Jennifer April Mitchell

On a sunny, Sunday afternoon, our 9 year old, blonde, blue-eyed daughter was killed when a drunk driver smashed into her as she rode her bicycle to a Brownies meeting. Her name was Jennifer April Mitchell.

Like most nine year olds, Jennifer's favorite color was pink. Her bedroom was bedecked in pink and white checks. Assorted, tiny boxes and one empty coffee can, set neatly on a shelf below her window, hid such treasures as shells, stones, dried flowers, a dragonfly, beads, figurines and photos. Ballet shoes hung on pink ribbons from her bedpost and well worn, white-booted figure skates leaned against the wall. Teddy bears and dolls kept company on her bed. All of these belongings, the sum total of this precious child's life, could fit within less than five cardboard boxes.

Memories are another thing all together. How do you sort through memories? Fear creeps in that you may forget something. We worried that we would somehow forget the curl of her smile, or the softness of her hand in ours. We longed for the mess of peanut butter and jelly on the kitchen counter again, that we had scolded her for each morning before school. I missed picking up the dropped towels on the bathroom floor. All moments shared had ended. Everything spoken of this child, from one fatal moment on, was spoken in the past tense.

Both John and I had been working hard for several years at our daily jobs to save enough money to purchase our own home.� In the evenings we free-lanced advertising from our studio at home.� Jennifer had an old coffee can, that she had decorated, sitting on her dresser. This held her pennies, nickels and dimes that she, herself, was saving for her proportion of the down-payment.� It is not as unique dream for a family to work� toward, but our little unit, it was our own special dream.

On Friday, May 25, 1979, we gleefully pooled our resources and the contents of the coffee can to make the down-payment on a two bedroom bungalow with two cherry trees in the front yard, and a glassed-in, front porch. Jennifer immediately chose the front bedroom looking onto this porch. She loved gardening and verbally imagined her oasis outside her window during the cold Canadian winters.

Jennifer ran through the park near our "soon to be home" with so much enthusiasm it nearly burst our hearts to see her. Finally her dream had come true. � It was one of those moments parents live for.� To see your child so happy from something you have all worked so hard for.

On the following Sunday, May 27, Jennifer's friend stopped by to pick her up to go to a Brownie's meeting.� As Jennifer was going out the door, I called her back. "Hey, you can't leave without a kiss," I said to her and we both giggled.� I had no way of knowing that would be the last time I felt my daughter's sweet kiss upon my cheek.

An hour later, our only child, Jennifer April Mitchell lay naked on a cold black stretcher, surrounded by white-garbed figures, fighting desperately to save the life of a limp figured,� little girl they had never known.

Questions and confusion filled our minds. Everything moved in slow motion, we were as if in a bad dream, we could not wake from. What had happened?

A tall, large boned, doctor led us into a tiny, rectangle room, reminiscence of a converted broom closet. He asked us to sit down, which I immediately refused.� With ashen, drawn face and sweaty, clasped hands, he announced, "Your daughter is neurologically dead." In that split second, in that one breath, our whole lives changed forever.

Jennifer had been struck from behind while riding her bicycle, by a drunken driver, Joseph Britto.� Britto was so impaired he did not see her on the road! His blood alcohol content was recorded as 230 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millimeters of blood. He never applied his brakes until after he had hit her. Jennifer was hurled six feet into the air and landed smack down upon her head.� She never regained consciousness. Jennifer died in our arms ten hours later.

During those long ten hours, my husband John and I talked endlessly. Everything seemed so unreal and most of all senseless.� We vowed to our daughter that she would not die in vain. We made a promise to our dying daughter that we would do everything we could so that this would never happen again to another child, if we could prevent it.