grief | Change Is Hard

May 24, 2014
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Forget me not

Forget Me Not

I spent some of this first day of the 3 day holiday weekend weeding. It’s the same old thing, by the time I get around to weeding the perennial garden it’s overrun with grass. I don’t even need to take a before picture – it looks the same as it did last year at this time. Think of a long green rectangle filled to overflowing with grass waving knee high. You would be accurate.

So what does a person think about when she’s pulling grass mindlessly for an hour or so? Well if you’re me, you think about your Dad. He’d have been 85 last February. I’d have liked to see him achieve that age, see what he was interested in, what he’d think about world events. I imagine him talking to the DOT about truck issues, can hear his impatience with the slowness that is Washington. I hear his encouragement to keep up the good fight.

I think about Mom too, of course. She loved her flowers and her birds. Though she didn’t die at the same time or in the same way as Dad, it sometimes feels like one event, their deaths happened so close together. I think about her when the oriole couple visit, or when I hear the cranes in the swamp up the road. And I think about her when I’m weeding.

This week while work was especially difficult I’d get up from my desk to stretch and glance out the window. Thursday and Friday almost every time I did a robin flew around the corner of the building and landed at the tip top of a tall spruce tree, about level with my window. It swayed in the breeze and chattered as I stood and watched and smiled. Eventually I’d get back to work and when I’d glance out in a bit the bird was gone. But it was back three or four times when I’d stand up to stretch, and the last time it stared in my direction while it chattered. I know the windows are glazed and the bird can’t really see me. And the bird couldn’t know that I needed that little bit of entertainment during a very bad day. But each time that robin turned up I’d said “hi” to Mom, and before I sat down again I’d say a silent “bye, see you next time.”

So I’ve been thinking about the two of them a lot these past few days. That’s not a bad thing, I’ve sort of enjoyed it. Especially during these beautiful spring days when I’m pulling weeds in my garden and they’re both just a memory away.

Broken hearts

April 5, 2014
by dawnkinster 23 Comments

For AnnaLeah and Mary

Many of you know that I volunteer for the Truck Safety Coalition, a nonprofit in Washington DC that works to make our roads safer by pushing for legislative and rule making changes. We work both through our members of Congress and through the Department of Transportation and other agencies that regulate the trucking industry. You know that I do this in memory of my Dad who was killed by a tired trucker in December of 2004. So when you read a post dedicated to the issue of safety on our roads you run the risk of having to listen to me get on my soapbox. I’m grateful that you humor me on this because I tend to get a bit passionate, and I know that most of you are already on my side and I’m probably preaching to the choir. Still…

Humor me one more time and listen to the story of AnnaLeah and Mary.

Last May while my family and I were joined in Washington DC with many other families who have been touched by needless tragedy, while we were sitting in the DOT board room being told by different members of that agency why they hadn’t accomplished tasks they’ve been working on for years, while we listened to excuse after excuse why minimum insurance requirements hadn’t been raised yet, why stronger rear underride guards hadn’t been mandated, why there were no studies of side underride guards at all, why the federally legislated electronic onboard recorders weren’t already implemented ..well… while we were there listening to all these excuses AnnaLeah and Mary were dying in a horrific crash. Two beautiful girls just gone, another family irreparably changed.

You can hear their mother tell her story here, she does a lovely job, but I understand if you don’t want to listen. If you want to remain untouched. If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone. Best not to know, right?

Well, here’s the short version: They were driving from North Carolina, heading to Texas for the wedding of their oldest sister. In Georgia they were hit by another vehicle and were spun under a semi. If that truck had had underride guards perhaps the girls would not have been killed. Did you know that every industrialized country in the world has underride guards on their semi trucks? But not the United States. Next time you’re driving next to a semi glance over and see where that underside of that trailer would hit you in a crash. Even a crash that you didn’t cause.

Think about that. It doesn’t have to be your fault and you can still die. Family and friends can still die. Truck companies don’t want to put protection on their vehicles to save lives of people in cars. They don’t think it’s their responsibility. They don’t want to incur the costs. It’s all about profit. But who is really paying for their profit? You and I and our families are paying that cost. Every single day.

