Daniel was born 10 days early so I have always thought of him as my gift. Growing up, Daniel always had to touch everything and gave me many scares in many stores. He sometimes was a little daring in some of the things that he did, like climbing onto the roof of the chicken coop, the boom on his Dad’s tow truck, or even on the roof of the house. Luckily, he was not hurt in any of these escapades.

At the time of his death, Daniel was working at Burger King, and was about to be put into a beginning managerial position. Who knows where he might have gone.

Daniel loved to play video games, and was good at winning even the games for which he had no instructions. He was very into Halo and was excited about Halo 3. Unfortunately, he died before it came out. He had been at the Harry Potter party for his last book, but because he did not use a bookmark, we do not know if he managed to finish it.

In July, we went as a family, Daniel, my daughter Donna and her son Devin, and I went to see the “Transformers” movie. It is so bittersweet to watch the video of that movie now, but it also brings us closer to Daniel.

I thought that I would forget his voice until I went through some of my recordings and found one that begins with Donna trying to coax Devin to speak. There is a moment of quiet and then there are a few minutes of Daniel trying to do the same thing. I will keep this recording safe so that years from now I will still be able to hear Daniel’s voice.

It wasn’t until after his death, that I found out how much Daniel wanted a motorcycle and especially that it needed to be a bullet bike. I do know that he had to outdo a friend when it came to speed, as the friend had a Mustang, and the cheapest way he could accomplish this was to buy a used bullet bike. I’m sure that he accomplished this speed thing as he had gotten the bike up to around 130 miles per hour.

Our children are our most precious commodity and we need to do whatever we can to protect them. Daniel did not have his driving license for a full year or his motorcycle endorsement when he died. I don’t know the logistics, but I think laws need to be tougher when it comes to youth and motorcycles. I also realize that not all youth are the same, but when it comes to bullet bikes, age does not make that much difference. Speed must be a macho thing.

Every person who has died while on their motorcycle was someone’s child.

Daniel is missed by everyone in our family and not a day goes by that we do not think of him in some way.