Your post shows a level of maturity rarely seen in people even twice your age. All too often, people who suffer as great a loss as you have are approached by well meaning people who see it as an opportunity to cash in on their misfortune. This is also true of people who are injured in motor vehicle or “slip and fall” accidents.

I’ve been working in the legal field for nearly 10 years on both sides of the docket (plaintiff and defendant), and the number of people I’ve seen who come away unscathed from the meatgrinder of litigation can probably be counted on one hand. This is particularly true when a loved one is involved. Emotions run very high for plaintiff and defendant alike, and regardless of the outcome, the whole process drains a person. For someone who’s gone through the kind of loss that you have, a lawsuit only adds to the stress of an extremely vulnerable period.

For people who aren’t in as good a financial state as you are (especially those who lose the breadwinner of the family), I suppose suing is a means of getting the family back to some semblence of financial order, but I still view it as a last resort. Life insurance is a much more effective (and emotionally less taxing) way of providing for those you leave behind. But if a person hasn’t planned ahead, those who are left behind, if they choose to sue, should view it as a necessary evil, not as a way of exacting revenge or settling scores.

If there’s a moral to all this, it’s that this can happen to anyone in an instant, and living your lives responsibly, as you and Cara obviously did, is the best way to prepare for what we all hope will never happen.

Bo, my heart goes out to you and Alli. I’ll keep praying for you.