Thank you so much for sharing this. It is so heavy what you and everyone else involved have walked through.
But your courage and desire to share and see it help someone else is such an encouragement.
Several times, I made the same decision Chloe did. More than once, I drove under the influence. And somehow, no one was hurt, there were no collisions, and I was never pulled over for it. And I make no excuse or justification for it.
Because of my own traumatic background, I have never had a problem putting myself at risk. I did, and still do, have a tendency toward risky and dangerous behavior.
But eventually, I realized that driving drunk wasn't only endangering my life. I was putting other lives at risk too. And that weighed heavily on me. Knowing that I would struggle to live with myself if I were responsible for the injury or death of another life by my own recklessness, I decided not to drink and drive any more. And since then, I never have.
And you are right, choices works both ways. Part of why I write is to share my story, and that there is hope.
Thank you for what you write, and the messages you share.
And thank you for sharing some of your story with us. I drove drunk many times when I was Chloe's age. The only thing my young brain considered was trying not to get caught. The idea that I might kill myself or others seemed like an abstract idea that could only happen to someone else.
It's disturbing to look back on those days and try to imagine what I was thinking.
Thank you for your courage, to keep writing and sharing the painful. It matters. Your choice matters. I’m grateful for your experience and the ways you offer your wisdom.
Jesus. So powerful. Thank you for sharing. I'm so so sorry. I shared my hauntingly similar story on this last week, just incase it helps to know you're not alone. I'm not sure anything 'helps'. But regardless. Sending fortitude and gentleness and a big scream into the void.
I am so sorry you lost your baby and the future she might have had. I'm sorry for all the hurt she caused.
Thank you for trying to make something good out of something horrible.
It took me years of therapy to be able to write: I was molested by my grandfather between 4 and 6, and then again by a cousin when I was 11/12. At four I asked my mom to help and she left me with a pedophile. Part of me never left that room and it took almost 50 years to even be able to face what happened. Not the abuse, but that my mom left me.
I'm still working on this one:
"You can choose to let go of anger, resentment, or pride and tell someone you love them while you still have the chance."
It took a year in therapy to go from knowing my mom left me there, to being able to actually face it and start to work through the pain. It's also hard working through trying not to judge someone based on a single destructive decision. That's not all my mom was/is...she's always tried to be a good parent. She's just broken and flawed like the rest of us.
What an incredibly powerful share of a devastating experience. Thank you for sharing some of your journey with us. I find your ability to grow into viewing your mom with a sense of forgiveness and compassion truly inspiring ♥️♥️
I so appreciate this honest share. The truth is that I cannot let go on my own power. The God of my understanding gives me the needed strength on a daily basis. If it were up to me, I’d be screwed and perpetually trying to force myself to forgive and feel better about an unacceptable situation—and it never works.
Must always remember we’re never powerless over our choices. By knowing that we are not our thoughts , that we are the thinkers , not the thoughts, we can control our choices. ✌️
My goodness… what a powerful and heartbreaking read. Thank you for your bravery in sharing these painful truths about your daughter. I’m so sorry for all you have endured—and continue to endure. The weight of that burden must be immeasurable. My deepest sympathy is with everyone affected, including your daughter… She still matters 🤍
Thank you for having the courage to say “Chloe’s actions were her responsibility”. There is a whole world of people out there who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that we all are responsible for our choices, good and bad. I am amazed how you and your other daughter have come through this all and wish you the best on the way forward.
Thank you friend. I've really wrestled with the difference between blame and responsibility. It's something I plan to write about in the very near future. ♥️♥️
Thank you for sharing this very sad story. I appreciated your desire to remind others why every choice matters, and to simply tell this story. I can only imagine how hard this would be. It brings up two memories for me. A friend of mine lost her sister in a tragic accident when someone passing another car hit their car. What was also so tough was that I knew the young man driving the car that passed in a dangerous place and caused the accident. He wasn't drinking or anything. He simply made a poor judgement call, and someone lost her life as a result. I know this has impacted the lives of all who survived, and it's tragic.
