Moving On With the Death Of a Loved One: Cathrine Hatcher
Saturday, August 28, 2010 | 6:37 PM
Catherine shares with us her touching story of the death of her daughter
Amanda Marie and how she honors Amanda every day.
Catherine Hatcher: Moving on After the Death of a Loved One
It is March 7th, 2007 at 6:30 in the morning. Catherine Hatcher receives a phone call from her son informing her that her daughter has been in an accident. From that moment on, Catherine’s life is changed.
She can’t believe what she is hearing from the other end. Then the news sinks in that oh my god, my daughter’s been in an accident and she’s gone, and she hangs up on him. “I lost it,” Catherine says. “I couldn’t even put two words together.”
Home alone, she calls her husband to tell him Amanda’s gone, and she can’t move. But she has to see where Amanda has died. So she drives to the bridge to see where her daughter’s speeding car crashed front-on and exploded. The firefighter who had pulled Amanda’s body from the refuge lives two doors down from the crash site. Seeing Catherine examining the site, he comes to talk to her.
The firefighter calmly explains what had happened. That Amanda had hit the bridge at a high speed, that the brakes were never applied, that she died on impact. Catherine often wondered about whether her daughter had felt pain, whether she suffered. “It was relieving news that she didn’t suffer,” Catherine remembers, “although I wasn’t sure if I should believe it. I thought, ‘Well, maybe he’s just telling me that so I won’t feel bad.’”
As the days, weeks and months crawl by, Catherine is able to unravel what happened that night. Amanda had argued with her boyfriend. She had drunk two margaritas. Angry with her, he left her alone in the parking lot. She started on the way to his house to try to resolve the argument and stopped to call a friend to say that she needed help. Catherine imagines the conversation:
“I’ll come and get you. Where are you?”
“I don’t know,” answers Amanda (“which is strange,” Catherine recalls,” because she knew that road”).
“I hear a man’s voice,” says her friend. “Is someone there in the car with you?”
“No.”
“I hear a man’s voice. Who is that, Amanda?”
“I…I don’t know…Hey! There’s a guy standing at my window!”
Catherine tries to put the pieces of the puzzle together in her mind: That when Amanda had pulled over to call for help, perhaps that man had been driving behind her, thinking she was having car trouble. He had knocked on the window and said, “Are you OK? Do you need help?” At two o’clock in the morning, Amanda’s antennae were up. She and her friends had been taught that men are not to be trusted at that hour. The friend must have told her on the phone to get away quickly.
“So,” Catherine muses, “she turned from him and said, ‘Get away from me!’ and took off. And when she took off, she was scared. She didn’t realize how fast she was going. She missed a curve in the road and hit the bridge head-on.” Amanda’s car exploded on impact, and the emergency team couldn’t get access to her for about forty-five minutes until the fire had been extinguished.
After figuring out the details of that tragic night, Catherine had to pick up the pieces of her life. Amanda was the second of two children. “She was my baby. She and I were extremely close. She would tell her girlfriends, ‘My mom is my best friend.’ Of course she didn’t tell me everything but she told me a lot. And to have her as my best friend and to lose her was an incredible pain that I wouldn’t want any other mother or father to go through.
“You bear those children, and you raise them, and you have all these hopes and dreams that they’re going to do all these exciting things – and then they’re gone. It’s a terrible thing to have to go through.”
It’s been three years now and Catherine still has moments when she cries. “But I know in the spirit of who she was, fun-loving and happy — she would say, ‘Oh mom, I love my life!” — I know that she wouldn’t want me to remain stuck in her loss.”
Ultimately, Amanda’s mom has decided to make the most of this situation. She has started putting her talents in public speaking and film to use. She has immersed herself in producing a docudrama – a reenactment of Amanda’s tragedy – while taking the poems Amanda wrote, and wrapping speeches around them in order to present the film trailer to high school students. “This is what I can do to take what happened to me and make a difference.” Catherine discusses the responsibilities and dangers behind the wheel. There were five things that killed Amanda that night, she explains: “She had an argument with her boyfriend, so she was emotionally upset. She had consumed alcohol, which magnifies the emotion you’re already feeling. She was frightened, she was on the phone, and she was speeding. So those five things created this situation that killed her. I tell young people, whatever decisions you make don’t affect just you.”
