Brian Kelly

Saturday, June 2, 1991. I can never forget that day. I was visiting a friend in New Jersey, we were supposed to be at the Jersey Shore for the weekend. We got a late start the night before and decided that we would skip the trip. The phone rang at 8:30 in the morning. It was my dad calling. Thinking I was at the shore, he left a message for me to call right away. I got up and called him back. When he answered the phone he told me what I never thought was possible. "Come home. Brian's dead."

I got a ride home. No one thought I should drive. So many unanswered questions. All I could get out of my dad was that there was some sort of wreck early in the morning. It wasn't until I got home that I learned that my brother Brian was killed by a drunk driver.

These things didn't really happen did they? More importantly, they didn't happen to anyone I knew, especially not my family. But it did, the front page headline in the local paper confirmed that. I was left wondering why this was happening. I remembered one of the last conversation we had ever had. Actually, argument was more like it. I was critical about what he was doing with his life. Now I wished I could take it all back. Anything to have my big brother back.

Brian was the stereotypical big brother. He used to make me do all sorts of things, just because he could. We grew up in upstate New York and we used to play one-on-one tackle football. One day when we were playing, he got up after I had tackled him. He went for a touchdown. I sat there and complained until he convinced me that it was completely within the rules. Being 11, I didn't realize that I had just been set up. The next time I had the ball I thought I would do the same thing. When I got up to run, he drove me into the ground so hard. Sometimes that moment is stuck in time and I can still feel the pain of being driven into the frozen ground.

Beneath everything was the kindest person in the world. He never had any money, but if he did you knew he would lend it to you. When I graduated from high school, he told me that he wouldn't be able to be there because he had to finish a roofing job in another state. Well, he did everything he could to finish early. He made it just as I was about to get my diploma.

Back to June 2, 1991. He spent that day at a wedding for two of his closest friends. He was in the wedding party. By all accounts, he had a really good time. On the way home, at about 3:45 AM, A car entered Rte. 84, a four-lane, divided highway, in Orange County, NY going the wrong way. The car traveled for five miles, ignoring the cars he ran off the road honking their horns and flashing their lights. The joyride ended after his car bounced off a tractor trailer and speared my brother's car head on. My brother was killed instantly and his girlfriend was seriously injured, spending weeks in the hospital.

This was the fourth offense for the drunk driver. His BAC was .16 and he ended up spending almost five years in jail for vehicular homicide. Brian deserved more than instant death at the hands of a drunk driver. He deserved to get married and start a family. He deserved to be the Uncle to my daughter. Everyone who knew him deserved to have their lives enriched by his selflessness and love. No one deserves to have their life shattered by a drunk driver because when you put all the pieces back together there is always a piece that you can never put back.