The wrong way

I spent much of my week covering the story of the Taconic wrong-way crash tragedy. What started as a news item about a car wreck has turned into an agonizing drama as Diane Schuler's survivors struggle to come to grips with the evidence that she appears to have been intoxicated.
Another story, from another market, what seems a life time ago has been on my mind.
Malik Sealy of the Minnesota Timberwolves died in a similar crash on Highway 100 in the Twin Cities back on May 20, 2000.
I met Sealy just one time on a story when he was visiting the school of a young heart transplant patient. He talked to the kids about staying healthy for a long life.
I was also a T-wolves season ticket holder. Sealy had a cool, stylish, maturity to his game, a silky jump shot, and a swagger that reminded me of the 1970's NBA.
The wrong way crash was equally hard to understand. It seems so incongruous that the driver, a Hmong immigrant with an almost unpronounceable name and the NBA player would cross paths this way.
I remember listening to KFAN and hearing "we lost Malik". At first I thought he had been traded.
It was so sad and so confusing and so ....wrong.
A drunk driver, a mistake on the road, and so much lost.
The wrong way, indeed.