The first time he heard her on the phone, Michael knew there was a hole in his heart just big enough for the sweet sound of her voice.
“She was such a lovely sounding woman,” said Michael Harmon, 44, a divorced engineer from Toledo, Ohio. “I knew I had hit the jackpot.”
The voice belonged to Sherri Kruse, a 29-year-old registered nurse from Northwood, Ohio, who soon became his fiancee. They met last year over the Internet while Sheri was separated from her husband, a violent alcoholic, according to Harmon.
In a terrible twist of fate, before they could meet face-to-face, Sherri was killed by a drunk driver.
“She was on her way to meet me and be with me for the first time and forever,” Harmon said. “Everything was taken away from me. Everything.”
Harmon said the nation’s careless attitudes toward enforcing alcohol regulations is partly to blame.
“I would be totally happy if they brought back prohibition and treated alcohol like the terrible drug that it is,” Harmon said. “Not only are the abusers the victims, but they create many more in the wake of their senseless, mindless actions.”
Last December, Nationwide Insurance released a study showing 13 percent of Americans admit to drinking and driving.
Earlier this month, the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse released a study showing underage drinkers consume one fourth of the alcohol in the country.
“The Nationwide Insurance poll shows some people still put their lives, and the lives of others, at risk by getting behind the wheel after drinking,” said Tim Hoyt, Nationwide’s vice president of safety. “If you’ve been drinking, you have choices; Call a taxi, stay where you are, or call a friend. Making a safe choice can save your life.”
According to Millie Webb, national president for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, “Drunk driving is the nation’s most frequently committed violent crime. It’s everyone’s problem, but it’s 100 percent preventable.”
Harmon has set up a Web site in memory of his late fiancee and tells her story to anyone who will listen.
“The most vivid memories I have of her are of what she has shown me after she died,” Harmon said. “I had the most vivid dream about a chorus from heaven joining her in singing ‘I’m singing in the rain...I’m singing in the rain.’”
According to Harmon, Sheri’s husband was an alcoholic.
“The longer they were married the worse he got with his drinking,” he said. “She finally divorced him after he broke her jaw and gave her two black eyes because she cried at a sad movie and ‘embarrassed’ him.”
Harmon met her soon afterwards.
“He had taken their life savings and spent it at the bar over several months of separation,” said Harmon. “Just days before the court date to finalize the divorce, he made death threats to her and her family, all while under the influence of alcohol.”
Harmon kept in contact with her and she decided to go to North Carolina to live with her sister for a few months.
“She was gone for 8 months,” Harmon said. “The night she left to come home and be with me for Thanksgiving, her car was struck on the driver’s side by a repeat drunk driver who ran a stop sign and hit her doing 60 miles an hour.”
After a brief hospitalization, she died.
“Alcohol drove her from me and alcohol killed her on the way back,” Harmon said.
For Harmon, the scars are beginning to heal.
“I always wonder what my life would have been like with Sheri,” he said. “She will always have a special place in my heart that no one can replace.”
Harmon doesn’t listen to the radio anymore. The last time he did, he was changing stations when a familiar song started playing.
“I was just going to reach over and turn the radio off when the song ‘Singing in the Rain’ came on, exactly as I heard it in my dream,” Harmon said.
He started crying.
“They say that when you die, you are united with the ones you truly love,” he said. “I know that for me, Sheri will be the first one that I see.”
Some nights, Harmon lies awake and wonders if he will ever fall in love again. Other nights, he sees Sheri in his dreams.
She sings to him.
