Talk about unfair.
I came across an article that is both tragic and beautiful, perhaps beautifully tragic or tragically beautiful. Maybe both and most likely neither.
This describes three different Chinese mothers who lost their children (livelihoods) in a fatal car crash. Their three children were attending graduate school in Ohio.
Witnesses told the newspaper that several cars were waiting at a traffic light when Jason Skaggs, then 34, approached the intersection of Urbana and Moorefield roads. Skaggs crashed his blue Chevy Tahoe into a Buick Skylark at 98 mph (about 158 kph), went airborne and sandwiched Bian’s Taurus between the Tahoe and a gold Chrysler, witnesses and police told the paper. (Eliott C. McLaughlin)
It’s hard to pick out a “worst part” of this story because it is all so horrible.
During the trial, the media uncovered a litany of driving violations committed by Skaggs, including a speeding ticket he received for driving 91 mph in a 65-mph zone just weeks before the wreck.
Skaggs also had been jailed for aggravated vehicular homicide in the past, after he had passed a car in a blind curve in 1994, killing a 79-year-old mother and her son, the Daily News reported. (Eliott C. McLaughlin)
That is a fairly disgusting fact, but it hardly compares to what the mothers will have to deal with now. Not only have they spent thousands of dollars flying back and forth from China to the US while paying for funeral arrangements, but they had also invested over $40,ooo for each of their children to attend school.
Because Bian, Xue and Sun Yan had promising futures, their parents were confident asking friends, relatives, colleagues and even their kids’ classmates for money to send them to graduate school at the 1,500-student Urbana University.
In China, personal loans from banks aren’t as common as they are in the U.S. More commonly, people borrow from friends and family, and you are honor bound to pay them back. There is no poor-mouthing or filing for bankruptcy. (Eliott C. McLaughlin)
In the Chinese culture, “When you raise a child, you are insuring your old age”, said the mother of one of the car crash victims.
Chinese laws would’ve never let someone like Skaggs drive, and more frustratingly, they say, the Chinese government would’ve stepped in with financial help if this had happened in their homeland.
Conversely, it is a Chinese law that has been most devastating. Because the world’s most populous nation has for 30 years enforced a one-child-per-couple policy, Bian, Xue and Sun Yan had no siblings, so the families’ prospects for the future were crushed in a Ford Taurus at the intersection of Urbana and Moorefield roads. (Eliott C. McLaughlin)
Skaggs was sentenced to the maximum 34 year sentence. That still does nothing for me. If this touching article written by Eliott McLaughlin didn’t completely shatter your heart, then the words of the mothers surely will.
Sun Chun Zhi said she, Cai and Yu sometimes struggle to grasp “the meaning of why we need to survive” after losing their only children.
“But we cannot fall apart now because we are trying to return the money to the people we borrowed it from,” said Sun Chun Zhi. “We’re trying every possible way to return their money.
You would think that after the loss of your only child, you would be free of all debt and responsibility, that at least you would be financially compensated for a completely preventable death. But no. These women will survive on less money, less food per day, and less reason to live while still trying to pay the people back that helped send their kids to school.
Perhaps it is tragically beautiful. These women who have lost their meaning to life now find reason to live in hopes of making the lives of others easier. I surely hope that someone in our Government will step forward and help them, whether a congressman or representative.
If any story deserves a spot on those depressing Friday night dateline specials, this is the one.
