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The Other Side Of The Coin
The Horrors of Drinking and Driving
A Drinking and Driving Nightmare
Please allow me to tell you a little about my son Josh. He was always a kind and quiet person. He never argued with his dad or me.
We have always been very proud of him, especially last year when he graduated from high school. That was a big accomplishment for him.
He always agreed with us on anything we would talk to him about so naturally we thought he was always listening to us when we would talk to him about drugs and alcohol. We were totally shocked when he was arrested for possession of marijuana at school. We didn’t see that one coming. We were very disappointed with him for making the choice he had made. He paid for that mistake and we decided he was worth being proud of again. I guess we had our eyes closed after that mistake as we failed to notice any other problem he had with drugs and alcohol.
I really thought he had learned his lesson when he got a DUI ticket.
He was scheduled for alcohol classes in November. I was hoping he would get the help he needed and maybe he would never drink and drive again.
He made a very bad choice to drink and drive again before time to take the classes. That’s when our nightmare began.
We received the kind of phone call that no parent ever wants to get. He had been involved in a car accident that was his fault, and a life had been taken. Our son was taken to jail and we didn’t know what we were supposed to be feeling. We were hurting so bad for our son yet we felt so much pain for the family of the man that died. We were able to feel their pain also cause my husbands sister was killed in a car accident when she was 18 years old. The guy driving the car she was killed in decided to play and race another car and it took the lives of 2 young girls. One of the girls was Josh’s aunt that he never got the chance to meet. We felt terrible when we found out our son was the cause of someone losing their life. We suddenly felt torn between our son and the other family. We were going through so many different emotions and feeling so much pain both ways.
All we could do is wait for a phone call from our son, not knowing what we should say once we got the call. He told us how sorry he was as he cried. We told him this mistake was a bad one, and that we didn’t know what to do. He told us there was nothing we could do and that it was all out of our hands. We felt so much pain for him, and the other family. We knew Josh was a good person that had made a bad choice and that it would haunt us all, for the rest of our life. We also knew we still loved him though. We felt so bad that someone had lost their life but we also knew our Josh was about to lose his life, as he had once known it to be. He told us not to hire him a lawyer so he would get what he deserved, but we thought he was worth trying to help again. We feel like he will learn a lot from this mistake and that he will do a lot of growing up thru all of this.
We know that he will have to pay a really big price for what he has done and we in no way want anyone to think he shouldn’t pay for his mistake. We will also be paying for his mistake to, as we are being financially drained, and emotionally drained. We had no idea what families went through when someone they loved went to jail. We are learning that there is no compassion at all for the family of someone that’s been arrested and placed in jail. We stand outside in a line for an hour or more every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, no matter if it’s rain or shine, cold or hot weather, so we can spend 30 minutes talking to Josh thru a speaker in a window, with a room full of people that’s also been in line waiting to speak to their loved one for 30 minutes to.
When something like this happens it puts a really big strain on the family. Your life has made a drastic change, and your not sure if your family will be strong enough to survive all the pain. You no longer have a normal life like you once had. All you can do is try to survive one day at a time, and pray a lot. You can pray for comfort and it helps for a while, then it hits you again. The days go by very slow while you wait and wonder what the future holds for you and your family. The Christmas season is here and you wish it would just hurry and go away. There will be no Christmas joy this year for our family, and we feel so bad for the other family that’s lost their loved one in this tragic accident. We pray God will give them comfort and ease their pain during the holidays.
As you go from day to day you wonder what the person was like that lost his life. You have been told not to contact the other family. You feel like it might ease your pain to talk to them or ease their pain. Then you ask yourself, what would you say if you were allowed to contact them. Of course you would want to tell them how sorry you are about what has happened. Then again you know you would have no words that could possibly ease their pain, yet you have this yearning to tell them that you understand what they are going through since you have felt that pain yourself before. Then you wonder if they would be interested in knowing about the person that has brought so much pain into their lives. Most likely they wouldn’t care to hear anything about what kind of person he is and that’s understandable.
Day after day you wait for a court date wondering what’s in the future for you and your family. In one way you want to get a court date, and in another way you hope it takes a while before you have to face what’s going to happen in the courtroom. Will the judge have any mercy on your son? Will they send him so far away that you can’t go visit him like you can with him in the county jail? Will he be ok in the hands of total strangers if he is sent away? The questions in your mind are never ending.
Then all the guilt feelings start creeping back into your mind. You know he has to pay for what he has done yet you want to bring him home so he can start rebuilding his life. Then again you know his life will never be the same, for a life was taken from someone, and that will haunt him forever. There is so much guilt to deal with when he comes back home to be with us. Just knowing when he gets here and we can touch him, and hug him and be with him again makes you feel guilty as you think of the person that lost his life. Knowing he will never go back home to be with his family will bother us, so we will be robbed of feeling the happiness we want to feel when our son comes back home.
Somehow you know the son you once had will never come back home. He will be a different person than he was when he was last here. You know you will have a big part in trying to help him deal with what has happened, and yet you know there’s nothing you can say to help him or us to forget what has happened in our lives. We know we will still be living one day at a time while we are trying to heal in a different way than the other family that was affected from our son’s mistake.
We would not want the sympathy from others for what we have been through. All the sympathy belongs to the other family that’s involved in this tragic accident. In no way do we want to take that from them. We can only trust in God to help us understand why this has happened and hopefully someone else will learn something from this as our son has.