OK. I’ll get off the soapbox now. Please, just go to this site and read a little bit. Sign the petition that we plan to take to Secretary of Transportation Foxx in May, one year after AnnaLeah and Mary died. We want to convince him to join us in the fight on three issues:

1. Increase the minimum insurance truck companies have to carry to cover the damage to families involved in crashes with them. It hasn’t been raised in 30 years.

2. Get the electronic onboard recorders implemented to keep drivers from cheating on their logbooks and driving longer hours than allowed.

3. Act to improve the safety of trucks by requiring better underride guards.

Even if you can’t listen to AnnaLeah and Mary’s Mom talk about her girls and the trip across country that ended not in a family wedding but in family tragedy, take a moment to read to the end to find out what else you can do to help. And think about these two beautiful kids next time you’re on the road driving behind or beside or in front of a semi. Think about these kids and convince yourself it’s not your problem.

I dare you.

February 1, 2014
by dawnkinster 36 Comments

How you doing Girlfriend?

She wasn’t my BFF. We weren’t childhood friends, I didn’t go to school with her, never ran a race, took a class, or joined a book club with her. I didn’t know all the personal details of her life, never went out for a drink or hung out on weekends with her. But she was a friend. We saw each other in the halls at work, ran into each other in the ladies room. We stood and talked, long conversations about life, family, choices. We picked each other up when we were having a bad day. At the very least we smiled and waved as we scurried about our work. She cared when my parents died. I cared when her marriage was over. She’d greet me with “How you doing Girlfriend?” and a smile. Sometimes I’d tell her how I was doing, sometimes not. But I was always glad she asked.

I wasn’t unique in my relationship with her. She was everyone’s Mom at work. She was where people went for an aspirin or advice. Where people went when they needed a break from the work grind, to talk about her grand-kids and admire their photos on her cubicle wall. To laugh. To commiserate. To recharge. She wore socks decorated with jingle bells during the holidays every year and we all smiled when we heard her walk by; she was the epitome of Christmas spirit, our own Christmas elf.

And when she didn’t feel well this winter we all cared. When she was gone from work awhile we all asked about her. “Not good” I was told when I asked her boss early in January. He was going to see her that weekend so I said I’d write her a note for him to deliver. The next day, giving him the note I heard more; it was more serious than I realized and I knew my note was inappropriate. I rewrote it that night, changed it from a cheery couple of lines to a two page letter telling her how much I enjoyed our conversations, how grateful I was that we were friends, how I would miss hearing those jingle bell socks as she went by during the holidays. I gave her my home phone number and my personal email in case she needed another long conversation.

I never heard from her. She died Thursday night – we heard the news at work Friday morning. Devastated does not begin to describe my sorrow. Our collective sorrow.

She was a little person, probably not five foot tall, with a heart as big as the sky. I can hear her voice in my head, I see her walking the halls at work. I strain to hear those bells. I tried to remember the last time I saw her, talked to her. She used to send me emails about jumbo loans that had to be underwritten in my area but had been sent in error to her department. When it was busy I was never happy to see her emails and we used to kid about her sending me the work. My last email from her was Christmas Eve.

Her: “Happy Holidays. I have just moved 3 files to your new deal
queue… Thanks”

Me: “Thanks. no more gifts now….we don’t deserve them! 🙂 ”

Her: “Oh, but my friend, you DO deserve gifts!! ….the best that ever were 🙂
OK–no more gifts today–just a wish for a blessed, happy Christmas & New
Year.”

Friday as I sat stunned in my cubicle I idly typed her name into email. I know it’s silly but I just wanted to say goodbye. I sat and stared at her name. Remembering. Trying not to cry. Listening to her voice in my head. Then I typed one line…”I’m going to miss you girlfriend.” I paused, then hit the send button. I got an auto reply: “I am out of the office until 3/3/14.”