Then in college, one of my closest friends, Patrick J Maloney was driving a friend's car back from Washington to Oregon. A drunk driver flew across the freeway median and hit him, taking his life. I don't remember if the drunk driver died, but I don't think they did. Patrick was studying medicine. He had such a beautiful heart and he had a bright future. He loved serving others and he would have been an incredibly compassionate doctor. Losing him was one of the most painful losses in my life. When I meet people who talk about driving drunk or under the influence, I want them to know that they could kill someone if they haven't already. But I appreciate your point that your daughter wasn't coping with the death of her mom, and I feel compassion for you and for her. I am sorry for your losses, and recognize that perhaps someone reading your story will make a better choice. Grateful that you're willing to share this story in the hope that someone will live a better story.
Thank you. Thank you for taking the horror of this life circumstance, and choosing to use it to make a difference. So much courage, but also I know it’s helpful and such an honor to your daughters life. Much peace to you.
My heart, what’s left of it after reading your article, goes out to you and everyone affected by this tragedy, all the immediate victims and every person in every layer of this story, and all their family and friends. And I’m not quite sure how to respond. I may need to sit with this and ask the Holy Spirit for the right words at the right time. You have enlarged your heart to encompass all of this tragedy, not just focusing on your rightful and singular pain at losing your (only? I’m trying to recall, not that it really matters as children are not interchangeable nor her loss is not somehow lessened if there are other children; Chloe was your beloved daughter.) daughter. You could have looked inward and refused to even acknowledge the other’s pain. This reminds me of St. Faustina enlarging her heart to accommodate all the Holy Souls and all the Priests and more:
“I desire, Jesus told Sister Faustina, that during these nine days you bring souls to the fount of My mercy, that they may draw from there strength and refreshment and whatever graces they need in the hardships of life and, especially, at the hour of death. On each day you will bring to My Heart a different group of souls, and you will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy, and I will bring all these souls into the house of My Father (…). On each day you will beg My Father, on the strength of My bitter Passion, for graces for these souls.”
You must one of the largest hearts in Christendom today.
My first thought is: have you taken this to schools to talk to young people? There are so many lessons in your experience. People contemplating suicide as an easy out for their (petty) little problems and annoyances in life, all this will happen when they take the easy way out for themselves. I know from three close friends just how messy in an emotional sense and how far reaching the trauma effects are for those left behind.
Young people need to step outside themselves and picture what would happen should they do something incredibly stupid. In my little town just yesterday a motorcyclist flew - drive off the roof of a 4-5 story parking garage downtown. Somehow after coding twice, he was stabilized for Air Flight transport to Fort Worth to a trauma center at the county hospital. Even before I read your article I was thinking about the people who witnessed this from establishments near by or just strolling through downtown. One seldom hears PTSD discussed in First Responders, innocent people who stumble across the brutally murdered, and as a rule people who commit suicide usually do not think about family members who discover them nor the clean-up that is necessary.
And it will probably come out that either drugs, alcohol or both were a contributing factor to the person flying off the building. And young people, middle school and up (although some elementary aged children are into substances, so in a modified way, they need to be scared straight too) need to hear the horrific devastation that followed your beloved daughter’s accident and death.
But who is binding your wounds? Who is offering up prayers for you and your family? Who is offering to sit in silence with you when appropriate? Who speaks lovingly and by name about Chloe? As a grandmother, I wish to gather you in my arms, to rock gently, and to make soothing sounds allowing you to cry on my bosom about your lovely wife and your daughter. Such sorrow so close together no one should have to experience, much less endure and live past.
And yet, here you are, giving advice to others, trying to lessen their pain, trying to prevent pain, you are the balm of Gilead for others, living out the lesson we learned from the Good Samaritan. Truly, you are living out the words in yesterday’s Gospel:
“32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”
Well, for someone who didn’t know what to say, I coughed up quite a bit. But these are immediate thoughts, and as I walk with you on your journey, I pray the Holy Spirit allows me to speak living truth to you always and with the heart of a loving grandmother for you.