Another project that is helping Catherine to heal is called Mothers of the Roadside Cross, a blogsite where those who have lost loved ones in an accident can find an outlet to talk about what happened. Stories can be sent to roadsidecrosses2010@gmail.com. She has also set up the Amanda Marie Foundation: amandamariefoundation@gmail.com.
“Young people don’t realize how important they are to the parents in their lives. I think that young people don’t feel that they are appreciated. If you feel that way, ask questions. Even if you were to ask, “Do you love me?” That opens up a dialogue for conversation.
“What happens between parents and children is that if you don’t work on that relationship you start to take it for granted. I never took Amanda for granted and she didn’t take me granted. Thank God for that because I would be a bigger mess.
“She had asked me to lunch that day and I declined because I had a client. My biggest regret is that I didn’t get to see her that day before she left.” Catherine urges parents to plan to get together with your child whether it’s once a day or once a week, to really to invest in that relationship “because you never know when someone’s going to be gone, and the regrets are far worse to deal with then just the grief alone.”
Catherine informs us that the problem is no longer drinking and driving. It’s actually texting and driving! And if you want more information about those statistics, you can email her at amandamariefoundation@gmail.com.
Following Your Dreams: Michelle Prince
Saturday, August 28, 2010 | 6:29 PM
How Michelle followed her dreams of becoming an author despite all odds.
Michelle Prince: Following Your Dreams
Like many of us, Michelle Prince spent many years in corporate America being successful, but not fulfilled. She was living a life “feeling that there’s got to be more.”
So she embarked on a journey to discover, or re-discover, her purpose in life. What was is it that she really wanted to do? She reminisced how years earlier, she had followed her passion working in personal development. She loved helping people change their lives for the better.
But she had left her passion behind in order to pursue more money. At the time, she thought it was the right decision. But she ended up spending the next twelve years selling software in corporate America. “I was doing things that I could do, and I was successful, but I wasn’t giving all that I knew that I had.”
About two years ago, Michelle decided to dive into an unknown destination. “I just took a plunge and decided to write a book. And it was something that had been in me, probably since I was eighteen years old. But I didn’t have the confidence or the character or the belief to think that I just could do it.”
Within three weeks the book was written, within eight weeks it was published, and to top it off, it hit the best-seller list. “Things have been amazing ever since,” says an elated Michelle. Although it hasn’t been easy changing careers and going in the direction of her passion, she feels more fulfilled now than any other time that she can remember.
Her husband and children are benefiting from Michelle’s new changes because she is a much happier person.
Now Michelle’s work is to inspire women who are feeling stuck either in the wrong relationship or working at an unfulfilling job. Even though they are doing what they think is right, it may not be their purpose or passion. “And until you find that purpose and passion it’s pretty guaranteed that you’re not going to be as happy as, I believe, God wants you to be. Life is way too short to live an ordinary life. It’s really true – we need to live extraordinary lives. We have it all inside.”
Tori Tackles the Complexity of Life: Tori Lynn
Monday, July 5, 2010 | 2:45 PM
Tori explores how life is never easy and throws us situations we don’t
always expect. But how we overcome these life challenges define us.
Jerri’s Battle and Victory With Beauty: Jerri Speaks
Saturday, July 3, 2010 | 5:54 PM
Jerri describes her battle with her weight and what she did to overcome
negative self image.
Loving the Skin You’re In
I couldn’t fit into any of my clothes – my arms were just too big! It made me want to just lock myself up in my house, like a cousin of mine who has literally imprisoned herself in her home because she is overweight. She won’t go out anywhere.
That’s when I remembered God in my life saying, “I’ve got some things for you to do!” I realized it wasn’t over. Despite my situation, despite my weight, I knew it wasn’t over. So I said to myself, “OK, Jerri, you’re still wonderful, you’re still somebody, you’re still worthy.”
See, it’s all about the process of how you feel and how you think about yourself. I’m valuable — that was a high price to pay for myself. I mean, with all God has brought me through, with the tumor and all, at the end I’m going to sit here and shriek because of the weight? No, no, I’m still me.
So that’s how I got through. And here’s my advice to women all over. First, it starts with us. We have to know our self-worth and our value. We have to learn to love the skin we’re in.
Living Powerfully with Multiple Sclerosis: Adele Foster
Saturday, July 3, 2010 | 5:54 PM
Adele shares how she overcame Multiple Sclerosis and continues to live her
life as a healthy woman.
Winning Over Depression: Julie Hersh
Saturday, July 3, 2010 | 5:48 PM
Julie explores her journey through depression and how she has come out the
other side.