Former Grove resident weighs in
on debate with story of tragic loss

Donna Clarit awoke to a phone call at about 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 12, 2007. Clarit, now 52, remembers the terror that overcame her.  She ran outside and saw that her car was gone, remembering her daughters had driven to a baby shower the night before.

A drunk driver had been drag racing and approached two other cars with no time to stop. One car got out of the way, but the other did not.  In that car sat Clarit’s three daughters.

Almost two-and-a-half years later, Clarit slides three paper clips across her desk to show the positions of three cars at NW 119th Street and 19th Avenue, describing the early morning crash caused by a drunk driver.A friend drove Clarit to the scene of the accident, where she learned one daughter, Le’Shika Wilcox, had been rushed to a local trauma center.  She did not see her two other daughters and assumed they had been dropped off, as planned before the accident occurred.  She had completely blocked from her memory the part of that 3:30 a.m. telephone call in which she was told her other two girls died at the scene.

“All I remember is opening my eyes in [the] trauma [center].  How I got there, I don’t know,” said Clarit.

Le’Shika suffered serious injuries, including broken legs and several broken ribs.  It was unknown whether she would walk again.  “I didn’t know how I was going to break this to my younger daughters,” said Clarit.

Clarit’s younger daughters, LaToya Wilcox, 22, and Carsina Wilcox, 20, had not been dropped off prior to the accident.  The racing car hit their vehicle with so much force that they were ejected, killed instantly.

LaToya and Carsina left behind four children, now ages 4 through 9.

“My world took a 100-degree turn,” said Clarit.  “I had to adapt to it as it was turning.  I became an instant mother, with no time to get ready.  I had to be ready.”

Clarit decided to move from her home on Hibiscus Street in Coconut Grove shortly after her daughters’ deaths.  She became the legal guardian of three out of the four children her daughters left behind.  Kivon, Tynajah, and Tavarres now live with Clarit in Miami. The fourth lives with her oldest daughter, Christine, in Georgia.  The children do not receive social security, forcing Clarit to raise them solely on her income.  She battles the complications that arise from 4-year-old grandson, Tavarres’ sickle cell disease.  She struggles with the questions the children ask—questions she does not have the answers to.

“They ask me, ‘Where’s Mama…when is she coming back?’,”said Clarit.

Both daughters had birthdays in December.  As the month approached, the children wondered how they would be able to wish their mothers a happy birthday.  Clarit went out and got a cake for each.  She had the kids write notes to their mothers, sharing their love.

“I put the notes in helium-filled balloons and let them float into the sky,” said Clarit.  “They said ‘I love you,’ and ‘Happy Birthday.’  The kids knew they were sending a message to heaven.”

“My youngest, Carsina, was the only one in the family that liked pumpkin pie,” said Clarit.  She still buys Carsina a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but it now remains uneaten.

“[I] put the best on the outside.  But I’m not ready to let them go–spiritually, physically, or mentally,” said Clarit.

Clarit is also not ready to let the Coconut Grove Village Council pass the ordinance that would allow Grove bars to seek permission to stay open until 5 a.m.  In 2007, at the time of the accident, the bars closed at 5 a.m.

Clarit said that people begin their mornings at 6 or 6:30, whether it is getting on a school bus, driving to work, or taking the dog for a morning stroll.  She argues that if the bars stay open until 5 a.m., drinkers would be getting in their cars to leave at the same time others are beginning their day.

The Continuing Opportunities for Purposeful Education (COPE) Centers of Miami provide mothers or mothers-to-be with an in-school daycare program while they obtain an education.  COPE also provides the young mothers of Coconut Grove with a bus service to and from school.

If a drunk driver were to hit a COPE bus, or any vehicle with children, said Clarit, it would be “killing the future.”

“Two [extra] hours for two hours’ profit?  Put a price on that little baby.  I had to be punished because you wanted to make two hours’ profit,” said Clarit. “Your profit won’t ease my pain and your profit will not buy our future leaders.”

At times, Clarit feels as though she doesn’t want to face society.  This is when she breaks into silent prayer.

“I’m thankful I’m in my right mind, that I’m healthy and can take care of my grandbabies, and for God being in my life,” said Clarit. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t know how I would have gotten through.”

But prayer can’t ease her resolve.

“I have a bitter, bitter, bitter, a very bitter taste in my mouth toward those who drink and drive.  And I want no mother in the world to go through what I went through.  None—at all.”