My son, Seth Mandel, died July 24, 2009, in a car accident on the Seward Highway going around the Turnagain Arm.

Just writing those words, "my son died ..." hurts me in a way that is indescribable. "Devastated" doesn't begin to touch how I feel.

Everything that I see and everything that I do reminds me that I'll never see him, never get to hold him and never get to tell him that I love him again. I think about the simplest things, like when I went to dinner at Romano's, I realized I never took him there for dinner and now I'll never have the chance.

When I walk by the boy's clothing department after buying school clothes for my daughter, I know that I won't ever get to buy school clothes for Seth again.

Every day, I wake up hoping that it was all a terrible nightmare and it didn't really happen, but of course it did. It takes a concentrated, constant effort for me not to cry all day, but inside, I'm often screaming. I wonder every day how I'm going to go through life without him and if I'll ever be anything close to the happy, cheerful person I was before, but I know that I have to try my very best so that I can be the mother I have to be for my beautiful daughter who is our sweet little walking miracle, making it through that horrific crash with just some scrapes and bruises, but also with the memory of seeing her brother right next to her in the aftermath.

Seth was a funny kid. He liked to make people laugh. He loved Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey movies. He loved video games and said he wanted to be a video game designer, or maybe an FBI agent (depending on if he was on an X-Files kick). Seth collected quarters from each state and all kinds of hats. Spaghetti was his favorite meal and he loved mustard on almost anything.

Seth loved Disney World better than anyplace and when we were sad or upset, we always talked about what was our favorite ride or favorite thing to do at the "World." In his 11 years, he got to go to Disney World five times and I'm so glad that he did.

I told Seth everyday, just as I still tell his sister Molly, that I loved him. I have the comfort of knowing that Seth knew he was loved, and knew how much he was loved. He had two parents, a sister, his cousin and best friend, and an entire extended family that loved him unconditionally.

He had a school full of people - teachers, staff, students, friends -- who have known him and cared about him since he was in kindergarten. He had the same group of doctors who took care of him since he was a baby. We are an extensive group of people who are anguished by his loss.

Seth was like a bright, shining light with a smile that lit up a room, and a laugh that when you heard it, you had to laugh too. He was beautiful.

I tell you these things not to make you sad, or to gain your pity, but to try to describe to you the loss that I, his father, his sister, his best friend, his family and indeed, our entire community have suffered. This loss could have been prevented.

How many times have you said, when planning a trip around Turnagain Arm, "that road is so dangerous ..."? Every time we read about another accident, we say it again ... and again ... and again. The state of Alaska has an obligation, indeed an ethical and moral requirement, to make this section of the Seward Highway safer. A four-lane divided highway would improve safety tremendously; even rumble strips would help. Anything that can be done, even if it prevents only one person from suffering the agony that I and everyone around me have, and will always have, would be worth it.