I only met her twice. The second time she was older, second or third grade, busy with a baseball or softball game. She didn’t remember me very well. She was excused: The only other time I met her—the first time—she was only four or five. But while she wasn’t able to remember me so well, I remembered her. She was the most adorable little girl I’d ever met. The kind you wonder how her heart fits in her little chest. I was rather ambivalent about children at that time, unsure if I wanted any of my own. I was sure after Elizabeth. We didn’t get that much time to play together, honestly, which is why I was surprised by the earnest hug she gave me as we were leaving. I didn’t think such little arms could be that powerful. It was the truest hug—one of the best hugs—I’ve ever received. She just melted my heart.

There’s construction on I-35 in Lancaster, TX, right now, as there is all over the Dallas/Fort Worth area. And like many areas, it’s narrowed down to two lanes. As expected, it can make it pretty hairy during high traffic times. It was that way this past Wednesday, November 13. That was the day that yet another semi driver decided to drive his rig like a car and cut lanes. (Although this one happened to have an outstanding traffic warrant, too, while driving for a company whose permit had been revoked.) The semi tagged the back of an SUV heading from Austin to Arkansas for a funeral. The 18-wheeler ran it into the concrete road divider then rolled over on top of it.

It took the rescue crews an hour to get the family out of the crushed SUV. The father, mother, and oldest daughter miraculously survived with minor injuries. They were released from the hospital that night.

They’ll bury Elizabeth this week. She was eleven.

I barely knew her. I knew she wouldn’t remember me. And yet I fell in love a little with that little girl. It would have been horrible losing her then. But it’s somehow worse now, harder to take, because she wasn’t anymore merely a cute little girl whose spirit and smile lit you up inside. She was eleven—young enough still to shine with that light and innocence, but old enough to reveal the adult she was going to be, to hint at grown-up fantasies and dreams. We should have gotten to know her as that girl, that woman, that wife, that mother.

To the man whose pitiful selfishness pinned a family in a smashed van for an hour with their youngest dead, you deserve to die.

To those who watch crash videos for fun, or slow to stare in morbid fascination at crash scenes, get a soul, and watch the damn road.

To the religious out there, pray for the Hamptons of Austin, Texas. To those who aren’t, try sending them some comforting thoughts. We don’t know where they stop.