I will include all those impacted by your daughter’s death in my prayer journal, as I have included you, your wife, and your daughter. But I am enlarging my heart to include all the innocents, and it those innocents you share with us today. It is not only the dead we weep and prayer for, as we should, but it is all those who were just living their lives that were caught up in the accident and were forever changed.
I will prayer for peace, for you, for Chloe, the ones who were injured, the ones who responded, those in the ambulance, the hospital, the families, all who were caught in the ripples of intense grieving that brought a loving daughter to her knees and beyond what she knew how to handle emotionally. May the Lord comfort them, heal them, restore them, forgive them, and may Chloe and her mom be escorted by Angels to a place of refreshment and light. May you, the survivor of this tragedy be comforted and strengthened with every passing day.
Jason as I read ur incredible insight I wonder and hope that others were and continue to be able to do this for you. Ur courage and sharing your traumatic experiences in a meaningful and powerful way is beautiful. Thank u. And u don’t have to do this alone either. Lots of love and light coming ur way through the universe. 💚
I applaud, appreciate and admire your courage to share this!
I am so sorry for your pain and the journey you must travel.
No doubt your courage has helped many.
It’s reading stories like this, that are honest and raw, that are filling my own courage cup to share hour ones of my own. So I thank you for that too. Much love and peace to you.
I’ve published four things about my journey…. And deleted them
All within hours…..
Today I wrote a poem about how missing my children breaks me….
Every single day.
I keep attempting to post it. But it’s SO raw…
It’s still in notes.
I’ve come back and read your post numerous times to try and make me post it…. And now, here you are… actually replying to me. Telling me even more of your journey….
And I feel like maybe, just maybe, I can share this painful poem with the kind people here.
I read it to my better half this evening and he said “it’s really good ……but it’s sad”
And I said……” well what do you expect?? I can’t exactly write a happy poem about losing four children”
He meant well. My biggest supporter. Strongest pillar.
But yes, everything I write about my darling children, is sad. Because even if it’s happy memories, at the end of it all, they are no longer with me! I’ll never get them back and the only respite I get is by sharing how I feel.
So thank you. THANK YOU.
I’m going to publish it in a second. Please read it. Tell me your thoughts.
Our stories are different but we carry a similar weighted grief.
I read your musings and I resonate. And again, I send peace to your wife and daughter. And to you. You are sharing a private journey and helping so many.
What strength and resilience you have Jason, reading this and about the recognition honor for your first wife had me in tears. Admire your raw honesty and the gift you are giving to men who grieve. We need you here…and we are all here for you, sweet man. ☺️🫶
Now, nearly 19 years since my son's girlfriend died instantly and in collusion with a van/man (perhaps texting my son) it's 19 minutes, 19 days and 19 no time at all years ago.
A magnificent first/one of many helpful, brave essays (in the sense of 'essayer') @Jason - commanding huge respect. All love. CC
Thank you so much for sharing this. It is so heavy what you and everyone else involved have walked through.
But your courage and desire to share and see it help someone else is such an encouragement.
Several times, I made the same decision Chloe did. More than once, I drove under the influence. And somehow, no one was hurt, there were no collisions, and I was never pulled over for it. And I make no excuse or justification for it.
Because of my own traumatic background, I have never had a problem putting myself at risk. I did, and still do, have a tendency toward risky and dangerous behavior.
But eventually, I realized that driving drunk wasn't only endangering my life. I was putting other lives at risk too. And that weighed heavily on me. Knowing that I would struggle to live with myself if I were responsible for the injury or death of another life by my own recklessness, I decided not to drink and drive any more. And since then, I never have.
And you are right, choices works both ways. Part of why I write is to share my story, and that there is hope.
Thank you for what you write, and the messages you share.
And thank you for sharing some of your story with us. I drove drunk many times when I was Chloe's age. The only thing my young brain considered was trying not to get caught. The idea that I might kill myself or others seemed like an abstract idea that could only happen to someone else.
It's disturbing to look back on those days and try to imagine what I was thinking.