Somewhere a short little lady is visiting with friends and family that have gone before. Her socks are jingling, her smile is wide, her face glows. Those of us left here are hurting, but were we ever lucky to have had her while we did.

So…you go girl, enjoy your next adventure. I wish it could have been the retirement we talked about, dreamed of. I wish you had had more time here. And I’m hoping this is the biggest, best adventure of all.

But I’m sure going to miss you girlfriend. Yes I am.

January 16, 2014
by dawnkinster 10 Comments

Best of times, worst of times

I heard last night that JCPenny is closing stores and laying off 2000 people. I know they’ve been having problems defining themselves. I know sales in retail across the board was lower than hoped during the holidays. And I know the feelings of fear that is rippling now through JCPenny employees as they wait to see where the ax will fall.

For them it doesn’t feel as though the economy has turned a corner. For them the future doesn’t look bright. They can’t see the end of the tunnel. For them it’s not a news story, not a statistic, not a theoretical unemployment figure. It’s personal. It’s like someone is shooting fish in a barrel and they are the fish, scary in its randomness. Who will survive? And why?

I speak from experience when I say there is a kind of survivor’s guilt during times like these. “Downsizing” is a nice word for what actually feels like multiple deaths in a family. Often sudden, surprising, unexpected. You are unprepared even though you knew times were slow. You see closed office doors as if they are casket lids, and you feel sharp, unexpected pangs of loss. These are family members who are suddenly gone through no fault of their own – for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every day while downsizing is going on you go to the office as if going to a funeral.

These are the times we are in. And it isn’t happening to other people, it is happening to all of us. Some of your friends or neighbors or acquaintances are waking up today without a job they had yesterday. Families are figuring out what the new normal is and how to make do.

Those left behind are trying to figure out what the new normal is too. And feeling sad and guilty. Those left behind are in mourning and I’m not overstating that. Mass layoffs are tragedies. People on both sides of the ax will need time to regroup. Grief comes from unexpected places.

Today I’m headed for the office like usual. But I’m going to miss some very nice people, good people, hard working people that won’t be there.

I wish them the absolute best.

November 7, 2013
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

Do you believe in messages from beyond?

Before they were parents.

I know everybody out there has loved ones that have moved on to what I think of as their next adventure. But I’m wondering. Do you look for signs that they’re around? That they’re alright? I do.

In the beginning I consciously looked all the time. Now it’s more of an automatic thing. Mostly it’s birds that seem to give me signs from my folks, but I’ve also begun to consider the bright orange semi trucks I see out on the road as greetings from my Dad.

I know that probably sounds weird. After all it was a bright orange semi that killed him. And for a lot of years seeing one of those trucks was a knife to my heart. They are everywhere and there is no escape from them, so some time ago I decided I couldn’t allow myself to be knifed anymore. I started saying ‘hi’ to Dad each time I saw one and I still do that today. It doesn’t make it all better, but somehow it’s not as painful to see those trucks on the road anymore.

And of course I’ve told you about the stars in the sky that I’ve assigned to each of them; Orion’s belt for Mom, the Big Dipper for Dad. At this time of the year they are both in the morning sky, high above my head when I take the dog out early. I look for them, sometimes even have a little conversation with them, while Katie’s checking out the yard.

I’ve seen a few episodes of the TV show The Long Island Medium and wonder if people are so desperate to know their loved ones are OK that they feed the medium clues. I wonder if I do that in a way too, wonder if I look for signs so intently at the moments when I need them close that I manufacture comforting signs. I think the truth is that I have to believe Mom and Dad are somewhere just around the corner. Because to think otherwise would make living without them impossibly difficult.

What about you? Do you believe that your loved ones are still around in some form? Somewhere more than just in your own heart? Do you think they send messages? Or do you think it’s all a bunch of bunk?

I wonder.

October 2, 2013
by dawnkinster 10 Comments

Reflections on truck safety

Fall reflections

I’ve been thinking about an injured family a lot lately. And as our government grinds to a halt and people express their frustration with the gridlock which is Washington I recognize their frustrations in my own ongoing feelings about the slowness of change toward truck safety. I know, I know…you don’t see the connection. Let me try to illuminate.

