Be Safe

Thinking about things left unsaid

I wasn’t feeling good, so I left work a little early the other night. I am amazingly blessed to have a great crew who really do care about me, and so I had learned previously that if I was going to leave early, I needed to check in with everyone and let them know I was going. I actually got scolded for not telling them when I had left early one night previously. So, before I left, I told everyone I wasn’t feeling good and I was going to head on home. Before I left they all said, “be safe.” Without fail, if I need to leave early, everyone tells me, “be safe.” And it got me thinking about that morning, as Sean was leaving to go to work for the last time… I told him I loved him, and I told him to have a good day at work… but I didn’t say “be safe.”

I didn’t tell him to be careful. I didn’t tell him to watch out for crazy drivers. All the things I didn’t say come flooding to mind. Not that it would have made any difference, in hindsight. He was safe, and careful, and he was on the lookout. He did everything right. It wasn’t his fault. But I still can’t help but wonder, what if I had said just one more little thing? Could that have possibly made a difference? I never taught him what to do if another driver crosses the center line. It never even occurred to me that I should, but I’ve had it happen to me before and I could have given him advice that could have made a difference. I know, deep in my heart and way at the back of my brain, that it wasn’t my fault. That it likely wouldn’t have made a difference. But I still can’t shake the thought that I could have done more for him. And then he’d still be here.

There are a lot of things I don’t talk about from that morning. I haven’t shown more than a small handful of people the pictures of his truck. I try not to talk about the wreck itself or coming up on the scene of the accident or any of that stuff. Not more than the initial Facebook post and the Substack that followed. I still think about it almost daily, but that’s not a burden for anyone else to have to bear. I haven’t talked about the other driver or any of the follow-up with the State Police or the local Prosecutor’s Office because it just adds layers of anger and pain that I’d rather not relive publicly over and over again. Everything brings up questions and anger and emotions that aren’t healthy to dwell on. I don’t want to tarnish the happy memories of his life and what he meant to everyone with things that just insight rage. I also can acknowledge that there is something healthy about getting all of that out of my head and off of my chest and making it public, especially now that legal proceedings are moving forward and there’s no legal necessity to keep those things private. So this will be all I write about it.

The other driver was a 19 year old from Kentucky. He was working the outage a the power plant here in Petersburg. He had a long history of speeding and reckless driving. His learner’s permit had been suspended for those violations, and he had never obtained more than an intermediate license from the state of Kentucky, and that too was suspended when he caused the wreck. Meaning he should not have legally been driving by himself at any point. Back in fall of 2025 he was arrested for failure to appear following similar violations. The week before the wreck he was pulled over in Princeton and had his truck impounded for driving on a suspended license. How he got the truck out of impound and was back on the road less than a week later is a question we’ll likely never know the answer to. A little over a month after the wreck he was back at it, and got arrested in Henderson for speeding while driving without a license or insurance. So the Pike County Prosecutor will be pursuing charges for driving while never having obtained a license and causing an accident that resulted in a death, along with reckless homicide. Both are Level 5 felonies in the State of Indiana and carry a maximum sentence of 6 years (which does not stack). He was arrested and is in custody in Kentucky awaiting extradition to Indiana, at which point the process for trial and everything else will start. There are a lot of questions in all of our minds, obviously. How and why was he still on the road? Why hadn’t he been in jail already? This never should have happened because he never should have been driving to begin with. As I said, it all just brings up questions and anger. And that’s something that’s hard to live with. And the more I talk about it, the more angry I get by it. It gets hard to differentiate the difference between wanting justice and wanting vengeance.

So, I focus on the good. I focus on the love and pride I had in my son. I’ve lived angry. I’ve lived hurt. I didn’t like that guy, and it wasn’t healthy. I like to think I have dealt with all of that and moved past that part of my life. I have an amazing family, a good job (despite how much I may complain about it sometimes), incredible coworkers (even if they might get on my nerves sometimes), and an all-around blessed life. So, in these moments I choose love. I still cry every day. I still think about the wreck every day. I still wait for him to text me back. I still watch for his truck to come pulling up to the house. I still expect to see his massive self laying in his bed when I walk over and look in his room. I see him so clearly in my thoughts. And I love him so much. I’m so proud of the young man he’d grown in to. I miss him. God, how I miss him. But in these moments, I have to choose to focus on how much he loved us and how much he brought to our lives. Because if I spend any time dwelling on who took him from us and how he was taken, I know that will only lead to a dark place that I cannot go to. That none of us need to go to.

As we move forward with everything, we will pray for justice. Not vengeance. And we will focus on the life that was lived and the joy it brought. Not how it was taken.