Jason Edwards grew up in the small town of Graham in West Texas where being gay was not accepted. Pegged as the class ‘gay boy,’ he was bullied relentlessly. His dad tried to spark his interest in sports and Edwards recalled being out on the field spinning around like Wonder Woman. “I was always different,” he said. On June 7, 2000, Edwards’ sister, Bella, was killed in an automobile accident. “It was like a part of me had been cut off—and I was just bleeding,” he said.
Edwards and Bella were queer siblings. They had an inseparable relationship, supporting each other throughout their lives. “I knew if she was a part of my life, I would always be OK. And then, I was not. I was not OK at all,” he shared. Edwards described the physical feeling of his sister’s loss as if his life source had been pulled out of his chest and replaced with an uncontrollable shake. He stopped writing for years, stopped calling his friends and became a recluse. Eventually, he ended up moving to start his life over because he could not handle the memories.
Edwards now lives in Austin, Texas, with his husband Matt. In June of 2015, same sex marriage was declared legal in all fifty states. They were engaged that month and married in August of 2016. “We felt that we deserved the same right to be legally married as anyone else did,” said Edwards. This Pride Month has been about spotlighting our queer brothers and sisters and continuing to highlight the societal shifts occurring in our country.
However, on June 22, 2022, the Texas GOP adopted an anti-LGBTQ platform declaring that being gay was ‘abnormal’, which opposes all efforts to validate transgender identity. This year, Texas lawmakers passed bills banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender kids and restricting the college sports teams that trans athletes can join. Edwards remains optimistic. “When I am at work, I see parents come in with t-shirts that say, ‘Protect Trans Kids.’ The world is changing, and I think we are winning. It is just an uphill battle.” The fight for bereavement care is an uphill battle as well. Being bereaved with no care only compounds the pain of marginalization.
And there are still so many people who do not understand what it is like to be marginalized. If we all woke up tomorrow and the world was different, men were supposed to be with men and women with women, maybe then people would understand how alienating it feels being the minority. Then people might understand how natural it feels to be with the one you love. Oscar-nominated actor Elliot Page said, “This world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another.”
Edwards remains optimistic and hopeful that our future has no prejudices, a world where understanding and acceptance replaces hate. He tries to fill his days with beauty, love, friends, art, poetry, music, and good food. “We are all rushing towards death. We just need connection,” he said. “What would happen if we all put our differences aside? We could make real change. If we take the time, we can find something in common with everyone.”
After his son Reid died in a car crash, Tim Hollister helped transform Connecticut’s teen driving laws. The provisions include earlier curfews, no electronic devices, a two-hour teen driving safety course for both teens and their parents and restrictions on who can ride with young drivers.
Evermore is dedicating this Father’s Day week to bereaved dads who will always be fathers.
A teen driver on an unauthorized joy ride. At night. On a road he probably had never driven before. With teenage passengers who needed to get home by their 10:30 p.m. curfew.
“You had a combination of circumstances that was almost guaranteed to end up in a crash,” said Tim Hollister, whose son was behind the wheel.
And it did. In December 2006 on a Connecticut interstate, Hollister’s 17-year-old son Reid was rushing to get his two passengers home, but never made it. After getting too far into a curve, he overcorrected and hit a guardrail, crushing the left side of his chest. His two passengers survived.
It was the beginning of more teen driving deaths in Connecticut. Nine months after Reid’s crash, seven teens died in six weeks. Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell quickly formed a task force to overhaul the state’s teen driving laws, which, at the time, were the most lenient in the country, and appointed Hollister to the task force.
Tim Hollister’s 17-year old son Reid died in a 2006 car crash. Nine months after Reid’s death, seven teens died in car crashes in six weeks. Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell quickly formed a task force to overhaul the state’s teen driving laws, which, at the time, were the most lenient in the country, and appointed Hollister to the task force.
“Basically, in warp speed, … we transformed our teen driver laws into one of the strictest in the country,” Hollister said.
The provisions include earlier curfews, no electronic devices, a two-hour teen driving safety course for both teens and their parents and restrictions on who can ride with young drivers. In the last decade, the law has resulted in a 70 percent reduction in teen driving fatalities in the state, said Hollister, an attorney.
“It’s a remarkable public safety achievement, and states around the country have taken notice,” he said.
A re-education
As the task force wrapped up, however, Hollister continued his study and work to spread the word about the dangers of teen driving.
“When I served on the task force, I got a re-education in safe teen driving and learned that I really, even though Reid had driven crash free for 11 months, that I really had not understood how dangerous teen driving is and why,” he said. “After the task force finished its work, I kept going, reading everything I could get my hands on.”
He launched a blog and eventually wrote “Not So Fast: Parenting Your Teen Through the Dangers of Driving,” which both the Governors Highway Safety Association and the National Safety Council have recognized. A second edition, co-authored with Pam Shadel Fischer, co-founder of the New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Coalition and a longtime transportation safety consultant, came out in 2018.
Hollister also wrote a memoir, “His Father Still: A Parenting Memoir,” which Gayle King endorsed in Oprah Magazine. Proceeds from both books go directly to the Reid Hollister Fund, which supports infant and toddler education in the city of Hartford, Conn.
Can’t just ‘hope for the best’
Hollister said parents often aren’t aware of the dangers of teen driving when their own son or daughter gets behind the wheel.
“Most of the literature that’s available to parents tells you that teen driving is dangerous, but it doesn’t tell them why and what you can do to prevent very predictable situations that most often lead to teen driver crashes,” he said. “It just doesn’t tell them how to work with their teens to make them partners in safety, as opposed to turning them over to a driving school and hoping for the best.”
