The afternoon in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains appeared somber as I drove along I-24 westbound from Knoxville to Memphis to be with my children. I had been overseas for three months in the Netherlands at an educational summit and had enjoyed it immensely; well, that is until I received that fateful phone call in the early morning hours that every parent dreads. It was four O’clock in the morning Amsterdam time which was seven hours ahead of the Central Standard Time zone of the caller and I was groggy but the sound of the unusual ring at that time in the morning found me wide awake.
It was my former wife Robbin who sounded out of breath “David, there’s been a horrible accident and Chaz’s car is totaled”. Chaz was our oldest of three children and had recently turned seventeen. The shock of that statement sent cyber fast images across my mind’s eye; a mangled car, blood, a hospital ambulance, a room of dedicated emergency medical technicians and doctors frantically working in the organized chaos of those ever so familiar scenes.
