On Christmas 2015 my family was hit from behind by a drunk driver. My father was killed instantly. He had just won an award at work for his exceptional integrity. He was an exceptional role model and loved his family with every ounce of his being. My mother had severe internal injuries. She had damage to several organs and lost a large portion of her intestines. Both of my brothers were ejected from the SUV. One brother fractured his skull and suffers from back issues to this day – the other brother was not as lucky. My oldest brother suffers from a severe Traumatic Brain Injury. He broke every bone in his face and his back in three places. He didn’t open his eyes for over a month and went through stages of consciousness before fully emerging from his coma about five months later. He now has a brain shunt and struggles with seizures. He spent two years learning how to talk, eat and walk again and he struggles with severe memory issues. I am a softball athlete. At the time of the accident I had just started getting noticed by coaches and was hoping to get a D1 athletic scholarship. My foot was trapped under my father’s car seat, crushing every bone. After eleven surgeries it took me six months to relearn how to walk. I have permanent ligament and tendon damage. I have severe pain and my foot needs to be fused, but I have chosen to return to softball and play for as long as I can tolerate. Playing at the college level was a dream my father and I shared. I recently committed to play for Christopher Newport University. As a D3 school, they do not have athletic scholarships and without my father’s income, I need to find financial support from other sources.

My father worked his entire life to take care of his family. In a moment, someone else’s irresponsibility stole our financial security. Like most working families, paychecks were used to pay the bills and raise the children. Often, very little was left for savings or future investments. This made life insurance and Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance all the more important. Had my father not had the forethought to have these coverages, we would have lost our home and struggled to meet our most basic daily needs. Unfortunately the man who caused the accident did not have acceptable levels of insurance coverage. His auto insurance was the minimum required by law in Virginia – $50,000 bodily injury for all persons per accident. The medical bills for my family of five had exceeded that amount before leaving the scene of the accident. He had nothing we could sue for and is now in prison, leaving us to figure out how to survive without my father’s income while continuing to incur medical bills that have exceeded $2 million. There is no such thing as too much insurance, but not enough insurance is devastating.

Throughout our recovery, I have maintained a 4.4 GPA. I will major in neuroscience in hopes of finding better treatment and recovery options for those suffering from traumatic brain injuries.

Grief is a never-ending roller coaster of feeling angry, confused as to why it had to happen, its being depressed, and in denial. Most days I wish I could go back and change the things that I regret; maybe say I love you more, other time I’m able to tell myself it wasn’t my fault. One will never truly know what its like to lose a parent to suicide, until they experience it themselves. 2019 on April 2nd was the day that my mother had decided to take her own life. Little did she know, she also took a bit of my own life with her. When she had passed, I knew that I would have waves of emotions, but I never expected myself to feel financially drained.

My mother ironically had no savings account. It was clear as to why her savings was empty, acknowledging all her issues with spending her money due to depression, and living paycheck to paycheck in the past. But we were lucky to know my mother at least had life insurance. The insurance had covered most of the funeral, but not everything like we had hoped. My grandma ended up spending around $7000 as a beneficiary, and my older sister had chipped in around $1,200 for my mother’s stone. In sight of all this, my mother had left our bank accounts damaged, with only $10 left from my mother which wasn’t enough to make up for the things we had lost.

Since my mother’s passing, I have dug deeper into financial issues, something I thought would never happen. I currently am holding down three jobs to support my father who I moved in with following my mother’s passing. I now provide for myself more than I believe a dependent should. I had to buy my own car, I now pay for my own phone, I help support my family with rent and groceries, and I also had a gap In my car insurance after my mothers death, which caused my expenses to rise. With my mother’s death, I now am also struggling to make It possible to attend college which is my top priority and continue the therapy that I need.

If my mother had a savings account, and started life insurance earlier in her years, my family wouldn’t have had to struggle so much financially. I wouldn’t have to work so hard to make ends meet and I wouldn’t have to spend money to attend therapy for my mental health. Nothing has been the same since my mother had left. Everyday has become struggle for me and my family, and we all miss my mother very much. I feel as though my life got flipped around, but I aspire to keep living like my mother would have wanted, which is why I decided to go to college and major in Psychology to become a therapist. My mother’s depression took her life, and I don’t want others to have to suffer like my family did.