin.  Amazingly members of the House didn’t even want a study to be done.

Now the bill is in the Senate and there are several problematic provisions including one that allows truckers to drive up to 82 hours per week and of course the delay regarding the minimum liability insurance.  But worse is an amendment that will likely be offered as early as today by Senator Shelby of Alabama.

Senator Shelby is asking that Congress approve increasing 28-foot double trailers to 33-foot double trailers.  That’s an additional 10 feet (5 on each trailer).  This will mean the trucks will require an additional 6 foot rider turning radius and they will need an additional 22 feet to stop.  Studies show that double 33s performed worse than double 28s in avoidance maneuvers.  This adds to the risk of death and injury to any of us sharing the roads with these larger and potentially heavier trucks.

I spent time yesterday afternoon calling members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask that they vote NO on the Shelby Amendment.  I started with the 15 Republicans on the committee as they are more likely to side with the trucking industry.  It’s an uphill battle; no one wants to talk to someone not in their district.  But neither Michigan Senator is on this committee and in order to be heard I have to get other Senators’ offices to listen to me.  I have to remind them that as members of the Appropriations Committee they are supposed to be representing all Americans, not just those in their district.  Generally they concede enough to put me through to someone’s voice mail.

It’s frustrating.  If these provisions stay in the bill they will be signed into law by the President.  Our roads will become even less safe than they are now.  We’ve been fighting to lower the maximum hours of service allowed, we’ve been fighting to get minimum insurance increased, and we’ve been fighting against bigger, longer, and heavier trucks.  We’ve made progress, but it’s like climbing a sand dune.  One step up, then long slides down.

The trucking industry is now using large important bills that have to be passed, like the Appropriations Bill, to insert their agenda.  It’s the only way to get anything passed in the political environment we face today. But safety issues don’t belong in a larger unrelated bill.  That in itself is another battle.

I know this got long.  I have to get going now, I have some more Democrats to reach this morning before they head into session.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Our lives are depending on the outcome.

Literally.


by 17 Comments

Father’s Day

Dear Dad,

I’m thinking about you today, sifting through pictures, reaching back, oh so far, for the smallest memory.  Not that I don’t think about you every day.  Both of you.

Remember all the great trips you took us on every summer?

Going on a trip!

Going on a trip!

I went camping up north a couple weeks ago.   I thought of you as I put up my spiffy modern tent alone.  Remember the big heavy green canvas tent we all camped in?  How it took forever and more than a few hands to get it up?  How it smelled like wet tent when it rained and you told us not to touch the walls or it would leak?  Remember how we used to fall exhausted into sleeping bags scratchy with sand every night after full days at the beach?  How we roasted all those marshmallows over the fire and you ate the our burned ones?  Those were the days.

I remember, too, how you could fix anything.

Changing the tire.

Polishing the fender.

I don’t know how you learned the way everything worked and how to make it work again when it broke.  But you did.  We’ve been using the tools in your workshop to fix things around the lake house.  Seems like you had one of just about everything.  And we keep finding little notes like the one written on a stud in the garage about when the driveway was last sealed or the house stained.   In fact we found the can of house stain you left for us, labeled by you, so we were able to paint that new fascia board to match.

And did you see I retired this month?  I’m not sure how you reacted to that because I’m still pretty young.

Catching some shuteye.

Catching some shuteye.

I remember when we were kids how you’d come across us sitting around somewhere and you’d ask us what we were doing.  We knew we better come up with something because if we didn’t you’d have some chore waiting.  I was thinking about that this week when I spent two whole days doing absolutely nothing.  That felt kind of uncomfortable.  I guess I was expecting you to show up and ask me what I was doing.  Napping never seemed like a good answer in those days, but I’m hoping you understand.  I’m thinking you probably do.

And remember how you used to read the Sunday comics to us, even when we were old enough to read them ourselves?

