My husband and I were getting ready to start the day when multiple police cars pulled onto our driveway. Our eldest son Alex had left college and was on the road to start his adult life in Colorado. I instantly thought something must have happened during the drive from our home in Boston, Massachusetts.
Panicked, I ran upstairs to our youngest son's bedroom and begged him to call his brother while my husband, Robert, then 53, answered the door. We were told that our daughter, Elana, had been a passenger in a fatal car crash on July 28, 2024. The driver was intoxicated by alcohol and marijuana, and both passed away at the scene.
She had spent that weekend with friends in Vermont. She was eight days away from returning to the University of Arkansas to begin her third year as a communications major. In her final hours, Elana was not kept safe or protected in the way her family had done countless times while driving through the Vermont mountains.
It is an unbearable pain knowing she was unable to protect herself in a place that was so special to our family, and that we will never have the chance to prevent what happened. She had her whole life ahead of her. She had so much love to give, dreams to chase and light to share.
Gone in an instant by an act that was entirely preventable. Elana never stood a chance. The crash was so severe that she could not be identified for two weeks and was ultimately identified through dental records.
At her celebration of life, I learned just how much of an impact she had on so many people's lives. Three people I had never met told me that Elana had saved them from a dark place. She was incredibly outgoing and had a unique way of bringing people together.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
