WHO WILL HELP? PRIVATE CHARITY OR GOVERNMENT?
What can Justine Mulhall possibly say?
“I’m sorry”?
“I didn’t mean to”?
“Forgive me, please”?
Would it be better to say nothing at all?
It’s a question that comes up whenever an accident turns truly tragic, when the unintentional actions of one person lead to devastating pain for others.
Two highly charged values immediately collide. The desire to say something real and soothing and appropriate. And the likelihood that whatever is said will almost certainly never be enough.
Justine Mulhall was behind the wheel of the 2010 Honda Civic that slammed into a tree off the Meadowbrook Parkway. The one-car crash took the lives of Jamie Malone and Paige Malone and that of Justine’s brother, Michael Mulhall. Police have ruled out alcohol as a cause of the early-morning crash but haven’t yet offered a clear explanation.
There’s no suggestion that Justine meant anyone harm.
But the closeness of these five young people makes the human tragedy a hundred times more personal, a thousand times worse. All five from Floral Park. All five close in age. All five on their way together to Camp Anchor, where they were working this summer as counselors.
So how will Justine express herself? What now can she do? As she remained in Nassau County Medical Center in East Meadow, being tended for relatively minor injuries, she had to be wrestling with that.
Could any words bring comfort to the grieving Malone family? Would reaching out to them only make their suffering worse? And what can Justine possibly say to her own loving relatives, concerned for well being and suffering unspeakably with Justine’s own brother’s death?
So many question swirl around this terrible accident. Few are more difficult than what to say.
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E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
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According to Nassau County Police three eyewitnesses in three different cars have come forward telling police Justine had been cut off that trgic morning.