Katie’s Story

Every parent knows the little rituals of keeping a child safe. Buckling seatbelts. Checking curfews. Saying drive careful. Sending the text that says call me when you’re home. These are the everyday things we do without thinking, all born of love.

Let me tell you our story. On the morning of September 6, 2017, I said goodbye to my daughter, Katie. "Get home safe. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you!" Katie had just graduated from the University of Minnesota. She had moved into her first apartment, proud and independent, and had adopted a goofy little rescue dog named Winnie. She was bright, kind, full of joy, and always moving forward. 

We casually parted on an ordinary day. She had plans. I had plans. Nothing out of the ordinary, until it was.

I drove past a terrible wreck on the highway that afternoon. The kind of wreck that steals your breath. Flashing lights strobed against the pavement. Emergency crews moved quickly, their figures bent over twisted steel. The car itself was unrecognizable, crumpled metal and shattered glass twisted into something that no longer looked like it had ever carried a life inside.

I felt that small tug in the chest we all know when we come upon something so horrific. A shudder that runs through you. The weight of dread pressing down as you try not to imagine the scene too closely. I whispered a prayer for whoever it was. I told myself my family was safe. I told myself it was someone else’s tragedy. And then I drove on.

The phone rang. The voice on the other end said the words no parent can bear: there had been an accident, it was my daughter, I needed to come now. My world collapsed into a single terrible moment. Heart pounding. Breath gone. A scream that would not leave my throat. At the hospital the horror was complete. My beautiful Katie, just twenty-two years old, was gone.

On that day Katie sat at a complete stop in rush hour traffic. Her car had been still for more than five seconds. Behind her, a distracted truck driver bore down the same stretch of road. His semi-truck carried a side dumper thousands of pounds overweight. His vehicle was poorly maintained. He was speeding. 

There were no skid marks at the scene. Not a single sign that he even tried to stop. He never braked. He never swerved. He slammed into the back of Katie’s little car at full force. The impact crushed the car. It crushed her. My beautiful Katie was killed instantly.

What was taken that day cannot be measured. I lost my firstborn. My best friend. The daughter I spoke with every day. I lost all the ordinary things, the quick texts, the long talks, the holidays, the daily check-ins. I lost the chance to see her fall in love, to start a career, to maybe one day have children of her own. I lost every future moment we were meant to share. All of her firsts became her lasts. Her last move into a new apartment. Her last class at the university. Her last laugh with friends. Her last goodbye.

There is an empty chair at every table now. An empty space in every photograph. A silence in every ordinary day where Katie’s voice should be. I visit her at the cemetery instead of seeing her at the door. The hole in my heart will never close.

Every day I carry the silence where her voice should be. That silence is the measure of what was taken.

We tell Katie’s story because her death was not inevitable. It was preventable. And until the roads are safer, her absence will speak for her.