It's Not Right

Last weekend, a 16-year-old local girl died on the other side of the freeway. Evidently, she was already in the roadway on a long stretch of poorly-lit asphalt that blended with her dark-colored party clothes. Law enforcement doesn't know whether she was thrown/jumped from a vehicle onto the roadway or was walking alongside the pavement and hit by a driver who left the scene. Sadly, there is little information and/or evidence to determine what happened and who is responsible.

And therein lies my concern: who is responsible.

There are not just parenting responsibilities, but individual responsibilities that take precedence over blaming the public for bad decision-making. The family has been featured on several media outlets, blaming "whoever did this" for ending this beautiful young girl's life so suddenly, and tragically, in the dark of the night on a lonely stretch of poorly-lit road. The older sister, who admitted that they "often" partied together, was not there that night with her sister: she probably could have protected her from whatever happened.

Pause, rewind, replay.

Yeah, that's correct: her older sister "often" partied with her 16-year-old sister, going so far as to help her to sneak out of the house so she could have fun with older guys. This tragedy was, perhaps, simply an inevitable consequence of family negligence and really bad role models in an older sister who should have protected her baby sister by keeping her at home! It was not the darkness of the pavement or the lack of streetlights that caused this tragedy: it was a family, an older sister, who favored partying over personal safety!

The car washes have been held, with the goal to raise $8000 for the girl's funeral. $8000 is about $7000 more than most people have to spend on a funeral, but many families spend money they don't have for a public display of ... regret, remorse? The family believes that this young girl is the victim of a violent crime, but she's a victim of family negligence: she deserved better from her parents, from her siblings, from her friends who all knew and loved her "free spirit." They all agree that she loved to party, but this time she died doing what she loved doing. I doubt that any amount of public outrage and lawsuits against the lonely stretch of asphalt will ever assuage the guilt that belongs within that family.