This
blog was shared during the 2016 Put the Brakes on Fatalities Day safety blog
series and is being shared again this year.
By
Barby Jobe Myers
 |
| Kyle and Kylie. |
My friends often say, “you’re so strong,” but that’s a
choice for me. They aren’t with me when I drive to and from work and that
special song comes on the radio. My throat tightens up and the tears
stream from my eyes and all I can think about is her.
They aren’t with me when I wake up on her birthday each
December, so close to Christmas, and we’re supposed to celebrate. They
aren’t with me to understand how much my heart aches when I watch my two sons
score touchdowns or goals or go to state and I know how much they miss her
cheers and words of encouragement, and most of all her advice.
They
are not with me when all her friends graduate from college and her name is in
glitter on their caps. They aren’t with me when her best friends get
married and she is recognized as their maid of honor, but she isn’t there.
There’s that same feeling of my throat tightening, threatening to suffocate me
and I’m not feeling very strong. They aren’t with me when I’m driving on a
highway, any highway, late at night and it’s all I can do to shake the horrible
images that keep flowing into my head.
They
aren’t with me when I think it took just one person. One person who made a
choice. One person who chose to drink. One person who chose to drink
a lot. One person who then chose to get behind the wheel of his
car. One person to enter the highway going 90 mph heading west towards
Colorado on the eastbound entrance ramp.
They
weren’t with me when I got the call. They weren’t with me when I had to call my
dentist so we could confirm it was my baby girl. I don’t feel so strong. One
person killed two precious young lives. Both lives, full of love and
light, were put out by just one person who chose to drink and drive.
Life
is full of choices, please choose wisely. Drink responsibly. Select a driver,
call a cab, call Uber, call your mom. Please don’t drink and drive. You
can’t take it back.
 |
| Kylie and her brothers. |
I
wish you could’ve met my daughter, Kylie Brooke Jobe, and her boyfriend, Kyle
Thornburg. Kylie was a 20-year-old sophomore at Oklahoma State University
and her boyfriend, Kyle, was 22 and attended Wichita State
University. Both were from Wichita, were high school sweethearts and had
both attended Maize High School. We had just spent a fabulous spring break
skiing together in Colorado. On their way home, they became the innocent
victims of a drunk driver. They were killed in an instant, at mile marker
211,
on
I-70, when a 27-year-old man entered the Interstate going in the wrong
direction. He had a blood alcohol level of .23 – almost three times the
legal limit.
Kylie
was the light of my life, my best friend, beautiful and full of
life. There are no words to describe the hole in my heart that can never
be filled.
Barby
Jobe Myers, Mother
of Kylie Jobe – Born, Dec. 20, 1990 – Killed, March 23, 2011
The
lives of Kylie and Kyle are honored each March at Run2Believe, a 5K race, held
at Maize High School. Race proceeds are used to raise awareness in high schools
about the dangers of drinking and driving and to support scholarships in their
honor.