As many of you know last May my family and I met in DC with other families who have been irreparably injured by large trucks. Families who have had members lost, injured, families whose lives are altered forever. The first day of our conference, Saturday, May 4, we told our stories, cried, welcomed with heavy hearts the new families, and talked strategy to make change.

That same day a mother and her three children were traveling on a road in Georgia. Their car was hit by a truck, spun, and was pushed under the rear of a semi. Her daughters, AnnaLeah, 17 and Mary, 13 were killed. While we were sitting in a DOT boardroom hearing department after department tell us that they were studying a problem, contemplating a rule, considering change this mother was planning her daughters’ funerals. While we were arguing that stronger wider rear guards should be mandated on commercial vehicles two more beautiful children died. Beautiful people are dying every day. And our government continues to study. To discuss. To consider.

Thoughts ripple

So as I watch the government fight among itself I think the shutdown is a bigger reflection on our own fights for truck safety. If you were to ask most Americans they would side with safety. But the opinions of most Americans are not heard because we don’t have the dollars or the influence that the trucking industry has. Even in the article I linked to this post the truckers are quoted saying the problem is with those of us in cars. We need to pay better attention they say. We need to drive more responsibly they say. That’s all true. But this mother was hit by someone else, and was spun into the semi. A stronger wider rear guard could have saved her children. Why can’t we do this thing that would save lives. Why can’t we get even small changes mandated for the safety of us all.

Expanding changes

I get discouraged. And all the news coverage over the current government shutdown just brings home the sense of hopelessness about getting anything positive done in Washington. I get so discouraged.

But then last week as I was sorting through photos from our trip to DC I suddenly came across a photo of the framed collage full of faces of our lost family members that hangs in a DOT elevator lobby. There was Dad. Like a slap across the face I remembered why I can’t be discouraged. Because these people, and all the people that have been killed or injured since, have no voice but ours. AnnaLeah and Mary have no voice but their mother’s…and now ours. Their family is now part of our family. They are our children.

We just can’t afford to let the incompetence in DC discourage us. We can not give up. No matter what. You never know when you throw a pebble into a pond just how far the ripples will go. Change is like that too. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we will get safety mandated. We just have to keep throwing those pebbles into the pond.

Marianne Karth, AnnaLeah and Mary’s mother, has a facebook page celebrating her daughters’ lives. Put faces on the numbers I so often quote…go visit her page. Please support her now at the beginning of her new reality.

I’ll keep tossing those pebbles.

Tree of life

August 3, 2013
by dawnkinster 20 Comments

Funny

Funny how it happens.

You’re going along in your life, handling stuff, feeling like you’ve moved past the sad place. You’ve written some about truck stuff and felt strong doing it. You spent an evening talking to a young woman whose mother was killed by a truck a year ago and you were glad to give her an outlet, help her plan some of her new and unexpected future. You felt good about being able to listen objectively with less personal emotion.

Missing them.

Yet this morning you feel a little off. The dog gets you up early, before light, and as you stumble into clothes to take her out, wander through the house to get a jacket, it occurs to you that the house was being remodeled the last time your Dad was here and that he never got to see the fireplace. Why not just send him an email with a photo attached you reason. Seems like a sensible thing to do.

And then you find yourself in the driveway staring up at a beautiful moon sitting low in the sky, beside a bright planet off to the north. And you realize that the moon is not blurry because of sleep in your eyes but because you are staring through a sheen of tears. There’s no email in heaven. Is there.

As you and the dog wander you contemplate the long road of life and how you don’t know what’s over the next hill. You are lost in thought, memories.

Long road.

Then just overhead a cardinal begins his morning song and you can just see him through the soft morning light. He flies right over your head, still singing and you figure it’s Dad cheering you up. It works as you realize you’re not in the dark place. This place, this morning, is more a gentle blue place with shadows around the edges. Soft, not scary.

And then your dog stares up at you with big eyes, wondering, and grins because you do and the two of you hustle back to the house for breakfast.