Thank you for your courage, to keep writing and sharing the painful. It matters. Your choice matters. I’m grateful for your experience and the ways you offer your wisdom.
Thank you Lynn. I appreciate you reading and taking the time to comment ♥️
Jesus. So powerful. Thank you for sharing. I'm so so sorry. I shared my hauntingly similar story on this last week, just incase it helps to know you're not alone. I'm not sure anything 'helps'. But regardless. Sending fortitude and gentleness and a big scream into the void.
Thank you friend!
I am so sorry you lost your baby and the future she might have had. I'm sorry for all the hurt she caused.
Thank you for trying to make something good out of something horrible.
It took me years of therapy to be able to write: I was molested by my grandfather between 4 and 6, and then again by a cousin when I was 11/12. At four I asked my mom to help and she left me with a pedophile. Part of me never left that room and it took almost 50 years to even be able to face what happened. Not the abuse, but that my mom left me.
I'm still working on this one:
"You can choose to let go of anger, resentment, or pride and tell someone you love them while you still have the chance."
It took a year in therapy to go from knowing my mom left me there, to being able to actually face it and start to work through the pain. It's also hard working through trying not to judge someone based on a single destructive decision. That's not all my mom was/is...she's always tried to be a good parent. She's just broken and flawed like the rest of us.
You are making a difference.
What an incredibly powerful share of a devastating experience. Thank you for sharing some of your journey with us. I find your ability to grow into viewing your mom with a sense of forgiveness and compassion truly inspiring ♥️♥️
I so appreciate this honest share. The truth is that I cannot let go on my own power. The God of my understanding gives me the needed strength on a daily basis. If it were up to me, I’d be screwed and perpetually trying to force myself to forgive and feel better about an unacceptable situation—and it never works.
The power of choice- We
Must always remember we’re never powerless over our choices. By knowing that we are not our thoughts , that we are the thinkers , not the thoughts, we can control our choices. ✌️
Amen brother. Thank you for reading and commenting, as always! ♥️
I love this idea but disagree in practicing this principle. I,
Me, Myself have a hell of a time forcing anything. Lack of power is my dilemma. God changes my thinking. Only then do I make better choices.
My goodness… what a powerful and heartbreaking read. Thank you for your bravery in sharing these painful truths about your daughter. I’m so sorry for all you have endured—and continue to endure. The weight of that burden must be immeasurable. My deepest sympathy is with everyone affected, including your daughter… She still matters 🤍
Thank you. You just made me cry and I'm grateful for your kindness and compassion ♥️
Thank you for having the courage to say “Chloe’s actions were her responsibility”. There is a whole world of people out there who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that we all are responsible for our choices, good and bad. I am amazed how you and your other daughter have come through this all and wish you the best on the way forward.
Thank you friend. I've really wrestled with the difference between blame and responsibility. It's something I plan to write about in the very near future. ♥️♥️
Thank you for sharing this very sad story. I appreciated your desire to remind others why every choice matters, and to simply tell this story. I can only imagine how hard this would be. It brings up two memories for me. A friend of mine lost her sister in a tragic accident when someone passing another car hit their car. What was also so tough was that I knew the young man driving the car that passed in a dangerous place and caused the accident. He wasn't drinking or anything. He simply made a poor judgement call, and someone lost her life as a result. I know this has impacted the lives of all who survived, and it's tragic.
Then in college, one of my closest friends, Patrick J Maloney was driving a friend's car back from Washington to Oregon. A drunk driver flew across the freeway median and hit him, taking his life. I don't remember if the drunk driver died, but I don't think they did. Patrick was studying medicine. He had such a beautiful heart and he had a bright future. He loved serving others and he would have been an incredibly compassionate doctor. Losing him was one of the most painful losses in my life. When I meet people who talk about driving drunk or under the influence, I want them to know that they could kill someone if they haven't already. But I appreciate your point that your daughter wasn't coping with the death of her mom, and I feel compassion for you and for her. I am sorry for your losses, and recognize that perhaps someone reading your story will make a better choice. Grateful that you're willing to share this story in the hope that someone will live a better story.
