[/caption]GHN Editor - People say they never get over the death of a child, as one writer recently explained, especially when the child is murdered or killed through negligence of someone else, in which case many people find ways to at least relieve the pain by helping others or memorializing the tragedy in a special way, as two people did with a cross-country bicycling trip.
Carl McDonald and his sister, Sallie McDonald, bicycled across the country from their homes in Texas and Florida to Astoria, Oregon to memorialize Carl’s daughter, Carlie, who was killed in 1998 by a drunk driver at the age of 5. In this instance the drunk driver was young Carlie’s own mother.
Carl is a former law enforcement officer who is now the National Law Enforcement Initiatives Manager for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). In addition to recognizing his daughter, Carl’s journey dedicated each day of his ride to a different victim of drunk driving. The journey began in late April in Amelia Island, Florida.
The bicycle trip ends at the Columbia River Memorial Museum at 1792 Marine Drive after which Carl and Sallie will spend Tuesday in Astoria then travel to Portland to catch a flight to return home on Thursday.
The impetus for the journey, and the chronicle of it, can be found on the MADD website. MADD was founded on September 5, 1980 “To aid the victims of crimes performed by individuals driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, to aid the families of such victims and to increase public awareness of the problem of drinking and drugged driving." It is also documented on http://warmersummers.com/.
The problem of drunk driving is one that impacts people all over the world. There is now an online presence called Alcohol Alert that allows people to share their experiences. This allows the expression of that “pain that never goes away.” They say this is a way to put a face on a problem that seems never to go away.
Experts remind us that when we experience a personal or natural disaster, there is a grieving process. Part of handling that process in a way to promote healing can come from doing things for others. It can also come from support groups and the recognition that grief is an individualized process that has an individual timeframe for each person. Whereas one person can recognize his or her ability to cope soon after a serious event, others take more time. There is no recognized time for everyone to recover from any given loss, as that grief process often goes through stages that allow people to deal with their emotions in ways that follow their own individual needs and issues. For some people a cross on a hillside cemetery is enough for remembrance and the place to grieve when those feelings come up. For others, the way to memorialize the loved one is to turn grief into action, whether that is a bicycling journey on behalf of others who have lost loved ones to drunk driving or answering telephones in a fundraising campaign. When alcohol and automobiles don’t mix, many people become victims of the result; and as people continue to function past their grief, that memory of the event most often remains.
