This first part is a bit graphic. What is being described is what the boy learned and remembered of the incident.

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Everything, and I do mean everything, changed for me the day that my mother died. That was three years ago, I was ten years old.

She was on her way to work, she liked to be in the office early; that was quite normal for her, especially as she was likely to become a partner in the law firm she worked at, they were on the point of offering it to her when her life ended in just a few brief seconds.

She had a green light, and had just entered the intersection, when some guy at the wheel of a big semi blasted through the red doing nearly 65 MPH in a 35 MPH zone. He hit her passenger side door, the impact literally threw the small car, spinning as it went off the ground, directly into the front end of a large van about to make a left turn in the lane next to her. Her car was crushed between the semi and the van.

The semi continued barreling across the intersection, ending up on the wrong side of the street, then went over the curb before running into the one cement pole near that intersection. The high speed impact snapped the pole, and it slowly toppled through the semi cab, grazing the driver's head, before smashing through the top of the trailer, landing on top of and partially crushing the near end of a few heavy steel pipes.

Mom had no chance at all, when her car hit the van, the engine plant was pushed right through the front seat. The driver of the van stepped out of his vehicle, took a brief look into the car and promptly tossed up his breakfast onto the street before staggering off the road.

Police, fire and ambulance were on the scene within a few minutes; some of them, looking inside the car, reacted like the van driver. A member of the fire department opened the door of the semi cab to find the driver slumped over the wheel, out cold, a second opened the other door. What the two fire department personnel saw inside the cab horrified them, the driver had an opened case of what are commonly called tall boy cans of beer, two cans were missing and the flats for two other cases were on the floor, as were many empty cans.

They managed to wake the driver, and a police officer came over to do the breathalyzer test which revealed the driver was at nearly twice the legal limit. A quick scan of his log showed he had been driving well beyond the twelve to fourteen hour maximum most states allow. The driver of the semi found himself being hauled away from his truck and stuffed into the back of a police cruiser after being Mirandized.

One of the paramedics had found the van driver, quickly checked him over and found he was okay, just very shaken by what had happened.

The accident drew a crowd, many people in vehicles who had either witnessed it or were curious, and others walking by stopping to look. The accident also drew some news crews, who quickly got the word out about the accident, drawing even more of a crowd to the scene.

Several fire department members started using the Jaws of Life to get into Mom's car. It was obvious even before they started that there was nothing that could be done for her, but they still needed to extract her remains from the vehicle. Her partially crumpled briefcase was found in the back seat footwell on the passenger side, it had literally been shoved through the seat, leaving a large hole in the seat itself.

Once they had her info, which was in a small purse inside the briefcase, the emergency personnel contacted Dad. He was just about to head into the office after having seen me out to the bus that takes me to and from school each day when he got the call about Mom. Once he knew what had happened, he informed them that I was on the way to school, what school I attended and was told they would send someone to the school to meet me and inform me of my mother's death.

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I was completely unaware that anything had happened, blissfully listening to my fave music on my iPod while the bus crossed the city. I was dropped off about half a block from school, and wandered through the main doors a couple of minutes later. As I headed to my locker, I crossed paths with my gym teacher, who informed me that I was to go to the principal's office immediately, then said that I wasn't in trouble.

Well, that had me completely confused, if I wasn't in trouble, why did I need to go there? Then, as I opened the office door, I saw the young female police officer in the waiting room; she turned, asked my name, then pulled me to a chair and had me sit down. That was when I knew that something bad had happened, as soon as she told me about my Mom's death, I broke down completely, bawling my eyes out.

I found out later from Dad that he called in to his work, told them what happened, and was told to take whatever time he needed to sort things out. He had been a big part of their current business boom, and they wanted him to be able to return to work at full capacity, if that meant he needed a long break before he could step back in as their front-line manager, they would deal with it and he wouldn't lose his job.

See, Dad had a big interest in tool and dies when he was in school years ago, and he was hired by the company he works for within three months of his finishing college. He worked for about five years on the plant floor before he noticed something that could be improved, passed it up to the floor manager, and after the improvement was done, resulting in somewhat faster production, he ended up in management, then spent the next five or six years working his butt off and climbing the management ladder, reaching his current position as finance VP early last year. Since he became part of the management team, productivity has nearly tripled, sales have boomed and he's become very popular there. Business has been so good that the company is looking at purchasing a bigger site to expand their production lines.

So, to get back to me, I sat there in this nice police officer's arms for a fair while, bawling like crazy before the tears finally slowed. She continued to hold me and told me that my mother hadn't suffered at all, she had died instantly. I'm glad she didn't suffer.

The principal called my dad, let him know my reaction and said he would allow me some time off from school if I wanted it. Dad set him straight, knowing that even something as serious as this wouldn't pull me away from my interest in school. After Dad gave him assurances that I would see someone recommended by our doctor to help deal with the loss of my mother, he gave in and said things would stay as they were.