After a Fatal Crash, the Grief Holds On
After her 22-year-old son Asif was killed by a truck, Lizi Rahman buried herself in bringing his work to light. She put out a book of Asif’s poems, mounted an art show and released a CD of his music. She immersed herself in activism, showing up at endless community board meetings to campaign for a bike lane on Queens Boulevard, where he died.
But his death took a toll – particularly on her younger son, Nafees, who was 10 when Asif died. "At one point he was telling me that, 'If I die, you will love me more,'" Lizi Rahman recalled. "It broke my heart."
When someone is killed in a traffic collision, the death can create a unique kind of grief.
“You know, if there’s an airplane crash, or if there’s a train derailment, there’s all kinds of investigations,” said Dr. Phyllis Kosminsky, a psychotherapist who specializes in loss and trauma. “There’s a lot of follow up and outrage.”
After a car crash, it’s very different.
“Somehow we’ve just kind of come to accept the fact that yeah, people get hit by cars,” Kosminsky said.
Asif's older sister Moumita was a law student when her brother died. She's a lawyer now, pregnant with her first child. Nafees is in high school. Asif Rahman would be turning 30 next year.
Almost 1,800 New Yorkers have been killed in traffic crashes since 2008.
If you know someone who has been killed in a traffic crash in New York in 2014, we'd like to hear from you about who they were – their hobbies and hopes, dreams and goals. Call and leave a personal memory at (347) 352-5686, or email transponation@gmail.com.
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