Father determined to move past anger

Just minutes after his son’s death, Bret Olsen approached the man whose vehicle struck the boy and hugged him.

“It was a blessing,” Peter Matthias Kwesi Afful, 45, said Tuesday, a day after the accident. Late Monday morning, Afful was driving the minivan that struck and killed 6-year-old Bryce Olsen at the intersection of East 25th Terrace and Harper Street, in front of the boy’s home. Afful lives just a few blocks away, north of 23rd Street.

For Bret Olsen, the hug helped ease the initial hurt.

And just for a moment, Olsen said, he felt forgiveness, that he understood the man he held in his arms. “I knew who he was; I knew how he felt,” Olsen said Tuesday. “He’s my brother.”

For Olsen and his family, the comfort of that moment with Afful quickly disappeared. The family had to abruptly face the death of its youngest son.

Olsen tried to describe his feelings. Hurt and anger filled him, the search for blame in what may be a blameless accident.

He questioned Afful, the way he was driving.

“I don’t know how he could have not been speeding,” Olsen said, “if not running the stop sign” at the corner of Harper and East 25th Terrace.

Afful – who has a 6-year-old son of his own – said he wasn’t yet ready to discuss the wreck.

“I’m still in shock,” he said.

So is Olsen.

Although Bryce was typically a careful kid, his father said, he could have gone into the intersection without looking.

Olsen knew the intersection was dangerous before he moved into the blue house near the corner.

But the house was a far better place than the trailer that the family lived in until just before last Christmas. Habitat for Humanity offered it, and he accepted.

“I almost didn’t move here because of that intersection,” he said. “But it’s kind of hard to say no.”

His anger turned to the street itself. How much does a stop sign cost? he asked. A hundred bucks? Less? The intersection, he said, needs more of them.

And then, the anger shifted to himself.

Before the family moved, Bryce would wear his bike helmet everywhere. He was a careful kid, Olsen said, always was.

But since the move, the helmet has been lost.

“I’m angry at me,” he said, visibly upset, “because my son didn’t have a helmet on.”

But then, he thought about Bryce, the blond-haired 6-year-old – smart, cautious, helpful – and he smiled and laughed.

His instincts, his gut told him to be angry. But he can’t stay that way. The anger won’t bring Bryce back.

“All that will do,” he said, “is kill me.”