Kathryn Bettis:  

Currently I am a widow with 2 beautiful adult children living in Hagerstown, MD. I was married for 23.5 years to a wonderful man who loved me dearly. James passed away Feb. 15, 2010 and I am now moving on with my life. I worked for over 17 years as an Executive Administrative Assistant, spending most of that time in the environmental field and loving it. Currently I am employed by Texas Instruments but am on permanent disability leave and will retire in 2013. My daughter, Melissa is almost 24 and is currently attending Hagerstown Community College. She is pursuing her Associates Degree in Business Administration and will be graduating in December. She currently has a 4.0 GPA and I am so proud. Her goal is to keep that GPA in tact all the way through. My son James will be 21 in September and is currently a manager at Chuck E Cheese here in Hagerstown. The regional manager has big plans for James and wants to make him a General Manager as soon as possible after he turns 21. James has been managing restaurants since he was 17 and he loves what he does. He enjoys every aspect of the business from managing the employees to training to marketing to just managing the restaurant and he is very good at what he does. I am very proud of him and needless to say my husband was very proud of both of our children. We lived in Texas from 2006 - 2011 and James, Lit' James and I loved it. Melissa prefers Maryland. When James passed away, I was forced to move back here but my heart is still in Texas and I hope to return one day even if just to be able to visit every year. We mainly raised our children in the Glen Burnie area of Anne Arundel County and life was pretty normal. Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, Football, camping trips, school activities, etc. We were involved in it all and loved it. We had a few tragedies too. For those of you that don't know, my precious mother was killed on Aug. 6, 1997. She was involved in a vehicle collision while visiting her mother in Maine. A young man on a motorcycle was traveling at about 120 mph and slammed into the side of Mommy's car. She died about 45 minutes later, both of her passengers lived although the rear passenger received permanent facial nerve damage. The boy that hit her, Christopher McDonald, did live, he got a broken arm and some short term memory loss. He also was charged and later convicted, thanks to my tenacity, with Manslaughter in the 1st degree (a Class A felony in ME) and Attempted Murder with a Deadly Weapon along with several other charges. Chris served 18 months in prison (15 actually) after spending a year on house arrest before the sentencing trial and then was on Parole for 6 years during which time he had to do 400 hours of Community Service of which I demanded he had to do spending time directly with victims. He also was not permitted to drive at all for a period of 10 years, he had to pay back 1/2 of the funeral expenses (my uncle did not submit all the bills) and had several other severe restrictions placed on him. Christopher was to receive a sentence of 10 years not to serve any more than the above with it being probation not Parole, however, the judge was so moved by my Victims Right Impact Statement that he dismissed the Plea Bargain Agreement and gave Chris the option of accepting his sentence of 20 years with 10 years suspended and the above imposed (that is why he got Parole not Probation) or face a jury in which he would also face a 2 counts of Attempted Murder with a Deadly Weapon since there were 2 passengers one of which was 95. Christopher's lawyer wanted to object, Christoper accepted his punishment and has been clean ever since as far as I know, He also received counseling for alcohol abuse due to his prior offenses and his behavior after Mommy's death. I was able to forgive Christopher that day and am a better person for it, I actually have a love for the man I can't explain. I don't talk to him but I do pray for him constantly and continually and he is never far from my thoughts. It is my understanding he now councils other young people about the consequences of their actions by taking the motorcycle that he was driving around to churches and other places and speaking out about what he did to Mommy. I do know he parks the bike outside his window so he must look at it everyday as a reminder of what he did. Anyway, on to better topics. I also lost my dad just a year before my mom. He passed of a heart attack. We all knew it was coming so it was not a shock and in some ways it was a relief. One thing we have all been so grateful for is the love of Christ in all of our lives. We all know that each of us have had a relationship with Him so that I know I will see them all again one day. My husband was the one that I worried about the most since he was not a Christian but about 4 years before he died, he gave his life to Christ. It was right before we moved to Texas, James and both of my children dedicated their lives to Christ by being baptized by immersion on December 24, 2006. I was so overcome with joy. Well those of you that know me, know that I was just crying my eyes out. I mean come on my husband and my kids were baptized on Christmas Eve...of course I was going to cry...lol. My son on his high school graduation was more worried about getting pictures of Mom crying than of him graduating that it became the family joke. Those of you that know me, will totally get that one and yes you can laugh. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at, right. Currently, I am bac...Expand for more