Hollister recommends a parent-teen driving contract and says parents should be aware of the five biggest dangers for teen drivers that can lead to distracted and dangerous driving. They are other passengers in the car; alcohol and drug use; not planning enough time to get home before curfew; texting and checking electronic devices; and not wearing a seatbelt.
For Hollister, his work on teen driving is focused on preventing another parent from suffering the same grief.
“People ask me, ‘Was it cathartic? Did it help you with your grief?’” he said. “My grief recovery, which was basically all of 2007 and into 2008, was based on the three Fs: faith, family and friends, which I’m blessed to have a lot of.”
“My teen driving advocacy, I think of as a public service,” he said. “I had to put this information out there.”
More information about Hollister and his work is on his website — FromReidsDad.org.
Also read:
Am I Still a Father? — After his son Jon’s death, Ron Kelly helps other fathers live with their grief.
Kelly Farley and Barry Kluger are the dads behind the Parental Bereavement Act.
Evermore is dedicating this Father’s Day week to bereaved dads who will always be fathers.
Kelly Farley and Barry Kluger met because of a horrible coincidence: They knew what it was like to mourn a child.
For Kluger, it was his 18-year-old daughter Erica, who died in a car crash in 2001. For Farley, it was two children — his daughter Katie, who died by miscarriage in 2004, and his son Noah, who was stillborn in 2006.
The two met several years later after Farley launched a blog that covered his own experience grieving the death of his children, and Kluger invited him on his talk radio show.
As they chatted about what they both had been through, the two fathers started talking about finding an issue they could work on together. That discussion eventually turned to better bereavement leave for parents mourning the death of their child. Soon, they became the dads behind the Parental Bereavement Act.
“Your employer will give you three or five days of bereavement leave, if you’re lucky. That’s just not enough time. You bury your child, and you’re expected to get back to work the next day. We didn’t think it was realistic.”
Updating FMLA
Right now, the Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or a sick family member, but not to grieve a child who has died. And private and public employers aren’t doing much better. An industry survey shows that 69 percent of employers give parents just three days off after a son or daughter dies. It’s barely enough time to plan a funeral.
In 2011, Farley and Kluger crafted the Parental Bereavement Act, an update to the Family and Medical Leave Act that would allow parents to qualify for unpaid leave when a child, who is under the age of 18, dies. Twelve weeks, they say, is not enough time to fully mourn a child, but it’s a start.
“It gives them time to assess what has happened to them and, maybe, start the grieving process,” Farley said.
Not so fast
By the summer of 2011, the two dads got some great news. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, introduced the bill in the Senate. They hoped for quick action, which hasn’t come. But the bill has continued to get backing from lawmakers through the years. And, in February, it received bipartisan support in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.
Supporters said it was time to help grieving parents. Senator Martha McSally, a Republican from Arizona and a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate, stated in a news release:
“Parents coming to grips with the loss of a child should not have to worry about anything other than taking care of themselves and their loved ones,” said . “It is critically important to ensuring mourning parents have the peace of mind to be able to take the time they need while going through the grieving process.”
Representative Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia and a co-sponsor of the House bill, added in his press release:
“Expanding the FMLA to include parental bereavement is the most compassionate action we can take to do something, no matter how small, to help bereaved families. This legislation is a good start to make a positive change and I’m proud to support it.”
The latest endorsements make Kluger and Farley hopeful once more.
“We continue to build momentum and support, and a couple of weeks don’t go by without another senator or another representative signing on,” Kluger said. “We’re hopeful, but we’re looking at the bigger picture because there are so many people who have a stake in this.”
Uphill battle
Despite the bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, the two know that they still have an uphill battle. As the country grapples with an opioid epidemic, mass shootings and other pressing issues, helping bereaved parents isn’t top of mind for many.
Kluger and Farley continue to build momentum and support, and say that a couple of weeks don’t go by without another senator or another representative signing on.
“Bereavement leave is something where people say, ‘That’s a pretty good idea,’ but … the passion is not there,” said Kluger, who wrote a book about his daughter and her death called “A Life Undone: A Father’s Journey Through Loss.”
But, they say, it’s still worth the fight.
“I made it through the dark tunnel, and it is my responsibility to be an advocate for parents who follow in our footsteps,” said Farley, who now travels the country to work with grieving fathers and is the author of the book, “Grieving Dads: To the Brink and Back.”
Say something
To move the bill forward, Farley and Kluger are encouraging more people to speak out. So far, through an online petition, more than 120,000 people have sent messages to their lawmakers in support of the bill. There, parents also are sharing their own experiences after the death of a child.
“Three years ago we lost our first born. My husband received one weekend, then back to work,” wrote one mother. “How can you return to work when your mind and heart are somewhere else completely. We needed more time!”
Another mother wrote that her child’s father was fired for missing work to pick up their son’s ashes.
The two dads also encourage people to directly contact their representatives and share their own stories about why they support the bill, so that it gets the attention it deserves.
“I’m not discouraged,” Kluger said. “But I’ve learned the way it works. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”
Also read:
Am I Still a Father? — After his son Jon’s death, Ron Kelly helps other fathers live with their grief.
“There was no help for me,” said Edwards. He found his anger and sadness to be something unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life. The Psychological Bulletin reported in November of 2011, “Experiencing the death of a loved one during childhood or adolescence has long term effects on biopsychosocial pathways affecting health.” Navigating this loss was compounded by his schizophrenia. Edwards said he is not ashamed of his condition, but when a schizophrenic experiences a trauma, they need extra help. “It is ridiculous, it is awful. Public healthcare is a joke—you sometimes wait eight hours to see a doctor for fifteen minutes,” he said. 
