It was Sunday. His twenty-seventh birthday and he was gonna live it up! There was beer to be Drunk and partying to be done! Chris was planning on having one Hell of a good birthday.

Hopping in his white Ford F350, he felt a little dizzy, but nothing out of the usual. He drove better drunk anyways. He’d just be careful. After all, you only were 27 once! He worked hard and partied harder.

******** CRASH ********

What the…

Half a mile from the scene of the smashed Amish buggy, the berries and cherries of the law enforcement vehicle flashed in his rearview mirror. “Let’s just get to the point,” he slurred to the officer. “Whatever you’ve got to do, breathalyzer, whatever.”

The next thing he knew, he was waking up in a strange place. Had he crashed at a buddy’s house? But none of his buddy’s houses had concrete floors…and bars. Bars where the walls should’ve been!

“What the fuck!” he yelled and instantly regretted it, grasping his throbbing head.

That’s when he learned what he’d done. He’d been too drunk to remember.

Vehicular homicide, they called it.

I call it murder.

He killed Elsie. Elsie Yoder. I knew her. She was a friend of a friend.

A lovely young Amish lady with a warm smile, always willing to help out a friend. A devoted sister, an obedient daughter.

She’s dead.

Chris’ F350 smashed her body horrifically, beyond hope, beyond repair.

She was buried on Wednesday.

At the tender age of twenty-three, hers is the first adult grave in the Amish graveyard in Gonvick, MN.

Her family is beyond grief. The Amish community is shaken to its core.

Her brother, who was driving the buggy Chris hit with his truck, is suffering the most. Survivor’s guilt.

Their highly-trained horse had to be shot.

As the AirMed helicopter airlifted Elsie to the Sanford Medical Center in Fargo, she left behind all her hopes and all her dreams. Because of Chris’ choice to drink and drive, she’ll never know the joy of romance, of love, of marriage. Her future husband will never exchange vows with her. Her children will never be born. Her friends won’t grow old beside her. She won’t feed her grandchildren way too many sweets.

Because he decided he had a License to kill, you and I won’t buy her delicious jams and jellies at the Amish auctions. We won’t bid on her beautifully sewn quilts. We won’t exchange smiles with her when we meet at the grocery store.

Because of one drunk and his license to kill.