BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

She felt older than her age. A bit of an old soul, as a child she’d spent a lot of time on her own. Her mother, a single mom with three kids, had always worked long hours at several convenience stores trying to scrape together enough money to keep a roof over their heads. She’d had a stepfather and her mother’s boyfriend had lived with them over the course of several years, but the kindest thing she could say was that they weren’t role models. Although she’d always known her mother loved her, the most stability in her life had been her grandparents. Both grandfathers had been preachers. They’d taken her to church and introduced her to Jesus, a relationship that had grown distant over the years. At 14, she’d run away from home, but she hadn’t quit school. She’d lived with a boyfriend and then slept on a friend’s sofa. She’d gotten her first job at 15, and bought her first car at 16. She’d dropped out of high school at 17. The next day she’d taken her GED and enrolled in college. For the last 11 years, she’d worked in the radiology department at the local hospital. Her life revolved around taking care of her boys. A Living Nightmare Latisha pulled herself off the sofa and dressed for a housewarming party. One of her friends had bought her first home and planned a celebration. She drove to the party where punch spiked with alcohol hit her empty stomach like fire. She and another friend later drove to a bar. That’s the last thing she remembered. “My next memory was waking to excruciating pain and realizing that I was in the hospital where I worked, with both of my legs broken,” Latisha recalls. “My first thought was that I had lost my job. How could I work with two broken legs? Besides, whatever happened must have been alcohol related. I felt sure that I’d go to jail for driving drunk. “I’d never been in trouble. I’d never been arrested. Never missed work. Drank socially, but had never had a DUI. Yet I knew that whatever had happened had changed everything. Life as I’d known it was over.” In that moment, Latisha cried out to God. She prayed a lot while she was in the hospital, and knew without a doubt that she would never drink alcohol again. “Even through the haze of pain, I remembered that I’d gone to a co-worker’s party and left with a friend. That’s it, nothing after that. I’d lost so much blood they’d given me a blood transfusion. They were going to take me to surgery but needed to stabilize me first. At one point, I started shaking uncontrollably and had difficulty breathing. They coded me, and I knew I was dying. They’d given me too much pain medication. They reversed it with Narcan and I stabilized.” On the third day of her hospitalization, Latisha went to surgery. Afterward she woke to see her parents standing over her sobbing. She looked at her dad, the only true father figure she had ever had. He was her stepfather and the best father anyone could hope for. She wondered again how different her life would have been if he’d been there when she was growing up. Coming Undone “Why are you crying?” she asked. "Your doctor didn’t want you to know this until you’d had surgery and were stable,” her mother said. “The other car you hit—that young man died.” Latisha felt undone—as though someone had taken a seam ripper and taken her apart, then pulled every thread until she’d unraveled and stopped being human. She felt like scraps of material to be tossed in the trash. She’d killed someone. She didn’t want to live. She deserved to be put away in prison and forgotten. She deserved so much worse. “My friend said that when we left the bar, I was driving so erratically that she was afraid for her life,” Latisha explains. “She phoned her husband who met us and took over the wheel. He drove to their house. When they got out of the car, I climbed back into the driver’s seat and drove off. “According to the 911 calls, I drove 4½ miles going the wrong way—north in a southbound lane. I almost hit three other cars before hitting Kevin head-on.” After two weeks, Latisha was discharged from the hospital. With both legs in casts, she couldn’t walk, shower or take care of herself. Family and friends took turns helping her. Months later, when she was finally mobile, she found a church and attended every service. The pastor counseled her and prayed with her. “I repented and gave my life back to God,” she recalls. “I promised to serve Him.” One evening, she was watching the news and saw Kevin’s mother, Tiki Finlayson, look right at her. “Latisha, if you’re watching, I want you to know I forgive you.” Latisha sobbed for hours, wondering how Kevin’s mother could forgive her when she couldn’t even forgive herself. As her court date drew near, Latisha tried to prepare her children for her arrest and incarceration. She took her younger son to a therapist to help him understand what was going to happen. Her children, she realized, were also victims of her choice to drink and drive. Face to Face “The first time I was in the courtroom with Kevin’s family, I was so ashamed that I couldn’t look at them,” Latisha says. “I made a promise to myself that, because I’d taken so much from Tiki, I’d do anything she asked of me. If she’d asked me to jump off a bridge, I would have done it. The next time we went to court, Tiki asked that I meet with the family. It was agonizing, but I did it. Kevin’s aunt had been writing letters addressed to Dear Drunk Driver that she read to me in person. What she had to say was hard to take, but I knew I deserved it. Even more, I believe I would have been much worse if one of them had killed my son. “I’d never been able to speak in public, even in college. But when Tiki asked that I make a statement on video for them to use at 1N3, their drunk driving awareness program, I did it. Facing that family was much harder than facing the judge.” Going to jail was frightening and traumatic. The next morning, everyone was taken aback by a picture in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. It was a picture of Tiki Finlayson hugging Latisha Stephens. That picture sent shock waves through the jail. Everyone kept talking about it. The entire time Latisha was incarcerated, from county jail to the maximum security prison and a halfway house, was 19 months. During that time, she never met another inmate with the same charge who’d been forgiven. They were so hated that they hated themselves. Hatred drove them to get worse instead of better. They had no hope of redemption. Nothing to live for. “I almost didn’t go to the Christmas program because I knew I’d see Tom and Tiki there,” Latisha remembers. “When I walked through the door, they both hugged me. Tiki looked so peaceful. I wondered how that was possible. It finally dawned on me that maybe she was at peace because she’d forgiven me.” That revelation had a dramatic impact on Latisha’s life. “There were a lot of people I needed to forgive from my childhood. Taking my cue from Tiki, I forgave each of them. When I did, the strangest thing happened. My entire adult life, I’d taken antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. After forgiving, and getting my life on the right track, I no longer needed them. For the first time in my life, I could lay down and sleep without taking sleeping medication. “When I was released from prison, Tiki asked me to speak publicly with her about drunk driving. I didn’t want to at first, but because she asked, I agreed. Because I know we are doing good, it has gotten easier over the years—it’s therapeutic. I got reacquainted with a wonderful man I’d dated in college. We married and have a 3-year-old son, in addition to my two older sons. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. All because I was forgiven—first by Jesus, and then by Tiki.” V 16 : BVOV

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