When you think about what makes us happy in this life, it’s our personal connections. It
is our ability as human beings to effectively communicate and share experiences with
someone else. Holding a baby; the ability to be able to do that. To take your husband or
your daughter for a walk on the beach and hold hands, because that’s all we have in this
life is our days. And I tell people it’s not about the stuff. There are no pockets in caskets.
We just do this once. We’re born as a clean slate and we can fill the trajectory of our life
with so many wonderful things, and it’s the personal connections that save us.
When I see some of my clients that can’t leave the house anymore, or that they’ve
suffered a terrible brain injury, all of those connections fall by the wayside and they
become isolated and they become lonely without those personal connections. They
have mental issues. They have depression, they have insomnia. They have sadness. And
it leads to not just mental health problems, but physical problems as well. So it’s having
those loving connections, those friendships, that’s what keeps you happy. That’s what
makes you not depressed. That’s what prevents anxiety. It lowers suicide rate.
All those good things that having those personal connections bring to the table and
when you have someone that suffered a loss and those personal connections are
severed, their life has changed forever.
When you lose those personal connections and you have a devastating injury that
prevents you from integrating, from going back to work, from going out socially, we hold
people accountable and I’m proud. I’m proud of that. I’m proud to be a trial lawyer. I
fought hard to get here and I’m not going anywhere.