Thank you Susan and thank you for sharing a little about Patrick with us. You honouring his memory by sharing his story might save someone's life ♥️
Thank you. I pray people will hand over the keys and never risk their own lives and the lives of others if they are impaired.
I knew your daughter had died but didn’t know how. Gosh, that’s hard.
Thank you Donna ♥️
Thank you. Thank you for taking the horror of this life circumstance, and choosing to use it to make a difference. So much courage, but also I know it’s helpful and such an honor to your daughters life. Much peace to you.
Thank you Thea ♥️♥️
My heart, what’s left of it after reading your article, goes out to you and everyone affected by this tragedy, all the immediate victims and every person in every layer of this story, and all their family and friends. And I’m not quite sure how to respond. I may need to sit with this and ask the Holy Spirit for the right words at the right time. You have enlarged your heart to encompass all of this tragedy, not just focusing on your rightful and singular pain at losing your (only? I’m trying to recall, not that it really matters as children are not interchangeable nor her loss is not somehow lessened if there are other children; Chloe was your beloved daughter.) daughter. You could have looked inward and refused to even acknowledge the other’s pain. This reminds me of St. Faustina enlarging her heart to accommodate all the Holy Souls and all the Priests and more:
“I desire, Jesus told Sister Faustina, that during these nine days you bring souls to the fount of My mercy, that they may draw from there strength and refreshment and whatever graces they need in the hardships of life and, especially, at the hour of death. On each day you will bring to My Heart a different group of souls, and you will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy, and I will bring all these souls into the house of My Father (…). On each day you will beg My Father, on the strength of My bitter Passion, for graces for these souls.”
You must one of the largest hearts in Christendom today.
My first thought is: have you taken this to schools to talk to young people? There are so many lessons in your experience. People contemplating suicide as an easy out for their (petty) little problems and annoyances in life, all this will happen when they take the easy way out for themselves. I know from three close friends just how messy in an emotional sense and how far reaching the trauma effects are for those left behind.
Young people need to step outside themselves and picture what would happen should they do something incredibly stupid. In my little town just yesterday a motorcyclist flew - drive off the roof of a 4-5 story parking garage downtown. Somehow after coding twice, he was stabilized for Air Flight transport to Fort Worth to a trauma center at the county hospital. Even before I read your article I was thinking about the people who witnessed this from establishments near by or just strolling through downtown. One seldom hears PTSD discussed in First Responders, innocent people who stumble across the brutally murdered, and as a rule people who commit suicide usually do not think about family members who discover them nor the clean-up that is necessary.
And it will probably come out that either drugs, alcohol or both were a contributing factor to the person flying off the building. And young people, middle school and up (although some elementary aged children are into substances, so in a modified way, they need to be scared straight too) need to hear the horrific devastation that followed your beloved daughter’s accident and death.
But who is binding your wounds? Who is offering up prayers for you and your family? Who is offering to sit in silence with you when appropriate? Who speaks lovingly and by name about Chloe? As a grandmother, I wish to gather you in my arms, to rock gently, and to make soothing sounds allowing you to cry on my bosom about your lovely wife and your daughter. Such sorrow so close together no one should have to experience, much less endure and live past.
And yet, here you are, giving advice to others, trying to lessen their pain, trying to prevent pain, you are the balm of Gilead for others, living out the lesson we learned from the Good Samaritan. Truly, you are living out the words in yesterday’s Gospel:
“32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”
Well, for someone who didn’t know what to say, I coughed up quite a bit. But these are immediate thoughts, and as I walk with you on your journey, I pray the Holy Spirit allows me to speak living truth to you always and with the heart of a loving grandmother for you.
I will include all those impacted by your daughter’s death in my prayer journal, as I have included you, your wife, and your daughter. But I am enlarging my heart to include all the innocents, and it those innocents you share with us today. It is not only the dead we weep and prayer for, as we should, but it is all those who were just living their lives that were caught up in the accident and were forever changed.
