My Daughter Turned Sixteen That Morning And Blew Out The Candles On Her Birthday Cake—But Before The Night Was Over A Drunk Driver Destroyed Everything, Taking Her Life And Her Best Friend’s While My Mother Fought For Survival In A Hospital Bed

The morning of Lily Harper’s sixteenth birthday began the way birthdays are supposed to begin—laughter in the kitchen, the smell of pancakes in the air, and a teenage girl pretending she wasn’t excited while secretly counting every message arriving on her phone. Lily walked into the kitchen wearing an oversized sweatshirt and messy hair, but the moment she saw the …