Funny how it happens.

Love you Mama

June 5, 2013
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Beyond brutal

If work last week was difficult, this week it is impossible. Since mid February there have been three women in our department whose husbands have died unexpectedly overnight. This past Sunday it was the husband of someone in my region. The resultant pain and grief among our small group is overwhelming and we all feel so helpless. Each of us wants to help her. None of us can. The work must still get done, and the volume of emails and phone calls has intensified as people hear and want to know what happened. And, of course, how to help. Today is only the third day of this never ending week. We were exhausted before. Now we are plodding, a painful slow hobble; we’re just getting through each day. Our exhaustion and pain is all consuming but nothing like what she is living through right now.

So it surprised me a bit tonight to find I could still smile and sing, even tap my fingers on the steering wheel. The CD from our spring concert arrived last night and I listened to it on the way home this evening. What a great concert; it was full of happy, fun, upbeat music. Stuff you can sing (or at least hum) along with, sway with, nod your head with, snap your fingers to. Good fun, great memories, heart singing music.

Here’s a sampling of what we played (found on youtube and played by other groups for your listening pleasure). For Lassie and Benji’s mom I give you Lassus Trombone. (She plays the trombone so I figured she’d get a kick out of this.) And New York 1927 was really fun to play. We featured the trumpets in Bugler’s Holiday …including one of our oldest members at over 70 featured as one of the soloists. We even showcased the clarinets with Pie in the Sky Polka…a piece I spent way too much time practicing.

The whole evening was really fun, and the memories of that concert kept me smiling tonight on my long commute home after another very long and sad day at work. For the concert we invited 10 or so 7th graders to play with us on a couple of the pieces. The kids looked so young. The young man sitting with us in the clarinets said as he took his chair that he was nervous. We said that was OK, we were nervous too. Afterward his grin, and the grins of most of the other kids went from ear to ear. Amazing what music can do.

I wish it was this easy to lift my friend’s spirit.

May 8, 2013
by dawnkinster 25 Comments

Patience. Not so much a virtue.

Hart Senate Office Building

We’re finished, finally, with our meetings on The Hill. We’ve talked to legislative staff members, subcommittee members, transportation aides, heads of agencies, chief of staffs, a Senator, cab drivers and a Cabinet Member. Everywhere we go we express our frustration with the lack of speed we see coming out of the DOT (Department of Transportation), an agency tasked with the admittedly huge responsibility to implement many of the safety advances spelled out in the Reauthorization Bill passed last August.

Russell Senate Office Building.

Sitting at the huge conference table in the Transportation Secretary’s suite we heard over and over that mandating strong rear crash guards and speed governors, finishing the rule that mandates Electronic On Board Recorders, moving ahead to increase minimum insurance levels required by truck companies, putting together an objective study on size and weight, well, these things all take time. And study. Lots and lots of study. Because they want their T’s crossed and their I’s dotted. Repeatedly we were told we didn’t understand that it’s hard to get things finished in Washington. That there are lots of levels that had to be moved through before the common sense issues could be resolved. That we were impatient and naive.

Yea. We get that.

But let me tell you, if I preformed at my job the way it seems these projects are being handled I’d be unemployed. In the world of business, industry, retail, just about any workplace you can imagine, results are what matter. How many times, when asked by your boss to meet a deadline have you been able to respond with a study? Particularly a study to study the previous studies that have been done on your problem? How often are you allowed to miss a deadline, consistently come in late with a project, and make the excuse that it’s hard? We all have hard jobs. We all face difficult decisions. But eventually we all have to be adults and make a choice…go one way or another…do the best we can with the information we have.

Cannon House Office Building.

Nothing in this world is perfect and you can spend a lifetime trying to be sure you don’t make a mistake, trying to find the perfect solution, a solution that will make all people happy. Handling problems is hard. That’s why they’re called problems. But some problems have easier solutions than others. Some problems are no-brainers.