I will prayer for peace, for you, for Chloe, the ones who were injured, the ones who responded, those in the ambulance, the hospital, the families, all who were caught in the ripples of intense grieving that brought a loving daughter to her knees and beyond what she knew how to handle emotionally. May the Lord comfort them, heal them, restore them, forgive them, and may Chloe and her mom be escorted by Angels to a place of refreshment and light. May you, the survivor of this tragedy be comforted and strengthened with every passing day.
Peace 🕊️
What a profoundly beautiful message (especially for someone who didn't know what to say). Thank you so much for your kindness and compassion ♥️
Jason as I read ur incredible insight I wonder and hope that others were and continue to be able to do this for you. Ur courage and sharing your traumatic experiences in a meaningful and powerful way is beautiful. Thank u. And u don’t have to do this alone either. Lots of love and light coming ur way through the universe. 💚
I applaud, appreciate and admire your courage to share this!
I am so sorry for your pain and the journey you must travel.
No doubt your courage has helped many.
It’s reading stories like this, that are honest and raw, that are filling my own courage cup to share hour ones of my own. So I thank you for that too. Much love and peace to you.
That makes me happy. The first time I ever shared something it went like this...
I wrote it.
I edited it.
I hovered over the Publish button.
I chickened out.
I edited it again.
I hovered over the Publish button again.
I decided that instead of publishing it, I should organize my sock drawer like Marie Kondo.
(I still do that to this day)
I told myself I was being ridiculous.
I hovered over the Publish button again.
I wondered when my mouse clicking finger developed such a recalcitrant attitude.
3 hours later, with sweat on my upper lip, I hit the cursed button.
And no one read it or commented.
So I thought I better write something less crappy so someone would read it.
And you know what? The next one was a little easier.
You can do it friend. And I think the world will be better for it ♥️♥️
Thank you for sharing this!!!
Do you know why??
I’ve published four things about my journey…. And deleted them
All within hours…..
Today I wrote a poem about how missing my children breaks me….
Every single day.
I keep attempting to post it. But it’s SO raw…
It’s still in notes.
I’ve come back and read your post numerous times to try and make me post it…. And now, here you are… actually replying to me. Telling me even more of your journey….
And I feel like maybe, just maybe, I can share this painful poem with the kind people here.
I read it to my better half this evening and he said “it’s really good ……but it’s sad”
And I said……” well what do you expect?? I can’t exactly write a happy poem about losing four children”
He meant well. My biggest supporter. Strongest pillar.
But yes, everything I write about my darling children, is sad. Because even if it’s happy memories, at the end of it all, they are no longer with me! I’ll never get them back and the only respite I get is by sharing how I feel.
So thank you. THANK YOU.
I’m going to publish it in a second. Please read it. Tell me your thoughts.
Our stories are different but we carry a similar weighted grief.
I read your musings and I resonate. And again, I send peace to your wife and daughter. And to you. You are sharing a private journey and helping so many.
I am certainly not the only thankful one. 💕
I will read it my friend and I'm very, very proud of you. ♥️
I did it…. I’m freaking out…. Thank you for the push… I think……
do NOT let me delete it!! Please! My children deserve to be heard!
Well I shared it and I bet you're about to get a whole lotta love friend ♥️♥️
What strength and resilience you have Jason, reading this and about the recognition honor for your first wife had me in tears. Admire your raw honesty and the gift you are giving to men who grieve. We need you here…and we are all here for you, sweet man. ☺️🫶
Thank you so Joan. I think my eyes might be sweating a little bit ♥️♥️
16 months - 16 years - Numbers
Now, nearly 19 years since my son's girlfriend died instantly and in collusion with a van/man (perhaps texting my son) it's 19 minutes, 19 days and 19 no time at all years ago.
A magnificent first/one of many helpful, brave essays (in the sense of 'essayer') @Jason - commanding huge respect. All love. CC
Thank you Cherry ♥️♥️
Brave of you - xx
Thank you
Thank you so much for reading. ♥️♥️