What is the Matter with Aunt Jane?

HBO had free service this weekend and I watched the documentary "What is the matter with Aunt Jane?"  or something like that.

A family had gone camping for the weekend and taken their three nieces with them.  The father and dog drove the truck and the mother with two children and the three nieces was in the borrowed van.

The father and mother said goodbye to each other after cleaning out the camper and each getting into their truck and van.  On the way home one of the older girls called her parents and told them something was wrong with Aunt Jane.  She was in pain and could not see well and was driving erratic.  They later found her cell phone on a cement ledge on the side of the road.  And they had a video of her going into a store, looking for a pain pill the store did not have.  It was later determined she could have had an abscessed tooth she had not had treated.  The mother had a $100,000 job and was amazingly organized.  She evidently did all the organizing for the family and treated the father like another child,

In her own personal family her mother had left them when the girl was 9 years old and she had taken over the responsibility for that family also.  In other words she was a highly responsible person who was known to smoke marijuana on occasion when she wanted to sleep and having an occasional drink.

Bottom line she was reported as driving at a high speed with intense concentration as she whizzed by other vehicles on the highway and eventually she was driving like this in the wrong direction going south on a north bound lane and drove head on into one vehicle causing a crash that killed eight people including herself, one of her children and the three nieces.  Her alcohol level was reported at .19 with traces of something from marijuana.  Her relatives could not believe she would drink and drive and she was cold sober when they left around 9 in the morning, the crash was early afternoon after the father had already arrived home much earlier.

The family, of course, wanted to understand what had happened and felt the tests must be wrong.  They wanted to clear her name.   They spent over $30,000 to an investigative firm.  It was all for naught.  No conclusions, no understanding what happened, no disproving the tests were wrong.

The relatives who had lost all three of their daughters feel their life is over.  The five year old son who lived could not give any explanation for what happened.  The children on one phone call were heard to be crying in the background but the relatives had received about three other phone calls earlier just saying they were running late and then the one call from the daughter in which she said something was wrong with Aunt Jane.

They surmised the pain in her tooth was so bad she may have smoked a marijuana at some point and she drank from the vodka bottle in the car and since she didn't usually do both at the same time she had a bad reaction.  But there is not proof.

I think the only thing to be gained from this story is to not let your children ever be driven by anyone else.  If there is an accident, it will be almost impossible to ever forgive that person.

I remember one time when I was driving some of my grandchildren at night and I wondered why I was being trusted on the freeway at my age with such precious cargo.  Not a good thing.  Mike recalls his mother entrusting them being driven with a young relative.  He observed that you think you are going to be so protective of your children and yet, it is such a relief when someone offers to take them for awhile that you let them go.  I am not sure but in the long wrong, I would say in this uncertain world, do not let other people drive your children anywhere, anytime, anyplace. 

As for the cars that were hit and four people died, this is the unfortunate chance you take when you drive our freeways.  Better start every trip with a prayer.  I have had some close calls.

And just yesterday 10 people killed in Florida because of poor visibility on the freeways.  As I drive the freeways in the Los Angles areas I always imagine what could happen if just one person makes a mistake...it is a miracle we survive the freeways at all.  But we can never be too alert or too careful as we travel up and down the world byways.  And...don't let anyone drive your children.