From hopeless position to higher purpose;
step inside the Matthew Maher story.
I have done several interviews since being incarcerated, including one for an A&E forensic documentary, "Speed Kills," for the recently released series, "Bloodwork," on the Crime and Investigation Channel. Interviews are always emotionally trying as I am forced to face the hard questions and relive the events that placed me here. Not hard because I am in prison, but because I'm flooded with emotions each time I revisit that day, and the heartbreak I caused the Kap family. "Remorse" seems an inadequate term to describe how I feel about causing the death of an innocent man.
There is clearly nothing that I can do to erase what I have done to be in prison today. I know this. I also know that no matter what I do from this point on, it will never be good enough in the eyes of some to rectify what I have done. I know this too. I have actually been called a hero by some people for stepping up and owning my mistake. This makes me uncomfortable. It is hard to believe that there are many victims out there who have never received an apology by the person responsible for their reckless decision. I have also been called a "murderer." This makes me less uncomfortable for I am undeserving of the first term and have already called myself the second.
A famous proverb states, "Pride comes before a fall." You can be certain that every fall leaves you on the ground with a decision to make from that downward position. If you need a picture on pride to teach a lesson, use my failure and the ripple effect of pain it caused. My fall landed me in prison, but that is the least of the burden I carry and not the reason I share my "talk from prison." I share because I do not want to see anyone take a fall because they ignored their pride. The headline read, "Local professional soccer player involved in fatal DUI accident." That was the sickening obvious fact, but the underlying root story would never be read. My decision to drink and drive stemmed from a thorn disguised as a rose; the rose of confidence.
After the accident and prior to sentencing day, I tried to envision my future. Friends continually asked me what it felt like knowing I was going to prison. I could never quite express the feeling in words. The analogy I used to satisfy their curiosity and my own impending reality was best illustrated from an amphibian perspective. I would say, "Seeing and speaking of my future (prior to entering prison) is like a frog seeing and speaking of the ocean from a well." It could not be perceived. Now currently in this "well of prison," and 27 months into my time, I realize that unlike the frog, my state of mind was already established to be content. Obviously, uncertain situations can make you feel uneasy or anxious, but I truthfully was not. I was not fronting or faking tough, but the only open logical position for me to lock my mind into was upward. So upward I looked and have not stopped since the moment the doors clanged and locked behind me.
Rebeka Verea would have been celebrating her 25th birthday on April 24. The vivacious, intelligent, ambitious young woman was killed in June 2005, while a passenger in a horrific automobile accident on Westside Avenue in North Bergen, hours after graduating from Cliffside Park High School. Weeks after the tragedy, in an effort to channel their grief, Verea's parents, Dr. Jorge L. Verea and Lourdes Verea, formed the Rebeka Verea Foundation in their daughter's honor. The mission of the foundation is to educate teens about driving responsibly. Its message is poignant yet simple: "say yes to life: drive responsibly."... The most stirring moments of the symposium came during the presentation of Andrea Maher, executive director of the Be Still Foundation. Maher's son, Matthew Maher, an honors student from Cape May who attended Temple University on a full scholarship and went on to play professional soccer for the Philadelphia Kixx, killed a man, Hort Kap, when he was driving drunk on the Atlantic City Expressway...
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)