How is it that a life can be reduced to this?

Passenger of broken-down van struck and killed while directing traffic

It's weird when you spend your time reading about other people's misfortunes in the news to suddenly be faced with seeing your own with such candidacy. For everyone looking at this story, that's just a body of someone they didn't know, someone who tried to help, who tried to do what was right as they saw fit, someone they are easily distanced from, or worse yet, even just another headline. It's odd to try to see this from that point of view.

For me, that's my brother under that blanket. His name is Chris Perkins and he turned 30 in July. That's the last image I will ever see of him. Sometimes Life really bites you in the ass. This has been a really bad year for that.