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time…

You read a lot of stuff to us, guess that’s how I turned into a reader.  And a story teller.  I wouldn’t mind hearing you tell one of your stories one more time now.  We sure laughed around the dinner table a lot growing up didn’t we?  Back then I didn’t know all families weren’t like that.  I just figured laughing until our sides hurt and the tears ran down our faces was typical at dinner tables across the country.  Turns out not to be true, but I’m glad it was that way at our house.

Remember all those family portraits we took?  How we’d gather in one spot, get ourselves all arranged, and then you’d set the timer on the camera and rush back to get into position before it went off?  How so often it wouldn’t go off at all and you’d go back to figure out why, and then it would flash?  How we used to laugh.

Oops!

Oops!

This is one of my favorite pictures.  Not because it was perfect, or we were perfect but because of the laughter.  Even though half of us were sick with the flu that day we couldn’t help but laugh because this was just so typical of us.

Anyway, I guess I could go on, turn this into a long eloquent thank you speech, but you were never so much about long speeches.  You were more about doing.   Judging from the photos and notes on Facebook (do they have Facebook in heaven?) there are an awful lot of very special dads up there with you.   I was thinking maybe you could organize a dad’s club of some kind, maybe go around and fix stuff for people.  But then again, there’s probably not a lot of stuff that needs fixing there.

So I guess you’ve earned a nap.  The best you can do is watch over all of us and give us a sign now and then that you’re around.  Maybe point us in the right direction when we’re looking for something in your workshop.

You taught us good Dad and we’re getting by, all of us, day by day.  But it sure is hard.

Love,

Your Kids

1990

1990

 

 


by 18 Comments

Conflicted

Beauty at the end of an ugly day.

Beauty at the end of an ugly day.

Conflicted isn’t even the right word for how I feel today.  Maybe there is no word that accurately reflects my feelings, and perhaps the feelings of a good portion of the American population today.  But I like to think I’d recognize the right word if I saw it.

I thought, for a moment, that I recognized it in President Obama’s statement when he paused and said that at some point we’d have to address how someone who wanted to do harm could so easily obtain a gun.  There was anger there, and I too felt anger.  But in an instant I knew that anger wasn’t the complete feeling.  This time the gun was obtained legally by the father and given as a gift to his son, the shooter.  I don’t know how gun control laws would have changed that.

Maybe the feeling was intense sadness.  Not personal grief, nothing like the families in Charleston are going through now, but still intense sadness.  And a feeling of familiarity because we’ve seen this before.   And it all seems so senseless, so hopeless.

Maybe that’s it; maybe what I’ve been feeling all day is a hopelessness.  There seems no solution.  The 24 hour news talks about race relations and how it’s so much worse now than it was when the President was elected in 2008.  How hate seems to be so much more blatant.

Still I circle back to the issue of guns.  I’m no proponent of guns.  I don’t have any experience with them, and frankly they scare me.  But I agree that people have a right to have a gun.   And I agree that it’s hard to tell when a person is carrying evil or craziness or a combination inside themselves.  This shooter exhibted signs, the news says, signs someone should have noticed.

Yet his father gave him a gun for his birthday.

I don’t know who is more crazy, the young man who committed the unthinkable last night, or the father who didn’t pay attention to the signs.  The combination was lethal.

We need to open a dialog about guns and mental health.  But if this country could not make progress on settling gun control or mental health issues after the 2012 massacre of more than two dozen innocent people in Sandy Hook what makes us think that we can have a relevant discussion now?  When will it be bad enough for us to recognize that we have to sit down, throw out the politics, and talk.

So I’m back to anger.  Maybe that’s what we all need to feel.  Anger that it was so easy for the shooter to get a gun, so easy for him to kill innocents.  Anger that we don’t have adequate mental health programs.  Anger that we continue to cry and rant but don’t resolve.  Anger that people’s lives are being lost while the politicians use this and other similar tragedies to support their own, preexisting stances which are bought and paid for by special interests.

Anger tinged with intense sadness, shadowed with hopelessness.  That’s what I feel as the sun sets on a long and tragic day.  How about you?  What dialog are you willing to start or become involved in?  What word accurately describes your feelings about all of this?

Let’s talk about it.