Darin Strauss on This American Life

     Darin Strauss's story is very tough for someone who hasn't been put in that situation to try to understand. If I were put in Darin's shoes, I probably wouldn't be able to live, with myself and I would be just as distraught as he was. He felt this immense amount of guilt for hitting Celine Zilke, even though there was "no way he could have avoided the accident". The guilt stayed with him through a large chunk of his life, and it affected the way he lived. He then felt that he had to live for two people after what Mrs. Zilke told him, but all of us know that sort of thing is tough to do. I felt that the background music took away some of the power and effectiveness of the story; it would have been better if it had been left out.

     It's awful how Mr. and Mrs. Zilke told Darin that no matter what they would never blame him and then less than a year later sued Darin for 1.5 million dollars. I understand that the Zilkes were hurting really badly but they made a promise to Darin, and they broke that promise with the lawsuit. Mrs. Zilke even thought that Celine's diary entry for that day was odd because Celine had written, "Today I realized I am going to die." This was her goodbye note, and it shows that she was going to commit suicide in some way. That way just happened to be riding her bike into Darin's car.