Strengthening rear crash guards is a no-brainer. The ones mandated on trucks now fail at an unacceptable rate. Canada and Europe have a better guard, and have for years. It shouldn’t be that difficult to transfer information from them to our own trucks. Raising the amount of insurance carriers are required to have is a no-brainer. $750,000 per crash isn’t enough to handle the medical bills for the first week a victim is in the hospital, not to mention a lifetime of rehab and care. Recognizing that heavier trucks will cause more destruction, more death, more injury is a no-brainer. But let’s be sure. Let’s put together a 2 year study. That’s the ticket.

Permanent memorial to truck crash victims.

We met with the DOT Monday afternoon. While we were there people died in truck crashes across the country. Monday afternoon in Charlotte NC the driver of a disabled SUV and a good Samaritan were hit by a semi. The good Samaritan was able to stop his car, get out and try to help the driver a the SUV, but the semi couldn’t stop? Why is that? Also Monday an Arizona public safety officer was killed, sitting in his car on the shoulder of the road while investigating another crash. So at least 3 people died while we were sitting in meetings discussing moving along on projects that will save lives. Not perfect solutions, but solutions that will save lives nevertheless.

Patience. We were told to have patience. The federal government moves slowly they said. These things take time they said. We need to study the ramifications they said. We’ll get back to you on that they said. Well. Tell all that to the three families devastated Monday. Ask them for a little patience. Then imagine it was your family. How patient would you be?

Exactly.

April 10, 2013
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

Trucks…here’s something you can do.

I’m watching the news today as it covers the people of Sandy Hook in DC lobbying for increased gun control. I listen to the husband of one of the adults killed as he talks about the flight to DC on air-force one; how the entire flight he wished he was home with his wife watching her dance while she made dinner. I see a clip of family members in a Senator’s office clutching tissue and trying to present their stories. My own eyes tear up because I know.

From deep inside my soul I know how they feel. How incredulous they are to be in the places they are now. And I know how they experience these amazing events – they experience it all through the mist of grief. I remember sitting at a boardroom table, next to the Secretary of Transportation, across the table from Ralph Nader. I remember the out of body experience as I talked to Dad in my head, unable to believe where I was, what I was doing.

Imagine flying on the President’s plane, talking to people you’ve seen only in the news. Imagine keeping their attention on your story as you talk. Incredible. But we would all give up the attention and all these experiences just to have our family member back. In a heartbeat. No one wants the kind of celebrity these families are experiencing now. No one wants to joint that club.

But I digress. Here’s something you can do. Go to this website and vote. It’s a poll asking people how they feel about increasing the size and/or weight of trucks. Currently in most states the maximum weight is 80,000 pounds. There is a push to increase that to 97,000 or 100,000 pounds.

One of the arguments most often used for increasing truck weight is that there will be fewer trucks on the road if they can be bigger. Historically, there has never been a reduction in the number of trucks on the road when weights have been increased. There are consistently over time more and more trucks sharing our roads. If the weights go up there will be more and more heavier trucks sharing our roads.

Another argument is that the increased weight will come with an additional axle which will spread the higher weight out so there will be less damage to our infrastructure. Truthfully, a heavier truck is a heavier truck. Our bridges were not built for 100,000 pound trucks. No matter how many axles you put on the truck it will still weigh 100,000 pounds. More damage to our roads and bridges is inevitable.

The families of Sandy Hook say they feel like their children and family members are with them as they work the Hill. It’s true. The people killed that December day are there on the Hill. And that’s exactly why Sandy Hook families work on gun issues and our families work on truck issues – issues we didn’t know anything about not so long ago. Issues we wish we didn’t know so much about now.

So please go and vote…and of course you can vote whichever way you feel. At the beginning most of the votes seemed to be coming from the trucking industry. Now there’s more of a mix in the comments. You don’t even have to comment. We were told we might have to set up a profile to vote, but I didn’t have to do that, so you will be anonymous. We just want to know what every day people think about bigger heavier trucks on our roads. We don’t want the poll to be skewed either way…we would just like to know how you feel.

Thanks as always for all your support. As things progress you know I’ll keep you posted.

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: grief