A Letter to the Family From Josh
To The family of Bill,
I know there are no words that I can say where ya’ll could ever find it in your hearts to forgive me for what I have done to your family member or to your whole family. I hope that my doing time in the penn will help to ease the pain you feel and that you will feel like that justice has been served. I know that it won’t bring William back but I hope it helps ya’ll. I wish it could have been my life that was taken instead of his because it makes me feel so bad that I took a man’s life. I can’t imagine how much pain all of you must feel. I have been told about the pain that someone feels from losing a family member since my dad lost his sister at the age of 18 from an accident. I feel so guilty for taking William from your family like my aunt was taken from my family so many years ago, even before I was born cause I only have a picture to look at of her and now ya’ll just have pictures of William to look at.
I just want ya’ll to know how sorry I am for what I have done. I know that what I did was wrong and I have been ready to accept full responsibility for my wrong doing. Every time I think of the wrong I did, I totally regret with all my heart that I didn’t make a better choice. I wish I had done things so differently, and I know I would do things differently if I had another chance. I have made a lot of wrong choices in my life but the choice I made that night of the wreck was the worst I ever made. I will never forget how stupid I was for making that choice. The rest of my life I will think about William and wish that I could do something to bring him back. I haven’t felt like I deserved to live after what I had done. My family tells me that I have to accept what has happened but I want ya’ll to know that it’s hard for me to accept it.
My family talked me into getting the help that I needed by talking me into going to some AA meetings and going to Smart Recovery classes. That’s when I figured out that I was an alcoholic. It has really helped me to go to those meetings. It made me face what has happened and for me to know that I really do need the help they offer. I owe it to William and to your family to try to be a better person and to try to help others to not make the choices and mistakes that I have made. I want to do whatever I can to be a better person than I was. I just want you to know that I am basically a good person that would never want to hurt anyone for any reason. I will always regret what I have done. The truly deep remorse that I have felt since the night of the accident has made me make a promise to myself and ya’lls family to do better in the future, so nothing like this ever happens again.
There’s no way I can give ya’ll another dad, husband, brother, or son, but what I can do to help set things right and make a life long commitment to try to make the world a better place for my having survived the crash. I know that don’t mean I’m supposed to fix the world, but it does mean that I must do my best to keep trying.
While in prison I am going to do everything I can to take some courses to better myself as a person, so that when I get out I can do better with my life. I’m going to do all I can to give back to society so that ya’lls loss of William won’t be for nothing. I owe ya’ll that at the very least. I know I must not give up at working to become a better person so when I come through all this I can go on as a sober, thoughtful, and more considerate person who can contribute to society, instead of being a burden on it.
I just want to say that I know what I did was wrong and I will forever feel bad about it but I’ve made a promise to myself and ya’lls family to change the way I have lived my life that led me to take William’s life. I have also promised to ya’ll to make this situation something worthy of the memory of William. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Judge Sentences Josh to 12 YEARS
A Whitehouse man not old enough to drink when he caused a deadly drunken driving wreck was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison and ordered to reveal how he obtained alcohol.
Josh pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter and faced up to 20 years in prison for the October 2000 wreck that killed 44-year-old Bill of Longview.
Holding a picture of the victim, Down syndrome patient Jackie told Josh, "I love him, I miss him."
Bill’s younger brother was among several family members who gave off-the-record impact statements after a teary-eyed state District Judge pronounced sentencing.
She said written statements the Bill’s and Josh’s families previously submitted for a pre-sentence investigation were "probably the best I've ever seen."
The judge said she hoped the statements could later be used to educate youth on how "a split-second decision upsets so many lives."
The 12-year-term, which will include drug and alcohol counseling for Josh, resulted from a plea bargain between prosecutors and the defense attorney. The victim's father told the Judge he agreed to the sentence because his wife had heart trouble and other health problems, and a trial concerning her son's death would be too stressful.
A condition of the plea bargain is that Josh, now 21, provide a statement to law enforcement explaining how he obtained alcohol as a minor and the circumstances behind his drinking on the night of the wreck.
The defense attorney said during Thursday's hearing his client was ready to give his statement, but Assistant District Attorney said the Texas Department of Public Safety officer who planned to take it was not available.
She said plans would be made to have another officer take the statement if that officer is not available within a week.
Bill was driving his motorcycle in Bullard, heading to a birthday party in Lufkin, when he was struck by a pickup driven by Josh.
The Judge acknowledged Josh took responsibility for his actions and issued a written apology to the Bill’s family, "but nothing will bring Bill back. "Hopefully, there will be some sort of healing in some way," the judge said.
Josh at times looked at his victim's relatives and acknowledged the pain he caused them. At other times, he bowed his head when their statements about their lost loved one grew more poignant.
Bill’s father, in his courtroom impact statement, asked Josh, "Do you know what it's like to be told by a policeman at 5:30 in the morning your oldest son was killed?
"Our family will never be the same. We lost one of our own for someone else's pleasure," added William Sr. "Your family knows you will come back, but Bill will never come back."
Betty, the victim's mother, said the family last year commemorated his 45th birthday by making a donation to the American Red Cross and placing new flowers on his grave.
"What a way to have to remember our first-born's birthday," Betty said. "Don't you agree Josh?"
Nodding, Josh replied softly, "Yes, ma'am." Josh will have to serve half of his prison term before he is eligible for parole.
We, the family of Josh, will continue to stand by his side until this nightmare is over. We hope this story will help others to understand how important it is to never drink and drive so this will never happen to another family.
Send E-Mail to: judy799@hotmail.com
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